Yale University Press

In 1878, at age 25, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) arrived in the area of Belgium known as the Borinage to work as a Protestant evangelist in rural coal mining communities. He failed in that vocation, and after months of soul-searching, in August 1880, he decided to become an artist. This fascinating publication is the first to examine Van Gogh's time in the Borinage and his artistic development in the following years, when he created his first original works. Vivid essays tell the story of Van Gogh's life in the mining towns, and the effect this environment had on his way of thinking and seeing the world. Augmenting the text are excerpts from letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from the Borinage, in which he describes his desire to sketch, and prints that he modeled after masterworks by artists such as Jean-Francois Millet. Other essays trace Van Gogh's development as an artist in subsequent years, including his move to Brussels to fully pursue life as an artist. Thought-provoking examinations of works that Van Gogh completed after leaving the Borinage demonstrate how motifs that he developed there-rustic dwellings, laborers, agriculture, nature-became themes that spanned his entire oeuvre.

With his landmark 1919 painting The City, Fernand Leger (1881-1955) inaugurated a vitally experimental decade during which he and others redefined the practice of painting in confrontation with the forms of cultural production that were central to urban life, ranging from graphic and advertising design to theater, dance, film, and architecture. This catalogue casts new light on the painting (reproducing all of its studies together for the first time), the avant-garde use of print media, and Leger's fascination with cinema and architecture, and contextualizes a network of international avant-gardes — including Blaise Cendrars, Le Corbusier, Jean Epstein, Piet Mondrian, Amedee Ozenfant, Francis Picabia, and Theo van Doesburg — in relation to Leger. Featuring nearly 250 images of paintings, architectural designs, models, posters, set designs, and film stills and an anthology of relevant historical texts not previously published in English, this handsome volume conveys the spirit of experimentation of the 1920s. Scholars in the fields of art, architecture, and film history offer a deeper understanding of the relationship between art and the modern urban experience that defined this significant chapter in the history of modern art.

This groundbreaking publication centers on a previously unknown variation of Eugene Delacroix's (1798-1863) dramatic masterpiece The Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, published here for the first time. This book offers a compelling reassessment of the relationship of the artist, widely consider a primary exemplar of Romanticism, to Neoclassical themes, as demonstrated by his life-long fascination with the death of Marcus Aurelius. Through this investigation, the authors reinterpret Delacroix's lineage to such fellow artists as Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). Playing on the various interpretations of the word finish, the book also offers a fascinating account of Delacroix's famously troubled collaboration with his studio assistants, his conflicted feelings about pedagogy, and his preoccupation with the fate of civilizations.

The National Gallery, London is home to a world-renowned collection of Dutch paintings that includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Cuyp and Ruisdael, among many others. Still lifes painted with painstaking attention to detail, sublime landscapes, vividly human portraits and intimate interiors: these beloved pictures tell the story of the Dutch Golden Age, when art, science and trade thrived. Now the National Gallery's popular 2007 guide to the collection has been revised, featuring an elegant new design and an extended introduction that examines why painting flourished in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, and why it is so enduringly popular today. Striking image details enhance the book, and updated, informative texts accompany each work. Accessible and illuminating, this guide is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Dutch painting.

Although originally published separately, Patrick Modiano's three novellas form a single, compelling whole, haunted by the same gauzy sense of place and characters. Modiano draws on his own experiences, blended with the real or invented stories of others, to present a kind of autobiography, but one that is also the biography of a place. Orphaned children, mysterious parents, forgotten friends, enigmatic strangers — all appear in this three-part love song to a Paris that no longer exists. In this superb English-language translation of Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin, Mark Polizzotti captures not only Modiano's distinctive narrative voice but also the matchless grace and spare beauty of his prose. Shadowed by the dark period of the Nazi Occupation of France, these novellas reveal Modiano's fascination with the lost, obscure, or mysterious: a young person's confusion over adult behavior; the repercussions of a chance encounter; the search for a missing father; the aftershock of a fatal affair. To read Modiano's trilogy is to enter his world of uncertainties and the almost accidental way in which people find their fates.

