Prestel

From the first century BCE to the thirteenth century, Kashmir was a thriving center of Buddhist culture and art. The rise of Islamic peoples led to the destruction of all temples constructed there during the Buddhist era. Yet in the remote Himalayas of Ladakh and other neighboring locations, a few of these archaeological and artistic treasures are exquisitely preserved and are reproduced here for the first time. This volume takes readers on a journey through these remote sites, focusing especially on the amazing temple complex of Mangyu. The chapels, shrines, and dazzling murals presented here not only reveal much about late Mahayana Buddhism in India-its art, culture, and history-but also help fill a gap in our knowledge of the development of early Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.

Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms, with plenty of space to draw their own creations outside the lines.

This refreshing work recalls the golden age of graphic design in the 50s and 60s but looks forward to a new generation of designers using hand-made, more organic design techniques to create and inspire their works. The visual poetic mix of illustrations shown a celebration and reinvention of the artisanal methods once used in graphic design.

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.

An outstanding, exquisite visual reference book of some of the most cutting-edge and fashion-forward designs, Minimalism showcases the best examples in minimalist shop interiors from all over the world. Here visual merchandising is taken to a whole new level, elevating the products into objects of beauty and works of art. This work features information and interviews with every designer, plans of the shop interiors, as well as an explanation of the concept and creative process behind each design.

On a stormy winter's day, a baby boy, Naoki, is swept into a fisherman's boat by a great wave. Years pass, but still Naoki does not grow. Must he return to the ocean in order to become a young man? The answer arrives in the form of a mythic fish. Japanese artist Hokusai is one of the world's most celebrated printmakers. His famous woodcut, 'The Great Wave', epitomizes the artist's characteristic techniques and themes. In this children's book, the artist's masterpiece is the genesis for a simple but compelling story, beautifully illustrated in pictures that recall Hokusai's brilliant use of detail, perspective and colour. A stunning reproduction of the woodcut itself is featured in the book, supplemented by information about the artist and his work. At once modern and classic, The Great Wave introduces young readers to a beloved artist and his timeless portrayals of nature and transformation.

This beautifully produced, richly detailed and comprehensive survey of fifty influential women artists from the Renaissance to the Post-Modern era details their vast contributions to the art world. From the Early Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi and the seventeenth-century illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian to Impressionists Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, and to modern icons such as Frida Kahlo, Georgia O Keefe and Louise Bourgeois, the most important female artists are profiled in this book in chronologically arranged double-page spreads. For each artist there is a timeline highlighting significant events in her life; a succinct biography and information outlining her accomplishments and influence; additional resources to further study of the artist and, best of all, brilliant full-color reproductions of the artist s works. Packed with information, here is a stunning and absorbing book that clearly illustrates the remarkable artistic contributions of women throughout history.

Big art for little hands — this new «Klimt Colouring Book» in Prestel's new «Colouring Book» range is a beautifully produced scribble book. With plenty of space to colour outside the lines, the book is also designed to give kids an early interest in some of the great masters. Sections of Klimt's masterpieces are there to inspire children's creativity, whatever their age.

Balmond is making the transition from structural engineer working alongside other architects to an architect in his own right. His structural thinking differs from that of others in his field, in its completely innovative conception of the engineer's contribution to architecture. The plasticity of architectural plans is enhanced through a decisive promotion of their structural designs. The borderline between structure and architecture thus becomes increasingly blurred. This process is explained in detail in «Informal» by reference to eight seminal projects. Balmond elucidates the theoretical basis of his engineering and architectural solutions, and his sketches transcend purely technical illustration — they are key to his approach. «Informal» invites readers to rethink their understanding of the relationships between architecture, design and engineering.

The rapid economic and cultural transformation of China during the past twenty years has created an art scene of unparalleled energy and global impact. Throwing off restrictions on subject matter, embracing a new freedom to experiment, but also preserving and expressing Chinese identity on a monumental scale, the new Chinese art has enjoyed an astonishing surge of commercial and critical success. With chapters organized by medium, including painting, sculpture and installation, photography and performance, the book focuses on works by the most significant contemporary Chinese artists and offers a comprehensive critical assessment of one of the most dynamic art scenes in the world today. A preface placing the art in the context of the whirlwind changes in the country's social and political environment, and a concluding critical appraisal make this book an authoritative and exciting introduction to art of the new China.

