Handmade In Africa Shedding light on the art of the 'Dark Continent' Art from the African continent occupies an unusual place in the concert of world cultures. Once considered "primitive" by colonial invaders, it has long since been recognized and acknowledged for its highly developed sense of design and aesthetics. Similarly, African art is often concerned with vital moral and ...

Color and clash: the height of German expressionism The "Brücke" (established in Dresden in 1905) is, together with the Blauer Reiter in Munich, the most important movement in German expressionism. Meaning “bridge” in German, “Brücke” refers to Nietzsche’s belief that humanity has the potential to make a bridge to a perfect future; more concretely, the movement formed a bridge ...

Treasures from the ancient land of the Pharaohs The art of ancient Egypt that has been handed down to us bears no names of its creators, and yet we value the creations of these unknown masters no less than the works of later centuries, such as statues by Michelangelo or the paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. The present volume introduces a series of such masterpieces, ranging from the Old Kingdom, or ...

During the first two decades of the 20th century, many artists famously experimented with nonrepresentational expression. Taking cues from ideas hinted as by artists such as El Greco, Goya, Van Gogh, and Munch, Expressionists sought to transform reality rather than depict it in any sort of literal fashion. Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky are among Expressionism's ...

The birth of the occidental concept of man The 18th century`s Neoclassicist movement, with its white marble sculptures inspired by the art of the ancient world, has helped Greek art to remain vivid in our memories even today. But the reality of ancient art was entirely different, as surfaces were in fact much more brut. As author Michael Siebler points out, recent findings have revealed that the ...

The birth of the occidental concept of man The 18th century`s Neoclassicist movement, with its white marble sculptures inspired by the art of the ancient world, has helped Greek art to remain vivid in our memories even today. But the reality of ancient art was entirely different, as surfaces were in fact much more brut. As author Michael Siebler points out, recent findings have revealed that the ...

Sacred paintings of the Christian Orthodox This historical survey covers some one-and-a-half millennia of Christian imagery and includes descriptions of selected masterpieces The icons in this book come from the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen, which possesses the most extensive and highest-quality icon collection outside the Orthodox world. Icons do not depict “details” of the earthly world, ...

Painting with light and color On April 15th, 1874, in the Parisian studio of photographer Nadar, was the opening of the first group exhibition that was uninhibited by government interference and the dictates of an official selection committee. This date has gone down in the annals of art history because it marks the birth of the Impressionism. Impressionistic paintings now rank among the most popular ...

The delicate splendour and fairytale beauty of Islamic art The art which arose from the 7th century in the Islamic empires reached from Spain and Morocco to the borders of China. It bore the stamp above all of Arabs, Persians and Turks, but outstanding contributions also came from Egypt and India. "Islamic Art" presents prominent examples: luxury ceramics, prayer mats, goldsmithery, as ...

In the mid-60s, artists in the USA and Europe began planning works for sites outside the narrow boundaries of galleries and museums. It began with ephemeral enhancements or traces left in deserted landscapes, in the deserts of America, or in the moors of Scotland. Following this were spectacular earthen sculptures of gigantic proportions, some of which are still in the process of completion today. ...

The landscape has been, for many centuries, one of the most important genres in painting. This book examines the landscape from the late Middle Ages to modern times, comprising a synopsis of the genre and covering a selection of the most important landscapes in the history of art. From Titian to Warhol, readers will discover the evolution of this popular genre.Artists featured (in chronological ...

Genuine ideas to express'. Sometimes considered the first avant-garde art movement, the Pre-Raphaelites rejected their era's dominant artistic theories for what they saw as a more spiritual, naturalistic and intensely personal approach. Fascinated by the romantic aspects of medieval culture and the vivid, jewel-like colors of Quattrocento art, the movement abhored the Classical poses and ...

Each book in Taschen's Basic Art movement and genre series includes a detailed introduction with approximately 30 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, sporting, etc.) that took place during the time period. The body of the book contains 35 of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full page image ...

The dramatic style of the 18th century Emerging out of Baroque as a more relaxed style, Rococo was dominant in interiors, decorative art, and painting throughout Europe in the 18th century. With sentiment and emotion prevailing over reason, Rococo was a dramatic and theatrical style. In the Parisian art world, gallant scenes by Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard predominated, along with the delicate ...

Out of the shadows: art and architecture of ancient Rome For a long time, Roman art was somewhat overshadowed by the art of ancient Greece. It was only in about 1900 that a search began for ancient Roman art and architecture. The foundations of Roman imagery were laid in the early days of the Empire under Emperor Augustus. The imperial court and the imperial family were role models for artistic style, ...