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Art & Architecture
The colorful and stylized kimono--the national garment of Japan--expresses not only Japanese aesthetic sensibilities but the soul of Japan as well. In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book, Liza Dalby, author of the highly acclaimed Geisha and Tale of Murasaki, traces the history of kimono--its uses, aesthetics, and social meanings--to explore Japanese culture. Drawing on a variety of period texts including 17th-century kimono pattern books, Dalby vividly recreates kimono and those who wore them through the centuries. She discusses the development of the kimono robe from its Chinese origins two thousand years ago to its assimilation as the national dress of Japan.
An engaging mix of fashion history and social anthropology, this lively and scholarly book demonstrates in a new way how clothing can illuminate our understanding of culture.
"The force behind this excellent book is Dalby's personal passion for the whole cultural realm she discovered while learning to wear kimono with the exacting perfection of a professional, which meant learning to feel natural in it."--Ann Hollander, Yale Review
"Ms. Dalby has a great deal to tell, starting with her contention that clothing and wearer merge in Japan more than in most places. . . . [She] offers a tour of the cultural collisions that have become part of the fabric not just of the kimono but of modern Japan. It is a tour well worth taking." --Wall Street Journal
"A lively, informative study of the kimono, tracing its evolution throughout Japanese history to its current status as the national dress of Japan. [Dalby's] book's coverage includes all types of 'native' dress, past and present; her unique position as a Western 'insider' allows her to demystify the complex social mores connected with wearing the kimono. . . At once scholarly and enjoyable reading."--Journal of Japanese Studies
"Kimono is as elegantly designed as its topic. Lavishly illustrated and visually stunning . . . the text is every bit the equal of this graphic richness. In language simple but strikingly patterned, it weaves its way through technical details and historical arcanities with panache and color. . . . Such is the variety of lenses focussed upon its topic that the book will engage interests ranging from pop culture to literary history."--Mangajin
"An impressive, unusual, and beautiful book. There are many valuable insights here--not only about Japanese clothing but also about patterns of gender, class, and identity in Japanese culture."--Joseph J. Tobin, author of Re-Made in Japan
"Everyone is free here. . . . The cities are open. They are open to the world and to the future. That is what gives them all an air of adventure; and . . . a kind of touching beauty." So wrote the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre on a 1945 trip to the United States during which he crossed the country and dove deep into the soul of the American city. In this new volume, Sartre's reflections on the distinctly American quality of cities in the United States are accompanied by Pedro Meyer's photographs of American cities, offering similarly sharp insights, but through a different historical lens: that of the late eighties and early nineties. Together, the photographs and essays articulate the enduring essence of American urban existence--its relationship with time, with labor and humanity, and with the open spaces emblematic of America.
"Everyone is free here. . . . The cities are open. They are open to the world and to the future. That is what gives them all an air of adventure; and . . . a kind of touching beauty." So wrote the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre on a 1945 trip to the United States during which he crossed the country and dove deep into the soul of the American city. In this new volume, Sartre's reflections on the distinctly American quality of cities in the United States are accompanied by Pedro Meyer's photographs of American cities, offering similarly sharp insights, but through a different historical lens: that of the late eighties and early nineties. Together, the photographs and essays articulate the enduring essence of American urban existence--its relationship with time, with labor and humanity, and with the open spaces emblematic of America.
Examining famous and lesser-known sites, some now vanished, this comprehensive survey leads the reader from ancient Egyptian royal cemeteries to the magnificent gardens of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, and from great 18th-century English estates and American public gardens to the earthworks and other landscape projects of today.
A feast for the historian, landscape designer, and gardener alike, this new book has no equal.
In 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began what would become one of history's most influential works of art-The Last Supper. After a decade at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point: at forty-three, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise. His latest failure was a giant bronze horse to honor Sforza's father, made with material expropriated by the military. The commission to paint The Last Supper was a small compensation, and his odds of completing it weren't promising: he hadn't worked on such a large painting and had no experience in the standard mural medium of fresco.
Amid war and the political and religious turmoil around him, and beset by his own insecurities and frustrations, Leonardo created the masterpiece that would forever define him. Ross King unveils dozens of stories that are embedded in the painting, and overturns many of the myths surrounding it. Bringing to life a fascinating period in European history, he presents an original portrait of one of history's greatest geniuses through the lens of his most famous work.