The architecture of Britain's houses displays a dizzying variety of styles and details. Brimming with 600 full-color photographs, House annotates hundreds of examples from every conceivable angle: from gables and pediments to chimneys and roofs; from bow windows and casements to fanlights and door furniture. Armed with a career's worth of experience and research, Philippa Lewis takes readers up and down the country to feature examples of typically British building, including cottages, manor houses, castles, bungalows, and flats. She also looks at houses built from a wide variety of materials, including stone, glass, wood, brick and even corrugated iron, in different settings such as rural, suburban, seaside and urban. Lively texts help identify specific details and place them in their historical context, as well as offering compelling examples of how innovative conversions of structures such as watermills, gatehouses, and churches reflect and sustain their environment. Readers interested in architectural history and design, and anyone looking to understand the nooks and crannies of their own home, will find this unique guide the most eye-opening and comprehensive of its kind.

Now in flexi-cover, this visually stunning collection of Klimt's landscape paintings brings to light a lesser-known aspect of the Viennese painter's uvre. While Klimt is largely revered for his opulent, symbol-laden portraits of the Viennese bourgeoisie, these works were just one aspect of his artistic expression. His landscapes represent an important facet of his career and are a valuable contribution to the school of European nature painting. For many years the artist travelled to the Austrian and Italian countryside during the summer, where he took advantage of the extraordinary light and spectacular hues to paint and sketch landscapes. Among the most exquisite of Klimt's landscapes are those in which he experimented with composition and style. Accompanied by scholarly essays, the images reproduced in this book comprise all extant landscapes from this brilliant artist, proving that his mastery extends beyond portraiture and revealing themes that appeared throughout his life's work.

The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection at Rutgers University's Zimmerli Art Museum is the largest collection of Soviet nonconformist art in existence. Comprising more than 25,000 works by over 900 artists, it documents the activities of underground artists from Moscow and Leningrad, as well as from the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan between the years 1956-1987. This volume features the most outstanding of these works in stunning color and black-and-white reproductions. Essays by leading scholars and statements and interviews with artists such as Ilya Kabakov, the Gerlovins, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, who played a major role in this important movement, offer a general critical appraisal and history of the movement and highlight certain distinctive aspects such as performance and experimental art. The book also looks at this movement through a Western lens, comparing and contrasting the works with those of the Conceptualists in the US and the rest of the Free World.

The 1960s and '70s were a time when mainstream culture was turned on its head. Everything from fashion and music to politics and religion was questioned or reinvented while technological advances allowed people around the world to witness these incredible changes. Drawn from the Nicola Erni Collection, the spectacular images in this volume represent the iconic people, places, and events of the era, and were created by the most celebrated photographers of their time as well as press photographers. Iconic figures such as Jackie Kennedy, Mick Jagger, Maria Callas and Truman Capote; happening locales such as Warhol's Factory, Studio 54 and London's nightclubs; the jet-setting scenes of Saint-Tropez, St. Moritz, Paris, and Rome-it's all here as viewed through the lenses of Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Francesco Scavullo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lord Snowdon, Andy Warhol and others. A fascinating introductory essay explores the era's cultural scene and examines the art of celebrity photography. Pulsing with life and creativity, this treasure trove of photographs preserves for posterity an unforgettable time.

What makes a man a fashionisto? Swagger, elegance, daring, perhaps a really well cut suit. The actors, designers, crooners and legends portrayed in this collection are fashion forward men who possess some or all of the above-and they have it in spades. Fred Astaire and Bryan Ferry, Truman Capote and Che Guevara, George Clooney and Boy George all find a place in this fun and fascinating exploration of what makes a man into an icon. From Oscar Wilde's penchant for velvet to Don Johnson's Miami style, the cool aloofness of Johnny Depp and Kurt Cobain, or the characters of Ziggy Stardust and James Bond — all are featured in double page spreads with glossy full color pictures and Simon Werle's acute observations, anecdotes, and historical insight. As fun as it is informative, this glossy, smart book will attract anyone interested in how the clothes can make the man.

Starting with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and ending with Matthew Barney, nearly every prominent figure in Modern art is represented in vibrant double-page spreads that show how these artists continued to redefine norms and challenge tradition. Fascinating biographical and anecdotal information about each artist is provided alongside large reproductions of their most celebrated works, stunning details, and images of the artists themselves. A color-coded timeline spans the entire volume, showing overlapping careers and important historical dates. From the impressionists to the surrealists, the cubists to the pop-artists-readers will find a wealth of information as well as hours of enjoyment learning about this popular and prolific period in art history.

Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms and with plenty of space to colour outside the lines.

Schiele is known as the enfant terrible A of turn-of-the-century Vienna. But what exactly made him so infamous-and why are his paintings so beloved? As engaging as it is informative, this beautiful book presents Schiele from a variety of perspectives while exploring the culture and society that he inhabited. His arresting portraits, at once shocking and brilliantly rendered, are closely examined in the context of the Art Nouveau and Expressionist movements. Isabel Kuhl delves into Schiele's private life, from his love affairs, to his friendships with Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka, to his arrest for indecency. Finally she takes a look at Schiele's work through the prism of history-exposing its originality and technical excellence-and through the impact of his legacy on future artists, novelists, and filmmakers.

