Könemann

Unmistakably diverse—this is how Israel can be described in a few words. The north of the country stretches from the Mediterranean coast to the Golan Heights. There the river Jordan, the Sea of Galilee and places like Nazareth and Capernaum are the destinations of many Christian travelers. The port city and high-tech metropolis of Haifa and even more so Tel Aviv show how much the young state of Israel, founded in 1948, is shaped by the immigrants who come to the country from many parts of the world. Tel Aviv's founders, for example, dreamed of a New York on the Mediterranean. Today, Tel Aviv-Yafo is perhaps not quite as big, but it is as colorful and diverse as the melting pot on the east coast of the USA. And you can taste this variety in Israeli cuisine, by the way. Israel's south, where the desert comes alive, also offers a great variety: a diver's paradise in the crystal clear waters of the Red Sea, impressive nature parks and great historical sites from ancient times such as the rock fortress Masada, heroically defended against Roman troops, or the settlement of Qumran, where more than 850 scrolls from ancient Judaism have been found. And of course Jerusalem. An impressive city, where deep roots of culture and religion can be found. For the three great monotheistic religions Jerusalem is a holy or even the holy city. Nowhere else in the world are Judaism, Christianity and Islam closer to each other—geographically at least. Whoever experiences the Wailing Wall, the interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Dome of the Rock, gets an idea of what has moved people for thousands of years.

Henri Rousseau

Geishas and samurais, karate and bonsai -no country in Asia has had a comparable influence on Western culture and global developments as Japan. It is a country full of beauty, exoticism - and contrasts. Dazzling mega-metropolises like Tokyo, Osaka or Yokohama on the one hand, rugged volcanoes, glittering mountain lakes and remote temples on the other. There is no question that Japan exerts a strong fascination on most people. This is also due to the people, for example those bustling suit and costume wearers who squeeze through the subways of the cities early in the morning and in the evening by the millions and who are willing to give up a large part of their annual vacation for the good of the company. Or even the ordinary employees, such as those gardeners in the many public gardens and parks who spend hours crouching with stoic calm, using small scissors to cut a tree into the right shape, leaf by leaf, branch by branch. For the Japanese love perfection, their goal is to bring structure to chaos. This brings disadvantages. A latent austerity pervades society, for whom harmony and politeness are paramount and where every word is weighed in the balance so as not to snub the other person. But anyone who flouts the many unwritten rules will quickly feel the authority of society. "You hit a nail that sticks out," says a well-known Japanese proverb. Harmony here also stands for conformity, and any deviation from the norm runs the risk of disrupting it. Foreigners are allowed, even expected, to make various missteps. Because - this is also a consensus in society - only a Japanese person can really understand the Japanese.

For sober thinking geologists, the formation of mountains (orogenesis) goes back to plate tectonics. The shifting of the continental plates causes mountains to form, erosion removes them again. Even the longest mountain range on earth was formed in this way: from Alaska to the Andes, the American Cordilleras form the eastern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, where 452 volcanoes rise. And indeed, fire-spitting giants and bitterly cold worlds of ice are the main reasons for the fascination composed of fear and reverence that mountains exerted on early mankind. Mountain peaks were home to the oldest weather gods. In fact, mountains are meteorological divides and watersheds and determine the climate, and their diverse and unique vegetation zones are life-givers. Only hesitantly did people approach colossal holy mountains like the Annapurna in the Himalayas, the “Goddess of food and nourishment”. But curiosity won out, ice mummies in the Alps, Andes and Altai prove it: hunters, shepherds and priests were drawn early to these heavenly places. The highest archaeological site on earth is on Llullaillaco (6,739 m/22,109 ft): on the border between Argentina and Chile, the Incas were already building temples before 1500 AD. The disenchantment of the peaks of the gods began around 1850 with the beginning of modern mountain sports. Today, almost all peaks from Aconcagua to the Zugspitze have been climbed, on the Eiger as well as on Everest the most difficult passages have been mastered thanks to experienced climbing skills. But the mountains have never lost their magnificent magic.