This bracing translation lifts a veil on one of the most towering figures in the history of art
Book of the Year, Apollo Magazine, 2013
Revered and misunderstood by his peers and lauded by later generations as the father of modern art, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) has long been a subject of fascination for artists and art lovers, writers, poets, and philosophers. His life was a ceaseless artistic quest, and he channeled much of his wide-ranging intellect and ferocious wit into his letters. Punctuated by exasperated theorizing and philosophical reflection, outbursts of creative ecstasy and melancholic confession, the artist's correspondence reveals both the heroic and all-toohuman qualities of a man who is indisputably among the pantheon of all-time greats. This new translation of Cézanne's letters includes more than twenty that were previously unpublished and reproduces the sketches and caricatures with which Cézanne occasionally illustrated his words. The letters shed light on some of the key artistic relationships of the modern period--about one third of Cézanne's more than 250 letters are to his boyhood companion Émile Zola, and he communicated extensively with Camille Pissarro and the dealer Ambroise Vollard. The translation is richly annotated with explanatory notes, and, for the first time, the letters are cross-referenced to the current catalogue raisonné. Numerous inaccuracies and archaisms in the previous English edition of the letters are corrected, and many intriguing passages that were unaccountably omitted have been restored. The result is a publishing landmark that ably conveys Cézanne's intricacy of expression.
The plates were first published in 1799. There are still in existence, however, six extremely rare sets of artist's proofs, considered by most who have managed to see them as infinitely superior to the work actually published. Now, for the first time, this edition reproduces one of these sets of 80 prints, together with the "Prado" manuscript, a commentary on the plates. In addition, this collection contains supplementary material to the Los Caprichos series, inlcuding a never-before-published study for Caprichos 10; three unique proofs of plates probably intended for publication with the others; a preliminary drawing for plate I, a self-portrait of Goya (which appears as the frontispiece to this volume); and a unique proof of "Woman in Prison" which may represent an earlier version of Caprichos 32.
Rich, wildly varied imagery infuses the art and literature of love in Asia. The universal themes of love denied, love fulfilled, of courtship, passion, and fertility are here treated in lively, color-illustrated essays by five distinguished contributors. Early Chinese art alluding to the theme of romance is explored along with the 13th-century tale, The Story of the Western Wing. Also examined are the Japanese One Hundred Poets, a luxury volume of poems assembled in the 17th century, and modern poetry by such writers as Takamura Kotaro. Stunning Rajput painting and poetry, the fascinating role of the sakhi, or messenger, in love-intrigues, and the dynamic temple sculpture at Khajuraho are featured in engrossing chapters about India. Whether depicting the theme of love as explicit embrace or entwined plum tree branches, Asian artists offer, in these compelling works of art and literature, continuing avenues of inspiration, sustenance, and delight.
Winner, 2025 Firecracker Awards Winner in Creative Nonfiction, given by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses
Raised in a rural Oregon town plagued by poverty, the artist and writer Jaydra Johnson excelled in school and chased upward mobility, desperate to escape the adversity that she saw as her inheritance--and the certainty that she grew up as trash. Johnson's powerful memoir, Low--selected by acclaimed writer Maggie Nelson as the winner of Fonograf Editions' inaugural essay contest--tells the redemptive story of an artist who came to embrace her lineage. In the tradition of other outcast artists who have spun refuse into art, the essays in Low reclaim trash as a precious resource and a medium for storytelling.In this bracing debut, Johnson describes her life and art, including the cut paper collages that punctuate these essays, in vivid detail while offering smart and visceral reflections on a wide range of literary and visual artists who have inspired her, from Shakespeare to contemporary conceptual artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. As Maggie Nelson writes, "Low's provocations and attestations stayed with me long after I turned its final page. I found myself rooting hard for its narrator--while also realizing that there is no need, as she has clearly found her way, and is now our teacher."
An indispensable meditation on poverty and art, and a compelling corrective to conventional memoirs about overcoming disadvantage, Low announces the arrival of an important new voice in creative nonfiction.
For years, architects have enjoyed the challenge of incorporating lightweight structures -- fabrics, tents, canopies, membranes, and so on -- into their designs.Such materials are a welcome boon to architectural creativity, allowing designers to envision spaces that take innovative shapes and interact with their surroundings in ways unattainable with conventional materials. Recent years have seen an increase in the use of such structures, in part because advances in computer technology have made it easier to render and model such projects, and in part because such structures are ideally suited to today's increasing concerns about environmentalism and sustainability.
