The Spanish artist Antonio Lopez Garcia is revered worldwide not only for the extreme realism he brings to his paintings and drawings, but because he conveys through this extreme realism a wonderful sensitivity to light, color and space, enabling each to breathe with a tranquility that allows for the encroachments of everyday life. Interior scenes of dining tables, bathroom sinks, toilets, dressers are depicted in sober light that recall Chardin or the intimisme of Vuillard--though Lopez Garcia surpasses even these masters in his ability to make unforgivingly prosaic subject matter, such as a brick wall or a refrigerator, sparkle and throb with mood. The artist's statement that "you work until the whole surface has an expressive intensity equivalent to what you have before you, converted into a pictorial reality" conveys something of the labor he brings to his works: Lopez Garcia is not a prolific artist, and as a result shows rarely (his 2008 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, consolidated his already strong audience in the U.S.). His drawings and paintings are equally esteemed, but until now, the drawings have never been the subject of a monograph. All of the work in this superbly designed publication has been carefully selected by the artist's daughter, Maria; much of it has never been reproduced until now. Including 200 color plates and a moving text by the artist himself, it stands as a powerful testimony to Lopez Garcia's astounding achievement.
Antonio Lopez Garcia (born 1936) studied at the School of Art in Madrid in the early 1950s, and quickly became part of a nucleus of realist painters, such as Francisco Lopez Hernandez, Amalia Avia and Isabel Quintanilla. Lopez Garcia was the subject of Victor Erice's 1992 film El Sol del Membrillo ( The Quince Tree of the Sun ), which closely chronicles the artist's attempts to paint a quince tree.

With a concept similar to "cream", this text is an image-heavy book offering an overview of the state of painting today, and documents the most recent concerns and ideas among contemporary painters. In the wake of media such as installation, video, performance and digital art, the traditional medium of painting has enjoyed a renaissance among a recent generation of artists. Alongside the ever-growing reputation of significant living painters such as Gerhard Richter, Agnes Martin and Peter Halley, many younger artists have chosen painting over any other medium, and are exploring new means to broaden the traditional field of "oil on canvas". It is this younger generation (who emerged in the 1990s) that "Vitamin P" aims to represent in an A-Z survey of 114 of its leading, international practitioners, with each artist illustrated by numerous examples of his or her works, accompanied by a short explanatory text. Often moving beyond the most traditional image associated with this medium, This survey hopes to illustrate the richness, eclecticism, dynamism and contemporaneity of the practice of painting today.

The single best collection of photographs of Banksy's street work. Period. You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat concentrates on this singular artist's iconic imagery, spanning the late '90s up until the end of 2011. The locations are from around the world (predominantly the UK, US and Europe), and many images have never been seen before. When Banksy started out painting, the political landscape was bleak. Fortunately now, it's ten times worse. As Banksy's cheerfully aggressive political work becomes ever more relevant, this comprehensive tome sets about presenting his art in the context of the era he was responding to.

The A-Z of Visual Ideas explains the key ideas, sources of inspiration and visual techniques that have been used throughout design history. Showing where ideas and inspiration come from, the book provides numerous strategies to help unlock the reader's creativity. Using a dynamic and easy-to-understand A-Z format, the book reveals techniques that can be exploited to deliver ideas with greater impact, each entry offering a different starting point. Looking at everything from, Art to Zeitgeist, Intuition and Instinct to Happy Accidents and Hidden Messages, the book also features a section explaining how to use the idea or technique, providing readers with an infallible 'tool kit' of inspiration. Including hundreds of inspirational quotes and packed with great examples of advertising campaigns, posters, book and magazine covers and illustrations, this is an indispensable primer that shows design students and professionals how to solve any creative brief.