The aftereffects of the February 2014 Uprising in Ukraine are still reverberating around the world. The consequences of the popular rebellion and Russian President Putin's attempt to strangle it remain uncertain. In this book, Andrew Wilson combines a spellbinding, on-the-scene account of the Kiev Uprising with a deeply informed analysis of what precipitated the events, what has developed in subsequent months, and why the story is far from over. Wilson situates Ukraine's February insurgence within Russia's expansionist ambitions throughout the previous decade. He reveals how President Putin's extravagant spending to develop soft power in all parts of Europe was aided by wishful thinking in the EU and American diplomatic inattention, and how Putin's agenda continues to be widely misunderstood in the West. The author then examines events in the wake of the Uprising-the military coup in Crimea, the election of President Petro Poroshenko, the Malaysia Airlines tragedy, rising tensions among all of Russia's neighbors, both friend and foe, and more. Ukraine Crisis provides an important, accurate record of events that unfolded in Ukraine in 2014. It also rings a clear warning that the unresolved problems of the region have implications well beyond Ukrainian borders.

This book tells the story of Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca (1411/13-1492) by focusing on four paintings he created over the span of his career. It also provides the first study of his small-scale devotional paintings, including the exquisite Saint Jerome and a Donor. One of today's most prominent scholars narrates the painting's mysterious history and uncovers new insights gleaned during its recent study and restoration. The authors explore the relationship between this painting and other works made by Piero for private devotion, including one of his last and most striking paintings, the magnificent Madonna di Senigallia. New research describes the complex relationships between Piero and his patrons and other contemporaries. This book brims with revelatory details about Piero's work that will intrigue both casual readers and devoted fans of the artist, and will form a gateway to a larger analysis of Piero's overall body of work.

Cezanne and the Modern showcases fifty masterworks of late 19th-to mid-20th-century avant-garde European art from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection, one of the most distinguished private collections of modern art in the United States. Among the iconic images represented are Paul Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire (ca. 1902), Vincent van Gogh's Tarascon Stagecoach (1888), and Amedeo Modigliani's portrait of Jean Cocteau (1916-17), as well as an outstanding suite of sixteen watercolors by Cezanne. The volume opens with Henry Pearlman's Reminiscences of a Collector, a fascinating first-person narrative, newly annotated to identify key individuals and dates mentioned in the text. An essay by art historian Rachael Z. DeLue places Pearlman in the context of mid-20th-century American collecting, and a detailed chronology illuminates Pearlman's collecting practices in relation to noteworthy events in the art world. A series of fifteen brief essays by leading scholars focuses on each of the represented artists and their works, richly illustrated with sumptuous color plates, select details, and numerous comparative images.

Traces the origins and growth of modern art, assessing the intrinsic qualities of individual works and describing the social forces in play. The book covers various areas including works of Impressionism, Cubism, Constructivism and Surrealism.

Noted for its vivid colors, elaborate use of symbols, and dedication to close observation of the natural world, the work of Pre-Raphaelite artists combines a deep engagement with the past and a modern realism that exemplifies the concerns of the age of steam travel. In Reading the Pre-Raphaelites, author Tim Barringer draws on an imaginative selection of paintings, drawings, and photographs to suggest that the dynamic energy of Pre-Raphaelitism arose out of the paradoxes at its heart. Past and present, historicism and modernity, symbolism and realism, as well as the tensions between city and country, men and women, worker and capitalist, colonizer and colonized all make appearances within Pre-Raphaelite art. By focusing on these issues, Barringer draws together the strands of revisionist thought on the Pre-Raphaelites and provides a range of stimulating new interpretations of their work. Beautifully illustrated, the revised edition of this authoritative survey traces the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and includes new sections on photography as well as a revised introduction and bibliography.

Although separated by time, Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli — both Italian, both feminists — share striking affinities in terms of their design strategies and fashion manifestoes. Presented as an intimate «conversation», Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations aims to tease out formal and conceptual similarities between the two designers. Striking photographs and insightful texts illustrate the parallels between the two, including their preferences for interesting textiles and prints, eccentric color palettes, and a bold and playful approach to styling and accessories. Schiaparelli, in the 1920s through 50s, and Prada, from the late 1980s to today, exploited the narrative possibilities of prints, sought out unconventional textiles, played with ideas of good and bad taste, and manipulated scale for surrealistic outcomes. Contemporary art plays a major role in the work of these inventive women — Schiaparelli in her famous collaborations with Dali and Cocteau, and Prada via her Fondazione Prada. Blending the historic with the contemporary, the catalogue brings the masterworks of both designers together into a grand conversation between the most important women fashion designers to ever emerge from Italy.