The Magic of Tents showcases innovative uses of lightweight, tented structures from across the United States and around the world -- from an Arizona school to an Istanbul bank, from a Miami nightclub on the beach to a private home in Germany, from corporate headquarters in Los Angeles to offices in Oslo, and many more! The book features both residential and commercial projects, projects with both exterior and interior usages, projects where the tented element is the driving component of the design, and projects that incorporate lightweight structures to accent or address a specific need.
Endlessly flexible, nurturing of creativity, cost -- and energy-conscious, tented structures are an ideal means to address many concerns of modern architecture -- a creative means to not only define space, but also to transform it into something to meet all sorts of design needs, for projects both grand and small.
Portraits of literary heroes using designs of type, ornaments, common linecuts. The author also combines type ornaments and icons to suggest a face with singular attributes: pride, fear, fanaticism, and surprise. But these are not drawings; they are images arranged from the combination of specific and discrete graphic forms.
Printed throughout in two colors, often displaying the various letters, sorts and ornaments that make up the whole, this is wholly original, totally inventive. In these typographic assemblies transformed into ingenious portraits, de Vicq has given the alphabet a whole new life.
From the acclaimed author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper, the riveting story of how Michelangelo, against all odds, created the masterpiece that has ever since adorned the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Despite having completed his masterful statue David four years earlier, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with challenging curved surfaces such as the Sistine ceiling's vaults. The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant: He stormed away from Rome, incurring Julius's wrath, before he was eventually persuaded to begin. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling recounts the fascinating story of the four extraordinary years he spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling, while war and the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. A panorama of illustrious figures intersected during this time-the brilliant young painter Raphael, with whom Michelangelo formed a rivalry; the fiery preacher Girolamo Savonarola and the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus; a youthful Martin Luther, who made his only trip to Rome at this time and was disgusted by the corruption all around him. Ross King blends these figures into a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Italy, while also offering uncommon insight into the connection between art and history.
From the acclaimed author of Michelangelo, God's Architect, a dual biography of two towering artists of the Renaissance, whose decades-long rivalry spurred both to greater heights
In 1529, Michelangelo was in Venice when he first met Titian, Venice's famed painter of princes, gods, and goddesses. Coming face-to-face with Titian's drama-infused, richly colored works, the creator of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling realized he had met a worthy opponent. Twenty-five years later, Titian came to Rome to paint the pope, and the two met again. Painting in the Vatican, Titian experienced the full power of Michelangelo's work and vowed to surpass the achievements of his older contemporary. Michelangelo and Titian is the untold story of history's greatest artistic rivalry, a competition between two monumental figures more admiring of one another than either would ever admit. William Wallace brings the world of the sixteenth century to life, and in particular its culture of gossip and intrigue. Wallace challenges the established narrative of this relationship as mostly one-sided, with the younger artist in competition with the reigning master. He shows how the artists moved in overlapping courtly and papal circles, sharing the patronage, power, and sometimes friendship of the most important people of their era, including members of the Medici, Este, and Farnese families. Wallace traces how, over the span of some forty years, this unspoken rivalry was reciprocal and mutually beneficial, with each learning from the other's brilliance, quietly seeking to best the other's work and secure his own legacy. An extraordinary achievement, Michelangelo and Titian is a compelling account of two supremely gifted rivals who inspired each other to test the limits of their creative genius, and in doing so created some of the most astonishing works of art the world has ever known.
A groundbreaking account of the role of writing in Michelangelo's art
Michelangelo is best known for great artistic achievements such as the Sistine ceiling, the David, the Pietà, and the dome of St. Peter's. Yet throughout his seventy-five year career, he was engaged in another artistic act that until now has been largely overlooked: he not only filled hundreds of sheets of paper with exquisite drawings, sketches, and doodles, but also, on fully a third of these sheets, composed his own words. Here we can read the artist's marginal notes to his most enduring masterpieces; workaday memos to assistants and pupils; poetry and letters; and achingly personal expressions of ambition and despair surely meant for nobody's eyes but his own. Michelangelo: A Life on Paper is the first book to examine this intriguing interplay of words and images, providing insight into his life and work as never before. This sumptuous volume brings together more than two hundred stunning, museum-quality reproductions of Michelangelo's most private papers, many in color. Accompanying them is Leonard Barkan's vivid narrative, which explains the important role the written word played in the artist's monumental public output. What emerges is a wealth of startling juxtapositions: perfectly inscribed sonnets and tantalizing fragments, such as "Have patience, love me, sufficient consolation"; careful notations listing money spent for chickens, oxen, and funeral rites for the artist's father; a beautiful drawing of a Madonna and child next to a mock love poem that begins, "You have a face sweeter than boiled grape juice, and a snail seems to have passed over it." Magnificently illustrated and superbly detailed, this book provides a rare and intimate look at how Michelangelo's artistic genius expressed itself in words as well as pictures.
