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The Timeless Beauty of the Alps in Photochromes from around 1900 “Nothing compares to the Alps” wrote the great French historian Jules Michelet in 1868. At the very heart of Europe, the gigantic Alpine mountain range includes some of the most grandiose natural sites in the world, such as Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, and their glaciers. Tourism began in the late 1800s and grew tremendously over the next centuries, especially with the rise of winter sports. This book offers a charming tour of a bygone era, when the first mountain trains and cog railways were carrying men in lederhosen and women in long dresses to the foot of the glacier, when local guides accompanied tourists riding on mules; a time when the first alpinists were considered mad, and skiers were a curiosity. Through photochromes, photographs, and color postcards of the 19th and 20th centuries, through travel posters and tourist brochures, we cross passes such as the Mont-Cenis, Simplon, Brenner, and St. Gotthard; climb Mont Blanc, the Eiger, the Wetterhorn, and the Dolomites; marvel at crystal-clear lakes in Switzerland, Italy, Bavaria, and Slovenia; explore Tyrol, the Via Mala, and the Engadin; and spend the winter season at grand hotels in Gstaad, Grindelwald, Davos, St. Moritz, and Cortina. This is a journey dotted with literary quotes by travel writers that evokes these happy days of pristine snow and untouched slopes!

"This book is really two books. It is a biography, and it is also a pictorial retrospective of an actress whose greatest love affair was conceivably with the camera," wrote Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography, Marilyn. Now TASCHEN has paired Mailer's original text with Bert Stern's photographs from the legendary Last Sitting-widely considered the most intimate photographs of Monroe ever taken-to create a fitting tribute to the woman who, at the time of her death in 1962, was the world's most famous, a symbol of glamour and eroticism for an entire generation. But though she was feted and adored by her public, her private life was that of a little girl lost, desperate to find love and security. Mailer's Marilyn is beautiful, tragic, and complex. As Mailer reflects upon her life-from her bleak childhood through to the mysterious circumstances of her death-she emerges as a symbol of the bizarre decade during which she reigned as Hollywood's greatest female star. This book, conceived by Lawrence Schiller, Mailer's collaborator on five works, combines the author's masterful text with Stern's penetrating images of the 36-year-old Marilyn. Photographed for Vogue magazine over three days at the Bel-Air Hotel, Marilyn had never allowed such unfettered access, nor had she looked so breathtakingly beautiful. Six weeks later, mysteriously, she was dead. In this bold synthesis of literary classic and legendary portrait-sitting, Mailer and Stern lift the veils of confusion surrounding Monroe-the woman, the star, the sex symbol-and offer profound insight into an iconic figure whose true personality remains an enigma even today.

Impossible staircases and startling ruins from Italy’s master engraver The most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) made his name with etchings of ancient Rome. His startling, chiaroscuro images imbued the city’s archaeological ruins with drama and romance and became favorite souvenirs for the Grand Tourists who traveled Italy in pursuit of classical culture and education. Today, Piranesi is renowned not just for shaping the European imagination of Rome, but also for his elaborate series of fanciful prisons, Carceri, which have influenced generations of creatives since, from the Surrealists to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka. Loosely based on contemporary stage sets rather than the actual dingy dungeons of Piranesi’s day, these intricate images defy architectural reality to play instead with perspective, lighting, and scale. Staircases exist on two planes simultaneously; vast, vaulted ceilings seem to soar up to the heavens; interior and exterior distinctions collapse. With a low viewpoint and small, fragile figures, the prison scenes become monstrous megacities of incarceration, celebrated to this day as masterworks of existentialist drama.

No other artist, apart from J. M. W. Turner, tried as hard as Claude Monet (1840-1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man Cezanne called "only an eye, but my God what an eye!" who stayed true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color. Whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time as a conscript in the dazzling light of Algeria, or his personal acquaintance with the major painters of the late 19th century, the work Monet produced throughout his long life would change forever the way we perceive both the natural world and its attendant phenomena. The high point of his explorations was the late series of water lilies, painted in his own garden at Giverny, which, in their approach towards almost total formlessness, are really the origin of abstract art. This biography does full justice to this most remarkable and profoundly influential artist, and offers numerous reproductions and archive photos alongside a detailed and insightful commentary.

Nearly a century before Mondrian made geometrical red, yellow, and blue lines famous, 19th-century mathematician Oliver Byrne employed the color scheme for his 1847 edition of Euclid's mathematical and geometric treatise Elements. Byrne's idea was to use color to make learning easier and "diffuse permanent knowledge." The result has been described as one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the 19th century. The facsimile of Byrne's vivid publication is now available in a beautiful new edition. A masterwork of art and science, it is as beautiful in the boldness of its red, yellow, and blue figures and diagrams as it is in the mathematical precision of its theories. In the simplicity of forms and colors, the pages anticipate the vigor of De Stijl and Bauhaus design. In making complex information at once accessible and aesthetically engaging, this work is a forerunner to the information graphics that today define much of our data consumption.

