Scala Group

The Visual Encyclopaedia series provide up to 300 beautiful photographic and artwork images, illustrating subjects of perennial cultural interest. Images are accompanied by narrative providing background, brief criticism, and details on relevant museums, brief biographies and time lines.

The story and history of the development of Graphic arts from the end of the 19th century through to its many applications in film, animation and forms of media . Many artists chose graphic production. Among them are Magritte, Rodcenko and Warhol. A perfect necessity for the student of graphic arts.

Art from sub-Saharan Africa, with its wealth of unusual iconography, is illustrated in this volume through a large selection of artistic traditions spanning vast geographical areas and periods, as well as various ethnic and tribal groups. Despite the noticeable difference between different areas, some common elements seem to unite all African artistic traditions: statues of ancestors or gods, masks (whether ceremonial, liturgical, celebratory, magic, or for everyday use), weapons, fabrics and jewellery, together outline a world rich in shapes, colours and materials. The volume concludes with an index of names.

When Fedrico Fellini first began shooting his film in the Via Veneto, he probably never imagined that he would create a new era in fashion and in world cinema. At the end of the 50s, Rome had become a crossroads, witnessing the transit of international stars, famous singers, actors, emerging stars, starlets, the sex symbol industry, politicians, princes, princesses and billionaires. With these players, Italian nights became the symbol of a "sweet and lazy" way of life, made up of fashion and gossip, paparazzi and tabloid scandal, relationships and forbidden love. From Rome to Portofino, from Capri to Venice, the Italian jet set was the epitome of this phenomenon. A new photographic book tells the story of those Italian years and its unforgettable icons, from Fellini to Anita Ekberg, Ava Gardner, Liz Taylor, Brigitte Bardot and Soraya. Documenting, amongst other things, striptease and elite parties, the book includes 600 rare images rediscovered and selected from Scalarchives in Italy and Europe to accompany the text by Italian journalist Marco Gasparini.

The Mafia is a criminal phenomenon that has inspired historical books, novels and movies, but is here told in a book of images containing a rare selection of over 600 photographs, newspaper pages and prints. The Mafia Worldwide, from Sicily to the United States of America and from South America to the Far East shown through places, personalities, crimes, events, trials, policemen, politicians and magistrates. From Al Capone to Joe Petrosino, from Toto Riina to the Colombian drug trafficking gang and the Hong Kong crime lords. From the turn of the century to the present day, the chronicle, written by Italian journalist Marco Gasparini, supported by a rich collection of images from Scalarchives and partners, will tell the true and ultimate illustrated story of the World Mafia.

This volume presents a visual summary of the complex artistic phenomenon known as Mannerism. From its origins in Florence in the second decade of the sixteenth century in the wake of the great Renaissance tradition, to its gradual establishment in Rome and other Italian and European cities. Marked by a subversion of traditional canons, gaining expression in often bizarre and experimental images, Mannerism was not widespread either internationally or in Italy, where it suffered a setback following new decrees concerning art established by the Council of Trent in 1563. The volume concludes with an index of artists, biographies of leading artists and a map showing the main artistic centres.

The Sistine Chapel is the geographical and spiritual centre of the Vatican City, but it is also one of the most internationally famous artistic sites. The chapel’s outstanding beauty lies above all in its vast cycle of paintings covering the entire vault, featuring stories from the Book of Genesis and the Last Judgement, the grandiose, bustling scene located on the back wall. Michelangelo’s masterpieces are what make the Sistine Chapel the most visited place in the world, illustrated in this volume in the minutest detail, so the reader can not only appreciate the works as a whole, but also the artist’s creative process. This can be observed in the preparatory marks on the plaster, the brush strokes and occasionally traces left by the painter’s actual fingers. A graphic diagram of the vault is a guide to the different parts and scenes depicted. Biographies and an index of artists conclude the volume.

A new kind of iconography emphasised the humanity of Christ and the Saints, who were depicted with unparalleled realism in terms of anatomic detail and everyday settings. Examples of some of the most important creations from other parts of Europe, where Gothic painting sometimes took a different direction, are included in the appendix. The volume concludes with an index of artists.

An original publication, focusing on the decorative beauty and symbolic value of gold. The gold of the sacred realm from which the stately figure of Christ emerges in Roman mosaics, the gold of the haloes of Saints, or the sumptuous clothes and jewellery of men and women, reminiscent of a fairytale court. The constant use of gold as a kind of common thread linking together different worlds and experiences, from Medieval, spiritual works to later depictions of the world of rising bourgeoisie. An index of names concludes the volume.

This book traces the history of fashion photography from its origins. Approximately 500 illustrations chart its birth and development in the 1930s and 1940s, its rebirth in the period following the Second World War, British Style in the Sixties, then the Seventies and Eighties, right up to the present day. The volume concludes with an index of photographers.

When Robert Capa snapped the photo of the dying militiaman during the Spanish Civil War it seemed the ideal goal of every journalist on the frontline: to tell the story of death in battle. But this work actually began nearly a century before with photos shot by Fenton in the Crimea and Brady during the American Civil War. A book illustrated with over 600 images tells the history of war reporting from it’s origins to the bombing of Libya in 2011. Unique images of American reporters in WWI and WWII, the German soldier photographers from Pk, the Italians from the Luce Archive and the French journalists. The reportage in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Africa, and the protagonists of what eventually became a real journalistic specialization with its stories, its tragedies and its fallen. A book about the war seen from a new and unexpected point of view, a series of historical photographic scoops, and a selection of rare images on the conflicts of the last one hundred and fifty years selected by the staff of Scalarchives and narrated by its director, the journalist and former reporter Claudio Razeto.

The nude has always particularly captivated artists and viewers, with the depiction of the human body a classic exercise in all forms of fine art. This fascination in no way waned with the arrival of a new art form – photography. In fact, it has undoubtedly contributed both to the exploration of human anatomy and morphology as well as to the collective erotic imagination. Taken from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day, a selection of more than 300 photographs guides the reader through countless variations in the depiction of the nude, each with their own aesthetic, political, social, artistic and formal implications, through the works of major photographers. The volume concludes with an index of artists and biographies of the main photographers.

Vychutnejte si 300 nejslavnějších renesančních portrétů od velkých evropských malířů ve velkém formátu a na velmi kvalitním papíře. Kniha zcela jistě potěší každého milovníka umění.

In times when environmental awareness is increasing, wood is an attractive alternative to other mineral based or manufactured materials. The production of wood products uses less energy (usually sourced from finite fossil fuels) compared with other materials and new technologies continuously push the boundaries of traditional woodworking methods. When it comes to construction, wood houses can be prefabricated and built more quickly than their counterparts in brick and concrete. Furthermore, there is no doubt about the comfortable atmosphere that wood lends to a home! Wood is a modern material and in the design world, it is a force to be reckoned with. ILLUSTRATIONS: Colour throughout