Thames & Hudson strana 64 z 126

The international significance of the art produced in Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s has come to the fore in recent years. Nevertheless, studies of modern and contemporary art in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era tend to focus on their relationship to Western art, with an emphasis on the parallel development of similar artistic practices - an approach that risks overlooking the specific circumstances of the art's making. In Hungary's case, artists of the neo-avant-garde found themselves in an increasingly isolated position, caught between the ruling communist authorities, who condemned their art as a product of capitalist cultural imperialism, and a predominantly conservative public, which rejected it as a foreign creation alien to the spirit of national culture. Art in Hungary, 1956-1980 provides a unique insight into the ways in which Hungarian neo-avant-garde artists both responded to and fought against a system that was determined to deny them a sense of autonomy. At the heart of the book is a commitment to understanding Hungarian contemporary art of the 1960s and 1970s - a time of oppressive communist rule in the aftermath of the failed revolution of 1956 - in the context of the conditions in which it was created. Featuring more than 250 illustrations, a bold design and essays on a diverse range of subjects, this book, the outcome of a major international research project, represents the authoritative account and analysis of a remarkable period in the history of Hungarian art.

Asian empires led the world economically, scientifically and culturally for hundreds of years, and posed a constant challenge to the countries of Europe. How and why did those empires gain such power, and lose it? What legacies did they leave? This major book brings together a team of distinguished historians and 200 illustrations to survey seven great Asian empires that rose and fell between 800 CE and the mid-20th century: the Mongol Empire, Ming Dynasty of China, Khmer Empire, Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire of Persia, Mughal Empire of India and the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Splendidly illustrated and compellingly written, The Great Empires of Asia shows how those seven empires played a key role in forming today's global civilization - and how, with the renewed ascendancy of Asia, their legacies will help shape the continent's future.

Abandoned unfinished and left to rot on Venice's Grand Canal, `il palazzo non finito' was once an unloved guest among the aristocrats of Venetian architecture. Yet in the 20th century it played host to three passionate and unconventional women who would take the city by storm. The staggeringly wealthy Marchesa Luisa Casati made her new home a belle epoque aesthete's fantasy and herself a living work of art; notorious British socialite Doris Castlerosse (nee Delevingne) welcomed film stars and royalty to glittering parties between the wars; and American heiress Peggy Guggenheim amassed an exquisite collection of modern art, which today draws visitors from around the world. Each in turn used the Unfinished Palazzo as a stage on which to re-fashion her life, with a dazzling supporting cast ranging from D'Annunzio and Nijinsky, through Noel Coward, Winston Churchill and Cecil Beaton, to Yoko Ono. Individually sensational and collectively remarkable, these stories of modern Venice tell us much about the ways women chose to live in the 20th century.

What do you want to eat today? There are so many treats you can eat in a week! These pages are packed with flaps to lift, tabs to pull and plenty of surprises.

This is the third book in a series devoted to the splendid jewelry collection of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Following on from Flora and Fauna, the theme this time is the human figure, perhaps the most intimate and involving of subjects. Jewelry has always been a vehicle for the deepest of human emotions: remembrance, faith, devotion, love, belonging and mourning. The museum's collection begins in the Byzantine era and ranges through the medieval and Renaissance periods and beyond, with mythological figures and biblical scenes represented on pendants and rings. In the 19th century, Rene Lalique, Alphonse Fouquet and the Maison Vever produced brooches and necklaces that were the very embodiment of elegant sophistication and technical brilliance, while in the 20th century, artists such as Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti joined jewelers like Jean Lurcat, Line Vautrin and Claude Lalanne in creating works that interpret the body in a deeply personal way. Wonderfully photographed by Jean-Marie del Moral, Figures is packed with striking and witty works of art that will charm all lovers of jewelry.