Signs of our times. This is a monumental logo compilation. The 2009 Academy Award-winning "Animated Short Logorama", heavily based on the use of logos and brands, became the ultimate reference for corporate culture. Conceived by Ludovic Houplain from H5 design studio in Paris, the film tells the story of our times through the products and services that sorround us on a daily basis. The trio who directed it, Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy, and Ludovic Houplain, conducted an extensive research for over one year, collecting over 40,000 symbols and trademarks that represent our world today. Their monumental archive is the basis of TASCHEN's ultimate reference guide, featuring approximately 7,000 logos organized alphabetically, with information about the designers, year of creation, country, brand, and company. Moreover, the book includes an extensive critical essay on brand culture by French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky. "Logorama" is a must-have for any designer, student, marketing professionals, and anyone interested in contemporary culture.

Otto Wagner (1841–1918) is one of the most significant figures of turn-of-the-century architecture. He was associated with the Viennese Secession, a group of artists and designers headed by Gustav Klimt that initiated a departure from the conservative style of the Viennese Künstlerhaus. Wagner’s visionary approach, described as structural rationalism, pioneered the use of materials such as glass, steel, and especially aluminum to redefine Viennese structural identity. From the imposing Austrian Postal Savings Bank to the scintillating St. Leopold Church at Steinhof, one of the most important Art Nouveau churches in the world: Discover the breadth of Wagner’s career as well as the political, economic, and social dynamics of his time. This incisive overview features a map locating all of the architect’s most renowned projects and recent, fresh photography from masters like Keiichi Tahara.

The grand master of beauty below the knee. Elmer Batters (1919-1997) was the grand master of leg and foot art. While others preferred the thrill of an inviting cleavage, the maestro's eye was on lower things - trim calves, the arch of a foot, the well-made lines of toes and heels. He chose his models with these criteria in mind - and with the obsessiveness of a Zen artist spent his lifetime looking for the perfect leg. Batters started out publishing his photos himself, but from the late 60s onwards the field was his, and he was the star house photographer of magazines such as "Leg-O-Rama", "Nylon Doubletake" and "Black Silk Stockings", to name but a few. This book pays homage to Batters' great obsession with legs, feet, and toes.

This is the vivid history of the capital of love and photography. After Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York, here comes the 4th volume in our "Portrait of a City" series: "L'air de Paris". A city built on two millennia of history, Paris is entering the third century of its love story with photography. It was on the banks of the Seine that Niepce and Daguerre officially gave birth to this new art that has flourished ever since, developing a distinctive language and becoming a vital tool of knowledge. "Paris, Portrait of a City" leads us through what Goethe described as 'universal city where every step upon a bridge or a square recalls a great past, where a fragment of history is unrolled at the corner of every street'. This history is recounted in photographs, all the way from Daguerre's incunabula to the most recent images. In fact, Paris can claim to be the only city in the world whose archives house an almost complete record of over a century and a half of transformations. This huge panorama of nearly 600 pages and as many photographs makes Paris, Portrait of a City unique. This book brings together the past and the present, the monumental and the everyday, objects and people. Thanks to images captured by the most illustrious photographers - Daguerre, Marville, Atget, Lartigue, Brassai, Kertesz, Ronis, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson and many more - but also by many unknown amateurs, these pages show the essential workings of a human drama acted out on the stage of history. These visions attempt to bottle just a little of that 'Parisian air', something of that particular poetry given out by the stones and inhabitants of a constantly changing city that has inspired untold numbers of writers and artists over the ages. Presenting an exciting patchwork of images from past and present, "Paris, Portrait of a City" is a huge and unique photographic study that, in a way, is the true family album of all Parisians. It is to them, and to all lovers of this capital city, that this vibrant, loving and tender testimony is dedicated.

Simple, sensual portraits of dark-skinned beauties "This is erotica with a subtle flavour, photography that has truly gone back to basics." -Amateur Photographer, London Uwe Ommer, a sought-after commercial photographer based in New York and Paris, has made a name for himself with his own uncommissioned works, as this book eloquently attests. For the aesthete Uwe Ommer, the bodies of black women represent the epitome of beauty. His photographs are exactly what they show, no more and no less than a homage to female beauty. And of course that homage is paid in the perfect setting, the stunning landscape of Africa. Calixthe Beyala, born in Cameroon, is one of the leading Francophile African poets. The texts in this book were written especially as a commentary on the photography of Uwe Ommer.