没有哪位画家能像雷内·马格里特那样如此成功地展现潜藏在人们内心深处的梦的世界。他那神秘莫测的想像力竟能洞穿人的潜意识，激发我们去探寻心灵的奥秘。他那富于寓意、谜一样内敛隐晦的画作，足以 让生活在21世纪的人们深省。《马格里特(精)》收入了马格里特的名作《黑色礼貌》、《青苹果》及许多不为世人熟知的作品，是收录马格里特作品最为丰富的画集之一。

For nearly four decades in the sixteenth century, the careers of Venice's three greatest painters--Titan, Tintoretto and Veronese--overlapped, producing mutual influences and bitter rivalries that changed art history. Venice was then among Europe's richest cities, and its plentiful commissions fostered an exceptionally fertile and innovative climate. In it, the three artists--brilliant, ambitious and fiercely competitive--vied with one another for primacy, employing such new media as oil on canvas, with its unique expressive possibilities, and such new approaches as a personal and identifiable signature style. They also pioneered the use of easel painting, a newly portable format that led to unprecedented fame in their lifetimes. With more than 150 stunning examples by the three masters and their contemporaries, this volume elucidates the technical and aesthetic innovations that helped define the uniquely rich "Venetian style," as well as the social, political and economic context in which it flourished. Essays range from examinations of seminal new techniques to such crucial institutions as state commissions and the patronage system. Most of all, by concentrating on the lives and careers of Venice's three greatest painters, "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese" paints a vibrant human portrait--one brimming with savage rivalry, one-upsmanship, humor and passion.

Throughout his long career, Morandi focused on still lifes and landscapes that captured the simple beauty of light and form. While his contemporaries struggled with the intellectual turmoil and aesthetic experimentation of the twentieth century, Morandi remained faithful to the subjects that fascinated him most: bottles, vases, and jugs, and the view out his studio window in Bologna. This richly illustrated volume brings together more than one hundred of his most important works. Grouped according to technique????????????paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings????????????each aspect of his work is given thoughtful consideration by scholars who explore Morandi's genius for composition, his serene palette, and his expertise as a draftsman.

Painter, sculptor, and architect, Michelangelo was also a husband, father, writer, and businessman. His thoughts on art, daily life, hard work and fame speak as clearly to us now as they did centuries ago. Brimming with beautiful illustrations of Michelangelo's many masterpieces, this overview of the artist's life helps us understand his inspirations, frustrations, joys, and sorrows as he undertook the commissions that made him immortal: David, Pieta, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Medici Chapel, and the tomb of Julius II. Quotations from the artist, incisive essays, reproductions of the entire Sistine Chapel, and an informative timeline contribute to make this book a rewarding read and a satisfying visual experience.

Now available in an attractively priced, beautifully produced flexi edition, this important examination of Modigliani’s art focuses on the enigmatic genius of the avant-garde. One of the most recognizable artists of his era, Amedeo Modigliani is also perhaps one of the least understood. In this thorough , yet refreshingly concise volume, Werner Schmalenbach examines Modigliani’s oeuvre, offering a chronological tour of every aspect of Modigliani’s career. The informative commentary is complemented by hundreds of splendid reproductions, many of them full-page color plates. The result is an intimate portrait of a life devoted to art, and an essential reference for any art lover.

Although fewer than eighty of Caravaggio's painted works exist, they represent a critical moment in the development of European painting as the Renaissance style gave way to that of the Baroque. This monograph explores the Italian master's entire life and career by focusing on the most important of his works. Readers will learn about his innovative use of light and shadow, his physical and psychological realism, and his radical technique of omitting initial drawings and creating straight onto the canvas. Along the way readers will learn details of the artist's colourful, and often troubled life, as well as the important role he played in the evolution of Western painting. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details - allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