She is one of the — if not the — most stylish women living, says designer and film director Tom Ford, speaking of Daphne Guinness, the subject and co-author of this extraordinary book. From her platinum-and-black striped hair to her towering 10-inch heels, her to-die-for couture collection and amazing diamond jewelry, Daphne Guinness embodies the rarified, personal style of a true fashion icon. A designer, editor, model, muse, and stylist, Ms. Guinness is renowned for the way she uses fashion to transform herself. As her friend, the art historian John Richardson puts it: She is the object of her own creativity. Her persona is her own masterpiece. Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel, Valentino, Azzedine Alaia, and the late Alexander McQueen are among the many great fashion designers whose spectacular garments form part of Daphne Guinness's personal collection of haute couture. But Ms. Guinness is far more than a great couture client, she is also an inspiration to designers because of her fearless personal style. In an extended interview with the curator and fashion historian Valerie Steele, Daphne Guinness explains the origins and characteristics of her style. She also discusses her friendships and collaborations with other creative fashion personalities from the late Isabella Blow to the photographer Steven Klein and the jeweler Shaun Leane. Sumptuously illustrated with both high-fashion photographs and paparazzi shots, the book is a spectacular showcase for the world of Daphne Guinness.

The brilliantly expressive clay models created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) as sketches for his works in marble offer extraordinary insights into his creative imagination. Although long admired, the terracotta models have never been the subject of such detailed examination. This publication presents a wealth of new discoveries (including evidence of the artist's fingerprints imprinted on the clay), resolving lingering issues of attribution while giving readers a vivid sense of how the artist and his assistants fulfilled a steady stream of monumental commissions. Essays describe Bernini's education as a modeler; his approach to preparatory drawings; his use of assistants; and the response to his models by 17th-century collectors. Extensive research by conservators and art historians explores the different types of models created in Bernini's workshop. Richly illustrated, Bernini transforms our understanding of the sculptor and his distinctive and fascinating working methods.

From 1900 to 1907, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) traveled considerably, visiting the Alps, Italy, Spain, Norway, and Palestine. In Palestine in 1905, he painted a significant group of oils and watercolors as well as a group of studies of the Bedouin. It was during this burst of artistic production that he painted The Mountains of Moab (Tate Gallery, London), which was the first pure landscape he ever exhibited (Royal Academy, 1906). In Italy and Spain, Sargent painted parks, gardens, fountains, and statues, subjects that reveal his taste for the high style of Renaissance and Mannerist art and for the romantic grandeur of deserted spaces. As evidenced by the works in this new volume, Sargent reinvented himself as a landscape painter during his travels. Expressing a finely developed sense of modernity, he selected quirky angles of vision and used a range of compositional strategies — compression, foreshortening, abrupt croppings, and receding perspectives — in a manner that is quasi-photographic. He exploited the material qualities of pigment, and the impasto is often so thickly applied that figure and landscape seem to dissolve together creating rich, near abstract surface patterns. The restless handling and dynamic compositional rhythms act in creative tension with the artist's more traditional subject matter, generating notions of instability and ambiguity that are distinctly modern in character.

Self-portraiture is a challenging and complicated subject for any artist. Many fascinating and daunting questions emerge: if an artist is also the subject of the work, is there a conflict of interest? Or does self-portraiture afford an artist the opportunity to explore more freely the significance and meaning of his own presence within the world? And, what do these works actually tell us about an artist? Throughout his career, the preeminent photographer Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) has taken on the challenge of self-portraiture. In this extraordinary book, we experience the full range of Friedlander's photography, from his early works to recent photographs taken of the artist with his family.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the most famous and controversial artists of the twentieth century. This title focuses on Dali's work after 1940, presenting it as a multifaceted oeuvre that simultaneously drew inspiration from the Old Masters and the contemporary world.

This study presents an analysis of the lasting influence of the Spanish Empire in the history of early modern Europe and of its place in the European and Spanish-American political imagination.

Set against the backdrop of imperial Russia, this tale of forbidden romance is the stuff of a great historical novel. It presents the account of the love between Count Nicholas Sheremetev, Russia's richest aristocrat, and Praskovia Kovalyova, his serf and the greatest opera diva of her time.

Today's photography is part of our own cultural moment, but it also arises from artistic traditions of the past. Seduced by Art looks at the effects of art and its history on the creation of photographs, tracing continuities in aims, visual style, and technical experimentation. This sumptuous book shows how photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron sought to elevate the status of their work by referencing Old Masters. Similarly, contemporary practitioners look to their photographic predecessors, as well as art history, for inspiration. Among the many photographers featured are Ori Gersht, Luc Delahaye, Thomas Struth, Tom Hunter, and Helen Chadwick, and paintings from Caravaggio, Zurbaran, Delacroix, Ingres, Constable, and others. Each chapter takes a genre — portraiture, the nude, still life, and landscape — and discusses the challenges that each poses for photographers. Interviews with Tina Barney, Rineke Dijkstra, Richard Billingham, Richard Learoyd and Maisie Maud Broadhead focus in-depth on contemporary working practices.

