Christo And Jeanne - Claude 40th Anniversary Edition

Prezentowany Czytelnikowi album w całości poświęcony został artystycznym wizerunkom ciała kobiecego, choć autorka w żaden sposób nie podziela opinii, że ciało męskie jest mniej atrakcyjne bądź mniej godne zainteresowania. Analiza tak okrojonego tematu stworzyła doskonała możliwość spojrzenia na akt kobiety wieloaspektowo, poprzez umiejscowienie go w kontekście nie tylko historycznym, ale i światopoglądowym, czy wręcz socjologicznym. Zaprezentowane w albumie bogactwo i różnorodność aktów kobiecych w polskim malarstwie może być dla Czytelnika przyjemnym zaskoczeniem. Nie tylko obala pogląd o naszej narodowej „niemożności“ w tym względzie, ale i potwierdza tezę o ponadczasowej i uniwersalnej jakości, jaką akt ze sobą niesie, o jego nieprzemijalnej atrakcyjności. Dla Autorki temat ten stał się okazją do refleksji na temat roli kobiety w społeczeństwie na przestrzeni wieków.

Largely self-taught as an artist, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) developed a unique ability to transform interior and unconscious impulses into figurative forms and intensely claustrophobic compositions. Emerging into notoriety in the period following World War II, Bacon took the human body as his nominal subject, but a subject ravaged, distorted, and dismembered so as to writhe with intense emotional content. With flailing limbs, hollow voids, and tumurous growths, his gripping, often grotesque, portraits are as much reflections on the trials and the traumas of the human condition as they are character studies. These haunting forms were also among the first in art history to depict overtly homosexual themes.

The essential reference on Salvador Dalí’s painted oeuvre At the age of six, Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) wanted to be a cook. At the age of seven, he wanted to be Napoleon. “Since then,” he later said, “my ambition has steadily grown, and my megalomania with it. Now I want only to be Salvador Dalí, I have no greater wish.” Throughout his life, Dalí was out to become Dalí: that is, one of the most significant artists and eccentrics of the 20th century. This weighty volume is the most complete study of Dalí’s painted works ever published. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret located painted works by the master that had been inaccessible for years—so many, in fact, that almost half the featured illustrations appear in public for the first time in this book. More than a catalogue raisonné, this book contextualizes Dalí’s oeuvre and its meanings by examining contemporary documents, from writings and drawings to material from other facets of his work, including ballet, cinema, fashion, advertising, and objets d’art. Without these crutches to support analysis, the paintings would simply be a series of many images. The study is divided into two parts: the first examines Dalí’s beginnings as an unknown artist. We witness how the young Dalí deployed all the isms—Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Fauvism, Purism and Futurism—with playful mastery, and how he would borrow from prevailing trends before ridiculing and abandoning them. The second part unveils the conclusions of Dalí’s lifelong inquiries, as well as the great legacy he left in works such as Tuna Fishing (1966/67) or Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970). It includes previously unpublished homages to Velázquez or Michelangelo, painted to the same end as the variations on past masters done by his contemporary, Picasso. We discover how, motivated by the desire to tease out the secrets of great works and become a Velázquez of the mid-20th century, Dalí became Dalí.

Przeżywanie macierzyństwa jako powołania nie było nigdy łatwe, a obecnie jest trudniejsze niż kiedykolwiek. Kościół ukazuje nam wiele przykładów świętych matek (św. Monika, św. Zelia Martin, czy św. Joanna Beretta Molla), których życie stało się świadectwem przeżywania wiary przez pryzmat macierzyństwa. Autorka podpowiada jak przygotować się do roli matki, zachęca też kobiety do spojrzenia na siebie w zupełnie nowej perspektywie: jako żony, córki swoich rodziców, czy dziecka Bożego. Dzieli się również swoim doświadczeniem jak rozmawiać ze swoimi dziećmi, jak pozwolić im odejść i się usamodzielnić oraz jak się za nie modlić. Nie zapomina w tym wszystkim o aspekcie duchowym. Każdy rozdział został opatrzony propozycją tekstu do modlitwy osobistej i pytaniami do refleksji.

The city of Florence is both an art form in itself and an open-air museum. The one hundred and forty photographs in Florence illustrate the beauty of this ancient city and provide a complete picture of its artistic treasures. The text by historian Mario Scalini provides insight into each work and contextualizes it within the story of the artists and their relationship to their patrons. Florence is a book you will return to again and again to delight in the beauty of the city and the majesty of its art.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world," ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and came to characterize the Western world's visual idea of Japan. In many ways images of hedonism, ukiyo-e scenes often represented the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo): beautiful women, actors and wrestlers, city life, and spectacular landscapes. Though he captured a variety of subjects, Hiroshige was most famous for landscapes, with a final masterpiece series known as "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" (1856-1858), which depicted various scenes of the city through the seasons, from bustling shopping streets to splendid cherry orchards. This reprint is made from one of the finest complete original sets of woodblock prints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo. It pairs each of the 120 illustrations with a description, allowing readers to immerse themselves in these beautiful, vibrant vistas that became paradigms of Japonisme and inspired Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau artists alike, from Vincent van Gogh to James McNeill Whistler.