Michelangelo (Basic Art Series 2.0)

In the latter half of the 19th century, in the verdant countryside near Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), busily plied his brush to landscapes and still lifes that would become anchors of modern art. With compact, intense dabs of paint and bold new approaches to light and space, he mediated the way from Impressionism to the defining movements of the early 20th century and became, in the words of both Matisse and Picasso, `father of us all.`This fresh artist introduction selects key works from Cezanne`s oeuvre to understand his development, innovation, and crucial influence on modern art. From compositions of fruits and pears to scenes of outdoor bathers, we trace his experimentation with color, perspective, and texture to evoke `a harmony parallel to Nature,` as well as the very p...

From his royal court portraits to horrific scenes of conflict, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes remains one of Spain`s most revered and startling artists. With key works from throughout his career, this vivid introduction explores Goya`s mastery of form and light and varied, daring subjects.

Painter, inventor, architect, scientist, and engineer: Leonardo da Vinci stands to this day as one of the most accomplished human beings ever to have lived. Whether the smallest arteries of the human heart, exquisite biblical scenes, or far-flung constellations of the universe, explore his insatiable quest for knowledge, invention, and beauty.

A hairless, ghostly figure on a bridge. The sky orange-red above him. His hands raised to his ears, his mouth wide in a haunting wail. In painting The Scream, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) created Mona Lisa for our times. The shriek of his iconic figure reverberates around the world, its echo resounding in the work of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, and Tracey Emin. This introductory book surveys Munch`s staggering capacity for psychodrama in The Scream and beyond. With rich illustration, it looks at the lurid, dark, and deeply modern visions that made up the artist`s response to relationships and emotions. These compelling images, regarded by the artist himself as a means of `free confession,` remain as magnetic today as they were on the brink of modernism.

Dance class: The master of bodies in motionMost commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834 1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, the body in motion, and everyday urban life.The elder scion of a wealthy family, Degas cofounded a series of exhibitions of Impressionist art, but soon disassociated himself from the group in pursuit of a more realist approach. His subjects centered on the teeming, noisy streets of Paris, as well as its leisure entertainments, such as horse racing, cabarets, and, most particularly, ballet. With often ambitious, off-kilter vantage points, his images of ballerinas numbered approximately 1,500 works, all deeply invested in t...

Nowe, brawurowe tłumaczenie jednej z najważniejszych powieści na świecie Lena jest w dziewiątym miesiącu ciąży i od czterech tygodni wędruje w poszukiwaniu ojca swojego dziecka. Do Jefferson trafia akurat w momencie, kiedy płonie dom panny Burden. Po miasteczku krążą rozmaite opowieści o Joe Christmasie, który mieszkał na terenie tej posiadłości. Nikt nie zna szczegółów jego życia. Mężczyzna ma białą skórę, ale podejrzewa, że w jego żyłach płynie czarna krew. To podejrzenie determinuje całe jego życie. W dusznej i przytłaczającej atmosferze małego miasteczka rozgrywa się historia, w której losy mieszkańców i obcego łączą się ze sobą w najmniej oczywisty sposób. To uniwersalna opowieść o grzechu i naznaczeniu, okondycji człowieka, jego pragn...

To się zdarzyło w wielu krajach: seryjny morderca, który w przewrotny sposób staje się symbolem swojej epoki i demaskuje jej mroczne oblicze. We Włoszech był nim Potwór z Florencji. Jego sława przekroczyła granice Italii, a zabójstwa i prowadzone śledztwo inspirowały Thomasa Harrisa przy pisaniu Hannibala. Wszystko zaczyna się w 1974 roku: na wzgórzach pod Florencją ktoś brutalnie morduje parę, która uprawia seks w samochodzie. Do 1985 roku w identycznych okolicznościach ginie kolejne dwanaście osób. Rozpoczyna się najdłuższe i najdroższe śledztwo w historii Włoch. O udział w zbrodniach podejrzanych jest prawie sto tysięcy mężczyzn, zatrzymanych zostaje kilkunastu, ale trzeba ich zwolnić, bo w tym samym czasie Potwór atakuje ponownie. Plotki i fałszywe o...

Informacja czy propaganda? Michał Rusinek rozbraja język polityków (nie tylko przed wyborami) „Dziady” i dziadersi. Odmieniane przez wszystkie przypadki lex Czarnek i Polski Ład. Wojna. Dobra zmiana? Słowa, które docierają do naszych uszu ze wszystkich stron. Zakażają rozmowy przy stole, przenikają niepostrzeżenie do języka dzieci, zniekształcają widzenie świata. Jak się przed nimi bronić? Myśleć samodzielnie i nie dać się uśpić. Michał Rusinek od lat uważnie wsłuchuje się w język polityków, wyjaśnia rządzące nim mechanizmy i alarmuje, byśmy sami byli czujni. Wie, że manipulacji w przestrzeni publicznej nie da się za bardzo zmierzyć (chyba że w sasinach), ale przekonuje, że można ją zdemaskować i rozbroić. Czy nauczy nas to odróżniać informa...