The development of painting in London from the Second World War to the 1970s is the story of interlinking friendships, shared experiences and artistic concerns among a number of acclaimed artists, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Gillian Ayres, Frank Bowling and Howard Hodgkin. Drawing on extensive first-hand interviews, many previously unpublished, with important witnesses and participants, the art critic Martin Gayford teases out the thread connecting these individual lives, and demonstrates how painting thrived in London against the backdrop of Soho bohemia in the 1940s and 1950s and `Swinging London' in the 1960s. He shows how, influenced by such different teachers as David Bomberg and William Coldstream, and aware of the work of contemporaries such as Jackson Pollock as well as the traditions of Western art from Piero della Francesca to Picasso and Matisse, the postwar painters were allied in their confidence that this ancient medium, in opposition to photography and other media, could do fresh and marvellous things. They asked the question `what can painting do?' and explored in their diverse ways, but with equal passion, the possibilities of paint.

Alex Prager is one of the truly original image makers of our time. Working fluidly between photography and film, she creates large-scale projects that combine elaborately built sets, highly staged, complex performances and a ‘Hollywood’ aesthetic to produce still and moving images that are familiar yet strange, utterly compelling and unerringly memorable. In her career she has won both popular acclaim and the recognition of the art establishment – her work can be found in the collections of MoMA and the Whitney Museum in New York as well as institutions worldwide. This book is the first career retrospective of this rising star. In 120 carefully curated photographs, it summarizes Prager’s creative trajectory and offers an ideal introduction for the popular ‘breakout’ audience who may have only recently encountered her work. Structured around her project-orientated approach, Silver Lake Drive presents the very best images from her career to date: from the early Film Stills through her collaborations with the actor Bryce Dallas Howard on Week-end and Despair to the tour de force of The Face in the Crowd – shot on a Hollywood sound stage with over 150 performers – and her 2015 commission for the Paris opera La Grande Sortie. Supported by an international exhibition schedule, and including an in-depth interview with Alex Prager by Nathalie Herschdorfer and supplementary essays by the curators of renowned museums and galleries, this book will be an essential addition to the collection of anyone who has followed Prager’s career and all with an interest in and appreciation of contemporary art.

Modern Art takes the reader through individual movements from Impressionism to Conceptual Art, situating these within five broader chronological themes. Starting with Impressionism in 1860, Dempsey proceeds through the essentials of Modernism, the post-war New Disorder and beyond. The material is arranged with great care to lead the reader through over seventy essential topics of modern art in a practical and easy-to-navigate structure. Each boldly designed feature includes a clear definition of the theme, a list of key artists, features, media and collections, and expertly curated illustrations with explanatory captions. A reference section includes a useful glossary of modern art terms, an easy-to-navigate timeline and suggestions for further reading.

The geometric foundations, forms and patterns in today's architecture, design and decorative arts have been deeply influenced by past cultures. From humankind's first path-like doodles on cave walls through to the higher abstractions developed to make accurate measurements and predictions, the three-dimensional forms we design and build are dependent upon available materials, human needs and the limitations of our imaginations. This unique sourcebook presents a history of the intimate relationship between geometry, mathematics and manmade design throughout human history, from the Neolithic period through the Indian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Greek, Celtic, Islamic and Renaissance cultures, to the present and the possible future. Presenting key principles that can be applied across all design disciplines, Roger Burrows reveals fresh insights and ideas about how geometry as a visual language has evolved to meet our needs, initiated new technologies and changed the way we think about the world around us. With a wealth of original artworks by the author to explain his ideas, this book will be an essential reference resource for inspiration and information for students and design professionals.

Looking at pictures can be a delightful, exciting or moving experience, but some pictures - and these are often the most rewarding - require some explanation before they can be fully understood. Delving into the origins, designs and themes of over 100 pictures from different periods and places, this book illuminates the art of looking at - and talking about - pictures. Woodford shows how you can read a picture by examining the formal and stylistic devices used by an artist, and explores popular themes and subject matters, and the relationship of pictures to the societies that produced them. The book is supplemented by a glossary of key terms, ranging from art movements and technical terms to religious and classical terminology, to give readers all the information they need at their fingertips.