This illustrated book provides an insight into all areas of creativity and all types of images that Peter Paul Rubens cultivated. In addition to his famous baroque monumental paintings, his sensitive drawings as well as his impressive portraits are described.

From the medieval works of Romanesque and Gothic art to the golden age of the Baroque, from the famous Beatus Apocalypses to Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán, Spanish painting offers a unique abundance of artistic themes and styles. Intimately connected with the needs and power displays of the Habsburg dynasty and the Church, Spanish art developed an idiom as varied as it was distinctive. Spanish Painting 1200–1665 covers over 500 works.

Amusement, astonishment, irritation, even indignation: the composite heads of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526/7-1593) may prompt a whole range of emotions, but no one can remain indifferent to them. Combining the impact of surprise with the aesthetics of the bizarre, his art - reflecting the religious and political upheavals that shook Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century - invites ambivalent responses. For Arcimboldo, aesthetics took precedence over reality, and invenzione was more important than being true to life. A master in the art of sensory deception and an artist of virtuoso technical and conceptual skills, he created an oeuvre whose fascination is as much visual as intellectual.

Caravaggio

Best known as an innovator in Realism, Courbet was a painter of figurative compositions, landscapes and seascapes. He also worked with social issues, and addressed peasantry and the grave working conditions of the poor. His work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools. Courbet believed the Realist artist's mission was the pursuit of truth.

Jacques Joseph or James Tissot, lived a splendid life between Paris and London during the Belle Epoque. He cannot be assigned to either the English or the French tradition. The first name James - which he adopted in 1859 - and his years in London (1871-1882) made him an artist between both worlds. The difficulty of categorizing Tissot is also reflected in his work. A continuity between his glamorous social portraits and the biblical illustrations - between the dandy and the businessman, the "ingenious merchant", as the painter John Singer Sargent called him - is difficult to establish.

From the lavish abundance of the late Baroque court and epoch-making painters like Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Francisco de Goya, to the appearance of Romanticism and Classicism in the age of the art academies, and the innovative and sometimes scandalous achievements of modernism, Spanish painting offers an extraordinary panorama of outstanding artists, styles, and themes. With around 450 illustrations, Spanish Painting (1665–1920) illuminates the developments from the end of the Golden Age in the 17th century to the early 20th century, and thus serves as a companion to the equally opulent volume Spanish Painting 1200–1665 from Romanesque to the Baroque.

In the late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, Florence was a capital of the arts, in the 15th century (Quattrocento) the greatest art metropolis of all. Here the wishes of rich merchants and bankers met with the skills of artists such as Brunelleschi, Masaccio or Donatello. Even in Florence today, the past is present through art, from the Cathedral, whose dome rises above the city, to the squares, churches and palaces, to the sculptures in public space.

Claude Monet’s extensive work is revealed in numerous images. He was a painter who like no other moved perception to the center of his artistic activities. Nature became his own studio. This resulted in fascinating landscapes of different times and seasons in the mirror of wind and weather.

Despite an admiration for his mentors that never wavered, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) forged his own unique style, a combination of virtuoso realism and strange distortions that was to make him one of the greatest painters of his century. Both highly praised and heavily criticized, this pupil of David and lover of the italian Renaissance, classical art and ideal beauty, was hugely admired as the saviour of traditional painting from the vagaries of the Romantics. But his work's fascination lay in his portraits and odalisques rather than his history paintings, and it is these that inspired some of the most avant-garde artists of t twentieth century.

Jan Vermeer was a Dutch artist who created paintings that are among the most beloved and revered images in the history of art. Vermeer began his career in the early 1650s by painting large-scale biblical and mythological scenes, but most of his later paintings—the ones for which he is most famous—depict scenes of daily life in interior settings. These works are remarkable for their purity of light and form, qualities that convey a serene, timeless sense of dignity. Vermeer also painted cityscapes and allegorical scenes.

Édouard Manet