Originally published as Volume 2 of The Tao of Painting, this is the first English translation of the famous Chinese handbook, the "Chieh Tzu Yüan Hua Chuan" (original, 1679-1701). Mai-mai Sze has translated and annotated the texts of instructions, discussions of the fundamentals of painting, notes on the preparation of colors, and chief editorial prefaces.
Meulman's iconic new art form, Calligraffiti, has attracted followers within graphic design, architecture, typography, advertising, calligraphy and graffiti. Sharing an interest in the visual arts and an appreciation for print, they understand that a word is an image. Here Meulman expands his ever-evolving artistic territory to include wild paintings and fine art.
A collection of evocative quotations from the pioneering artist that offer insights into her ideas about art and the natural world
Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century. Bridging representation and abstraction, she depicted plants, flowers, cityscapes, and landscapes in iconic paintings whose unique style has become an indelible part of our visual culture. Drawn from her published writings, letters, interviews, and other sources, the quotes in O'Keeffe-isms provide insights into her artistic philosophy, creative process, and profound connection to the desert landscapes of New Mexico and the American Southwest. Poetic, fearless, and introspective, O'Keeffe-isms provides a vivid window into the mind of a beloved modernist artist who forged her own path.
For more than half a century, Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form has dominated studies of visual representation. Despite the hegemony of central projection, or perspective, other equally important methods of representation have much to tell us. Parallel projection can be found on classical Greek vases, in Pompeiian frescoes, in Byzantine mosaics; it returned in works of the historical avant-garde, and remains the dominant form of representation in China. In Oblique Drawing, Massimo Scolari investigates "anti-perspective" visual representation over two thousand years, finding in the course of his investigation that visual and conceptual representations are manifestations of the ideological and philosophical orientations of different cultures. Images prove to be not just a form of art but a form of thought, a projection of a way of life.
Scolari's generously illustrated studies show that illusionistic perspective is not the only, or even the best, representation of objects in history; parallel projection, for example, preserves in scale the actual measurements of objects it represents, avoiding the distortions of one-point perspective. Scolari analyzes the use of nonperspectival representations in pre-Renaissance images of machines and military hardware, architectural models and drawings, and illustrations of geometrical solids. He challenges Panofsky's theory of Pompeiian perspective and explains the difficulties encountered by the Chinese when they viewed Jesuit missionaries' perspectival religious images.
Scolari vividly demonstrates the diversity of representational forms devised through the centuries, and shows how each one reveals something that is lacking in the others.
In one of the most stunning expositions of mathematical publishing, Oliver Byrne combines Euclid's geometric theories with vibrant colour proofs, turning what was already a cornerstone academic text into a pedagogical work of art.
First published in 1847, Oliver Byrne's Elements of Euclid is an innovative educational masterpiece. Uniquely beautiful in its presentation, Byrne's edition was the first attempt to illustrate the classic books of mathematical theorems written by the ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid of Alexandria, in 300BC.
Scattered across each page in brilliant reds, blues and yellows are triangles, squares and circles combined in a myriad of combinations with intersecting lines and numbers. These intricate figures express the proofs of many of the iconic geometric equations that form the bedrock of mathematical study.
This stunning example of numerical visual study greatly influenced the history of mathematics, with Euclid's text being used in classrooms until the late nineteenth century. It has also proven to be an indispensable inspiration for following twentieth-century art movements, with avant-garde groups like De Stijl and The Bauhaus using Byrne's iconic colour, line work and form in many of their works.
A facsimile edition of this legacy work has been painstakingly restored for a new generation to enjoy. Taking special care to conserve the colours, shapes and text as they were printed on publication in the hope to recapture the magic of this beautiful volume for future readers, both inside and outside of the classroom.
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Ai Weiwei is one of contemporary art's greatest practitioners. He has been a voice for artistic and personal freedom of expression for decades within his native China and around the world.
This publication offers a compelling exploration of censorship and self--censorship. Drawing on his personal experiences and advocacy for human rights, Ai Weiwei provides a uniquely informed perspective. He examines how censorship persists in authoritarian regimes as well as subtly within democratic frameworks, corporate power, the arts, and social media, arguing that its concealed and pervasive nature poses a significant threat to genuine expression. This thought--provoking work by a singular voice invites readers to critically reconsider power, ideology, and the boundaries of free speech.