Miłośnicy prostoty języka i surrealistycznej wyobraźni Jacka Napiórkowskiego aż siedem lat czekali na nowy tomik jego wierszy. Udając jednorożce to zbiór około trzydziestu tekstów, w których świat rozsypuje się na kawałki i układa na nowo w abstrakcyjne, nadrealistyczne obrazy. To poezja pozornie lekka – autor nie szuka jednoznacznych odpowiedzi, raczej namawia, by zanurzyć się w życiu, skupić się na doświadczaniu różnych stanów świadomości i poczuć, jak „bilans staje się balansem”. W tomie znajdziemy również teksty, które możemy uznać za – w nieoczywisty, charakterystyczny dla Napiórkowskiego sposób – zaangażowane. Pojawiają się w nich wątki społeczne i ekologiczne czy też dezyderaty dotyczące sztuki dobrego życia: Do *** Ziemiórki ś...

Najlepszy podręcznik wprowadzający w problematykę współczesnej psychologii! Prezentuje wiedzę z całego zakresu psychologii – od biologicznych podstaw zachowania przez analizę motywacji i inteligencji po zagadnienia psychologii społecznej. Jest znany na całym świecie – przetłumaczony na 10 języków, w tym chiński, japoński, rosyjski, hiszpański, niemiecki. Bogato ilustrowany, w ciekawej szacie edytorskiej, udoskonalony i unowocześniony pozostaje wzorem podręcznika akademickiego: wszechstronnego, ciekawego i przystępnego. Nowe, zmienione wydanie książki powstało we współpracy Philipa G. Zimbardo z młodszym kolegą Richardem J. Gerrigiem. Niezwykle szybki rozwój badań i teorii w ramach dziedziny skłonił autorów do wprowadzenia w nowym wydaniu, wielu zmian i u...

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics-and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination.

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics-and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination.

Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Edouard Manet (1832-1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Manet`s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city`s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Dejeuner sur l`herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian`s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal. This richly illustrated book introduces Manet`s work an...

The unfading popularity of Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) attests not only to the particular appeal of his luxuriant painting but also to the universal themes with which he worked: love, feminine beauty, aging, and death. The son of a goldsmith, Klimt created surfaces of ornate and jewel-like luminosity which show the influence of both Egyptian and Japanese art. Through paintings, murals, and friezes, his work is defined by radiant color, fluid lines, floral elements, and mosaic-like patterning. With subjects ranging from sensuality and desire to anxiety and despair, all this iridescence is also suffused with feeling. Klimt`s numerous images of women, characterized by curvaceous forms, tender flesh, red lips, and flushed cheeks, were particularly charged with passion, at a time when such frank...

A revolution in painting The Baroque genius who electrified art history Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 1610) was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of the Italian Baroque, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial, violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. Though famed for his dramatic use of color, light, and shadow, it was above all Caravaggio`s boundary-breaking naturalism which scorched his name into the annals of art history. From the dirtied soles of feet to the sexualised languor of bare flesh, the artist allowed even sacred and biblical scenes to unfold with a startling, often visceral humanity. This vivid pictorial world was accompanied by an equally intense personal biography, scored by gambling, debt...

After flirtations with Realism, Impressionism, and Symbolism, Kiev-born Kazimir Malevich (1878?1935) found his métier in dissolving literal, representational figures and landscapes into pure emotionally-charged abstraction. In 1915, he created what is widely lauded as the first and ultimate abstract artwork: Black Square, a black rectangle on a white background, hailed as the ?zero point of painting,? a seminal moment for modern and abstract practice. In this book, we follow Malevich?s key innovations and ideas and place his groundbreaking achievements within the context of both the Russian and global avant-garde. Through rich illustrations of his work, we explore the artist?s theory of Suprematism, based on severe geometric abstraction and ?the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art?;...

Tamara de Lempicka (1898?1980) lived art in the fast lane. With an appetite for glamour and fame as much as Left Bank bohemianism, she fled her native Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and set about taking Paris by storm. Her prolific, monumental oeuvre remains one of the most vivid visual documents of 1920s Art Deco. De Lempicka?s style deployed cool colors and tight post-cubist forms into an at once neoclassical and voluptuous figuration. Her subjects are often nude and always sensual, aloof, and powerful. Bedecked in seductive light and textures, they command our attention but typically avert their gaze with an aspect of haughty grandeur. They include both high-society patrons and progressive portraits of emancipated and lesbian women, such as Women Bathing and Portrait of Suzy Soli...

Henri Matisse (1869?1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941, increasing frailty, and the confines of a wheelchair, the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art. With what he called une seconde vie, a second life, he embarked on a remarkable collage period, cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into gouaches découpées of birds, plants, flowers, and the female form. Emphasizing color and contrast, the cut-out technique generated both striking lines and vivid juxtapositions. In works such as Icarus (1943), The Blue Nude (1952), The Snail (1953), and The Sheaf (1953), clean forms and elemental structures power a compositional force that belies the work?s decorative appeal, at once tightly organized and infectious with joie de vivre. As his wo...

The most comprehensive retrospective of Renoir?s work Pierre-Auguste Renoir?s (1841?1919) timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history?s most well-loved painters?undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good spirit. In an incisive text tracing the artist?s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret shows how Reno...