Through the lens of a microscope or the shaft of a telescope exists a universe of boundless life and beauty, that is entirely invisible to the naked eye. Atoms, ice crystals, grains of pollen, snowflakes, butterfly wings, cloud formations, searing comets, and showers of stars are born, live and die. The unprecedented scope of "Heaven & Earth" offers an awe-inspiring voyage of discovery through this infinite world that is science - from the smallest particles on the earth's surface to tiny dots in galaxies that are billions of light years away. Revealing the extensive range of matter contained in the cosmos, this book navigates a fascinating trajectory through an unexplored world, to celebrate the immeasurable beauty and countless mysteries of planet earth and the universe. It charts - chapter by chapter - intricate landscapes of increasing scale and distance, captured by microscope, x-ray, satellite and telescope. Each magnificent photograph is accompanied by an extended caption that explains it in detail, offering a dose of scientific information that enables us to associate with it on a human scale. This volume presents a unique and richly illustrated insight into the momentous relation between aesthetics and nature, in the light of nature's magnitude and its complexity of life. The result is the ultimate fusion of art and science, through a sequence of images that are as subtle as they are stupendous.

In this major critical appraisal, Diane Waldman assesses Mark Rothko's place in the history of twentieth-century art. She writes of his childhood as an immigrant from Russia, his student days at Yale, his early career as a struggling artist, and his crucial role in the development of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. The progression of his work is analysed in detail, from his early figurative experiments of the 1920s to the emergence of his characteristic mature abstract style, with a particularly illuminating discussion of the achievement of the late canvases. His relationship with such contemporaries as Adolph Gottlieb and Clyfford Still is also examined in some depth. A detailed chronology of Rothko's life and an exhaustive exhibitions list and bibliography are valuable ancillary features. The many illustrations include not only reproductions of oils and water-colours, but also photographs of the artist, his family and friends.

With these pictures, Leonie Purchas (Hampton) presents a new and innovative photographic approach to the human condition. The photographer chose to take an introspective look at herself through the members of her family. The resulting photos form a highly personal and emotional record of life in the Purchas (Hampton) household, in which both the photographer and the other members of the family show their vulnerability. By exposing this vulnerability, Purchas (Hampton) breaks through the distance that often separates photographer and subject. The camera shields and at the same time opens up a world that is entirely familiar, yet nevertheless reveals itself anew.

Greek-born Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) was hugely influential in the early years of the Surrealist movement. His paintings during the teens in Paris, where he moved in 1911, caused such a stir that such important figures as Picasso and Paul Eluard immediately praised them. This phase of his work, which he later termed pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) was marked by dramatic compositions involving sharp perspective, striking shadows, geometrical planes, voids of space, and a general feeling of anxiety and loneliness; the sense of absurdity evoked by the mannequin-like figures in almost nightmarish landscapes seemed to suggest a Freudian expression of the unconscious. After 1930, De Chirico turned to a more classical style of painting and continued in the same vein for the rest of his career; his later work was widely criticized, especially by the Surrealists who had so admired his early paintings.

Comprising the finest plates from the great illustrator's work, this collection features outstanding engravings from such literary classics as Milton's "Paradise Lost, " "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Raven "by Edgar Allan Poe, Sue's "The Wandering Jew, " and many others. Captions.

“Grandiose trompe l’oeil.” Süddeutsche Zeitung
There seems to be an endless number of deceptively real objects depicted in still lifes: dewdrops on fragile flower petals, reflections of light on glass goblets and precious silver dishes, candied sweets in Chinese porcelain, the fine hairs on a peach, the soft feathers of a songbird, the sallow tinge to a skull. However, the details of this genre are not exhausted in the delicate rendering of varying surfaces, because each pictorial element can also symbolize religious or moral content or be a reference to the irretrievability of time gone by—tempus fugit!
This volume presents, on large-format plates, a splendid selection of works by some of the principal masters of the still-life genre, such as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Georg Flegel, Sebastian Stoskopff, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Abraham Mignon, and Jean Siméon Chardin. These choice treasures of German, Netherlandish, Flemish, and French still-life painting exemplify nearly all of the different ways of playing with this genre. (German editionISBN 978-3-7757-2206-3)
Exhibition schedule: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, March 20–August 17, 2008 Kunstmuseum Basel, September 5, 2008–January 4, 2009