Arts & Photography
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My First Summer in the Sierra: Illustrated Edition
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Scot Miller
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 100 Ill An edition (2011, Mar 10th).
Pages: 204
From the photographer who brought Thoreau's Walden and Cape Cod to life comes a new work combining classic literature with brand-new photography. This time, Scot Miller takes on the seminal work of John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra. The book details Muir's first extended trip to the Sierra Nevada in what is now Yosemite National Park, a landscape that entranced him immediately and had a profound effect on his life. The towering waterfalls, natural rock formations, and abundant plant and animal life helped Muir develop his views of the natural world, views that would eventually lead him to push for the creation of the national parks. Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the book's original publication by Houghton Mifflin Company, My First Summer in the Sierra is illustrated with Miller's stunning photographs, showcasing the dramatic landscape of the High Sierra plus John Muir's illustrations from the original edition and several previously unpublished illustrations from his 1911 manuscript. more
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Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Evelyn Toynton
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press (2012, Jan 3rd).
Pages: 160
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh.In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. more
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Henna Sourcebook: Over 1,000 traditional designs and modern interpretations for body decorating
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Mary Packard
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Race Point Publishing (2012, Nov 1st).
Pages: 224
No one knows for sure when henna was first used for skin decorating, but traces of henna have been found on mummies in Egypt and on cave painting in India dating back thousands of years. While this tradition is still widely used in India, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, it is now gaining popularity throughout the Western world as well. Rooted in the belief that those whose skin is adorned with henna are blessed with good fortune, henna is often associated with rights of passage—coming of age, marriage, and childbirth. Holidays and festivals are times when women and girls decorate their hands and feet, and henna patterns are sometimes unique to these occasions. In some cultures, a bridegroom may be decorated the night before a wedding as well. more
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Landscapes (Painting Recipes)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Parramon Editorial Team
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (2012, Jun 1st).
Pages: 96
Painting Recipes Books are designed for mid-level art students and amateur painters who are looking to perfect their style by trying new interpretive forms and experimenting with sophisticated techniques they have never tried before. This new series takes its inspiration from cooking recipe books. Like imaginative chefs creating new recipes, artists are encouraged to try out and mix different substances with paints to obtain new effects on canvas or paper. This Painting Recipes Book focuses on landscape painting and presents exercises and explanations, supplemented with how-to illustrations. It also discusses the uses of various materials that aren't traditionally thought of as standard in an artist's tool box. Color illustrations on every page. more
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When Art Really Works
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Lucinda Hawksley
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (2012, Jun 1st).
Pages: 224
What are the qualities that make an artwork great? A recognized painter Andy Pankhurst and art historian Lucinda Hawksley offer compelling answers to this question as they examine 80 historically important paintings and sculptures. All are works of art that stand out from the ordinary because of their originality, their ability to convey powerful emotions, their technical brilliance--distinctive qualities that unmistakably touch them with intimations of immortality. Discussions focus on examples from across the millennia, and include-- The Lascaux cave paintings (circa. 15,000 B.C) Italian Renaissance masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Paintings that demonstrate revolutionary use of color by J.M.W. Turner Impressionist masterworks by Monet and Degas The action painting of Jackson Pollock The Pop Art of Andy Warhol, and many other memorable artists and their works The book is filled with color illustrations . more
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The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Fiona MacCarthy
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press (2012, Feb 15th).
Pages: 656
While still a student at Oxford, Edward Burne-Jones formed a friendship and made a renunciation that would shape art history. The friendship was with William Morris, with whom he would occupy the social and intellectual center of the era's cult of beauty. The renunciation was of his intention to enter the clergy, when he-together with Morris-vowed to throw over the Church in favor of art. In Fiona MacCarthy's riveting account of Burne-Jones's life, that exchange of faith for art places him at the intersection of the nineteenth century and the Modern, as he leads us forward from Victorian mores and attitudes to the psychological, sexual, and artistic audacity that would characterize the early twentieth century. In MacCarthy's hands, Burne-Jones emerges as a great visionary painter, a master of mystic reverie, and a pivotal late nineteenth-century cultural and artistic figure. more
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The Artistic Touch 5: Watercolor painting techniques and inspiration from more than 100 artists
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Chris Unwin
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: North Light Books (2012, Oct 13th).
Pages: 176
You'll Love This Watercolor Painting Book If: You love getting inspiration from fellow watercolor artists You want the feeling of peeking inside an artists' studio You love watercolor & want to improve your skills See great completed watercolor art pieces from more than 100 artists in The Artistic Touch 5. Hear from them as they discuss how & why they paint like they do and why they love working in watercolor. Learn from fellow watercolor artists as they share their favorite pieces, and find inspiration in this curated edition of The Artistic Touch. Get great watercolor painting techniques & creative tips in The Artistic Touch 5. Perfect for beginning watercolorists & advanced artists looking for new inspiration. With The Artistic Touch 5 You'll Get: More than 100 artists sharing watercolor painting techniques & inspirations Contributors helping readers discover original and creative ways to paint with watercolor Tips & completed works great for beginner & advanced watercolorists . more
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Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Helen C. Evans
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art (2012, Apr 24th).
Pages: 352
This groundbreaking volume explores the epochal transformations and unexpected continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the ninth century. As the period opened, the Empire's southern provinces—the vibrant, diverse areas of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean—were at the crossroads of trade routes reaching from Spain to China. These regions experienced historic upheavals when their Christian and Jewish communities encountered the emerging Islamic world, and by the ninth century, an unprecedented cross-fertilization of cultures had taken place.This extraordinary age is brought vividly to life by leading international scholars, their writings accompanied by sumptuous illustrations of the period's most notable arts and artifacts. more
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Solar Dance: Van Gogh, Forgery, and the Eclipse of Certainty
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Modris Eksteins
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1St Edition edition (2012, Apr 17th).
Pages: 368
In Modris Eksteins’s hands, the interlocking stories of Vincent van Gogh and art dealer Otto Wacker reveal the origins of the fundamental uncertainty that is the hallmark of the modern era. Through the lens of Wacker’s sensational 1932 trial in Berlin for selling fake Van Goghs, Eksteins offers a unique narrative of Weimar Germany, the rise of Hitler, and the replacement of nineteenth-century certitude with twentieth-century doubt. Berlin after the Great War was a magnet for art and transgression. Among those it attracted was Otto Wacker, a young gay dancer turned art impresario. His sale of thirty-three forged Van Goghs and the ensuing scandal gave Van Gogh’s work unprecedented commercial value. It also called into question a world of defined values and standards that had already begun to erode during the war. more
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Van Gogh: Up Close (National Gallery of Canada)
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Cornelia Homburg
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press (2012, Mar 27th).
Pages: 306
This sumptuously illustrated book offers a completely new way of looking at the art of Vincent van Gogh, by exploring the artist's approach to nature through his innovative use of the close-up view. Focusing on the last years of the artist's career—from 1886 until his death in July 1890—an international team of leading scholars in the field examines Van Gogh's radical approach to the close-up and sets it in the context of contemporary and historical references, such as his hitherto unrecognized use of photography and his fascination with the Old Masters and with Japanese art and culture.One hundred key paintings dating from his arrival in Paris in 1886 to the end of his career show how Van Gogh experimented with unusual visual angles and the decorative use of color, cropping, and the flattening of his compositions. more
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