No other art movement in history has contained two artists as different as Magritte and Miro. This is because Surrealism was not in origin an art movement, but a philosophical strategy. It was a way of life - a rebellion against the establishment that had given the world the hideous slaughter of the First World War. Instead of trying to analyse the work of the Surrealists, bestselling author and Surrealist artist Desmond Morris concentrates on them as people - as remarkable individuals. What were their personalities, their predilections, their character strengths and flaws? Did they enjoy a social life or were they loners? Were they bold eccentrics or timid recluses? Drawing on the author's personal knowledge of the Surrealists, this book captures their life histories, idiosyncrasies and often-complex love lives, vividly illustrated with images of the artists and their works. The arts of Surrealism were both spectacular and international, shaped by the darkest, most irrational workings of the unconscious. Shocking, witty and always entertaining, Morris' tales illuminate the striking variation in approaches to the Surrealist philosophy, both in the artist's work and in their lives.

Why do octopuses have eight arms? Why do crabs run sideways? Are jellyfish made of jelly? Yuval Zommer’s beautiful new book provides the answers to these and many more fishy questions. His wonderfully quirky illustrations show off all kinds of slippery, shimmery and surprising sea creatures, including sea turtles, whales, sharks, rays and seahorses. Chatty, funny and full of amazing facts, it will be devoured by children eager to find out about the most exciting creatures from the deep blue.

At the age of twenty-nine, photographer Thomas Sweertvaegher spends most of his life on the road with friends, indulging his dual passions of photography and skating. Years of traveling the world together--always on the move and often carrying nothing more than a skateboard--have yielded the poignant photographs collected in this volume, where the skateboard remains a constant symbol of freedom, an extension of their identities, and the mark of their strong friendship. Rolling on the margins of society, exploring the limits of life and his own young adulthood, Sweertvaegher captures whatever is happening around him during his travels. His shots take the reader on a journey, showing the highs and lows, bruises, and stitches of skating and street life, and ultimately celebrating the beauty such a life can bring. While it captures Sweertvaegher's odyssey from a highly personal perspective, The Journal of a Skateboarder is at the same time a visual documentary of the skating world, and features key figures such as Axel Cruysberghs, Arto Saari, Dylan Rieder, and Rodney Mullen.

A lively introduction for children to written Chinese, Chineasy(TM) for Children makes learning Chinese fun and simple. The book features playful illustrations by Noma Bar that relate each character's shape to its meaning, alongside games and activities to make learning interactive. Introductory spreads explain how Chinese is written in pictograms--characters form building blocks for other words and sentences. Subsequent spreads feature lively scenes that help children to recognize over 100 Chinese characters. The book is organized by themes such as numbers, family, animals, and food, each section covering vocabulary within that topic. Stories about the development of characters and customs provide the perfect introduction to Chinese culture, while games and activities allow children to put into practice what they have learned. The book also features a picture library of characters for avid linguists to memorize as well as guidance on Mandarin pronunciation.

One trophy to win, two whistle blows, three hurdles. . . . With fresh, eye- popping illustrations, children will learn to count by following the antics of athletic animals in this charming picture book. The playful illustrations capture the motion and exuberance of the animal athletics as young readers sprint through the book to twenty and back again to win the cup, encountering along the way a bear weightlifting, fast felines, hippos in leotards, and fencing zebras.

The religious thinkers, political leaders, law-makers, writers and philosophers of the early Muslim world helped to shape the 1,400-year-long development of today's secondlargest world religion. But who were these people? What do we know of their lives, and the ways in which they influenced their societies? Chase F. Robinson draws on the long tradition in Muslim scholarship of commemorating in writing the biographies of notable figures, but weaves these ambitious lives together to create a rich narrative of early Islamic civilization, from the Prophet Muhammad to fearsome Tamerlane. Beginning in Islam's heartland, Mecca, we move across Arabia to follow Islam's journey across North Africa, as far as Spain in the West, and eastwards through Central and East Asia; we see the rise and fall of Islamic states through the political and military leaders working to secure peace or expand their power, and, within this political climate, the development of Islamic law, scientific thought and literature through the words of the scholars who devoted themselves to these pursuits. Alongside the famous characters who coloured this landscape, including Muhammad's controversial cousin, 'Ali; the first Sultan of Egypt, Saladin; and the poet Rumi, the reader will also meet less wellknown figures, such as Shajar al-Durr, slave-turned-Sultana of Egypt, and Ibn Fadlan, whose travels in Eurasia brought first-hand accounts of the Volka Vikings to the Abbasid Caliph.