This fabulously illustrated book explores western culture's fascination with extravagant and fashionable shoes. Over the past decade, shoe design has become increasingly central to fashion, with fashion companies paying ever more attention to shoes and other accessories. High-heeled shoes, in particular, have become the fashion accessory of the 21st century. Co-written by one of the world's leading historians of fashion and an authority on fashion accessories, the book features approximately 150 pairs of the most extreme and ultra-fashionable styles of the past 12 years, including work by such prominent designers as Manolo Blahnik, Pierre Hardy, Christian Louboutin and Bruno Frisoni for Roger Vivier, as well as shoes by influential design houses such as Azzedine Alaia, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, and Prada. Avant-garde styles by up-and-coming designers such as Japan's Kei Kagami and Noritaka Tatehana are also highlighted. Shoe Obsession examines recent extreme and fantastical shoe styles in relation to the history of high heels, the role of shoes as a reflection of their wearers' personality traits, and the importance of shoes in art and exhibitions. The book is lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs of spectacular contemporary shoe designs.

This beautifully illustrated catalogue showcases 126 Spanish and Portuguese artworks from the 17th and 18th centuries, all highlights from the dazzling collection of Roberta and Richard Huber. Featuring works in a variety of media and from far-flung places, including paintings, silver, and furniture from South America and sculptures in ivory from the Spanish Philippines and from Portuguese territories in India. Distinguished experts shed light on these significant objects, many of which have not been previously published and which illustrate the unparalleled artistic exchanges between and within these colonial empires. The Andean painters Melchor Perez Holguin (1660-1732) and Gaspar Miguel de Berrio (c. 1706-c. 1762) inventively interpreted European iconographies, while similar adaptations took place in Asia, where native craftsmen carved Christian images in ivory. These works travelled along the trade routes connecting Europe to Asia and the Americas, thus influencing the development of a new visual culture.

The Edwardian age was as brief as the Victorian era that preceded it was long. It has been depicted as an indolent summer afternoon of imperial and elite complacency, but also as a period of rapid political, economic, and artistic change, culminating in the First World War. This magnificent book explores themes of power, nostalgia, and a contrasting lightness of touch that characterized the period. Issues of creation, consumption, and display are examined through a range of objects, including portraits by Sargent and Boldini, diamond tiaras and ostrich-feather fans, jewel-like Autochrome color photography, and a spectacular embroidered gown that belonged to the American-born Vicereine of India. Spanning divides of class and geography, this book identifies opulence and leisure as driving forces for the domestic and imperial British economic engine in the early years of the 20th century.

What is it to be a work of art? Renowned author and critic Arthur C. Danto addresses this fundamental, complex question. Part philosophical monograph and part memoiristic meditation, What Art Is challenges the popular interpretation that art is an indefinable concept, instead bringing to light the properties that constitute universal meaning. Danto argues that despite varied approaches, a work of art is always defined by two essential criteria: meaning and embodiment, as well as one additional criterion contributed by the viewer: interpretation. Danto crafts his argument in an accessible manner that engages with both philosophy and art across genres and eras, beginning with Plato's definition of art in The Republic, and continuing through the progress of art as a series of discoveries, including such innovations as perspective, chiaroscuro, and physiognomy. Danto concludes with a fascinating discussion of Andy Warhol's famous shipping cartons, which are visually indistinguishable from the everyday objects they represent. Throughout, Danto considers the contributions of philosophers including Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, and artists from Michelangelo and Poussin to Duchamp and Warhol, in this far-reaching examination of the interconnectivity and universality of aesthetic production.

This informative and engaging book on the Museum's outstanding collection of Etruscan art also provides an introduction to the fascinating and diverse culture of ancient Etruria, which thrived in central Italy from about 900 to 100 B.C. Masterpieces of the collection include seventh-century B.C. objects from the Monteleone di Spoleto tomb group (including the famous, remarkably well-preserved, bronze chariot), intricate gold jewellery, carved gems, and wonderful ambers. For the first time in more than 70 years, this incredible body of work is published in an informative and engaging book that draws upon decades of exhaustive research. Etruscan Art opens with short histories of pre-Roman Italy, Etruscan Studies, and the Metropolitan's collection, followed by chronological analyses of tomb groups, types of objects, and individual objects. The closing section features forgeries, pastiches, and objects of uncertain authenticity, all previously thought to be genuine. Richard De Puma, one of the foremost experts on Etruscan art, provides an invaluable new contribution to the study of ancient Italy.