This visually stunning collection of landscape paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele brings to light a little-known aspect of this famous painter's oeuvre, proving that his mastery extends beyond his radical renditions of the human figure and revealing themes that appeared throughout his life's work. While Schiele is largely revered for his provocative paintings of women, these works were just one aspect of his artistic expression. Schiele's landscapes represent an important facet of his career and are a valuable contribution to the school of European nature painting.

The rise of digital photography is perhaps the most manifest legacy of the digital revolution in art. Through the use of sophisticated software and scanners, artists are able to enhance photographs, saturate them with colour, and create mesmerizing effects. Focusing exclusively on digital photography and its enormous varieties of technique and style being practiced today, Sylvia Wolf explores a genre that challenges our notions of the art and the role of the artist. This lavishly illustrated book takes readers from the earliest experiments in digital photography to the latest innovations. Wolf candidly discusses issues of authenticity and narrative and points to technological trends of the future. A global panoply of artists, including Andreas Gursky, Chris Jordan, Loretta Lux, and Lucas Samaras, demonstrates just how diverse and complex the field has become. Today as digital photography is being used by artists to portray unbridled consumption and warn of ecological disaster; as artists employ Photoshop, Google and their own programming skills to create software-cum-art objects; and as seasoned photographers turn from film to their laptops, this volume offers a riveting snapshot of a medium that is changing the way we look at pictures.

Part survey, part artist's book, this long-awaited look at the full range of Kiki Smith's photography allows that body of work to be recognized as an essential part of her working process and of the acclaimed body of work that includes her sculpture, installations, drawings, prints, and books. Over the three decades of her career, Smith has experimented with photography as a working tool, a means of personal expression and simply as a medium in which she can explore space, composition, colour and texture. I don't think my work is particularly about art, A Smith has said. It's really about me, being here in this life, in this skin. I'm cannibalizing my own experience, my surroundings. A Smith's selection of unseen photos for this book parallels the four concerns discussed in Elizabeth Brown's essay-studio process, reflecting and constructing identity, making stories and recording her own artworks-and allows us to intimately share her unique vision.

While Whiteread's public works-such as House, the monumental cast of a nineteenth-century terraced house in the East End of London that earned her the Turner Prize, Water Tower, which graced the skyline of downtown New York, and Untitled Monument in Trafalgar Square-are renowned, her works on paper have remained largely unknown to the general public. This book explores Whiteread's draftsmanship, a lesser-known yet fundamentally important aspect of the artist's creative process. My drawings are a diary of my work, A Whiteread explains, and like the passages in a diary her drawings range from fleeting ideas to laboured reflections. This book sheds light on the distinctive characteristics of her works on paper, such as their variegated textures, the subtle nuances of tone over coloured graph paper, and the play of imagery in collaged constructions. It presents exquisite reproductions of Whiteread's drawings, with essays by Allegra Pesenti and Ann Gallagher. A visual essay by Whiteread is a distinguishing feature of the volume, reflecting an installation of found and made objects gathered from various sources. Taken as a parallel to her sculpture or seen as a further dimension of her art, her drawings constitute a significant and defined area of Whiteread's remarkable career, one that deserves close attention and celebration.

This book explores the explosive arrival of modern art in Europe. Featuring 114 of some of the best-known works of modern art which draw millions of tourists to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, one of the great museums of 19th-century art. Famous works include van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles 1889, Gauguin's Tahitian women 1891, Cezanne's beloved Mount Saint-Victoire c 1890, as well as many other great examples of Post-Impressionist art.

Organized around the themes of models, monuments, and memorials-key subjects in Schutte's art-this volume offers a comprehensive selection of work from the late 1970s to today by an artist considered a key figure of his generation. Schutte's installations, sculptures, prints, drawings, and watercolours often take contradictory forms, and his art may seem to depict alien worlds. Yet his focus is everyday life, whose basic constituents-natural, cultural, political-he revises, using a broad range of materials and colours, while asking questions about the place of art in society. Schutte has long engaged with many of the traditional genres of sculpture-the reclining female figure and the commemorative portrait bust, for example-yet the results are utterly unconventional. A deeply contrarian spirit informs his approach, resulting in a transformation of standard and formulaic modes into singular statements that reflect on history, politics, social space, and collective experience. Together the works in this book comprise an impressive career marked by constant change and innovation.