Showing titles in History & Criticism

Avido di piacere non meno che di conoscenza, Raffaello Sanzio intuisce molto presto che soltanto nella Roma libera, felice e sfrenatamente sensuale di Giulio II e Leone X il suo talento potrà essere apprezzato. Vi arriva venticinquenne, la incarna e la seduce diventando nel giro di pochi mesi la stella più brillante del suo firmamento intellettuale. La morte, a soli 37 anni, lascia la città nella disperazione che segue la scomparsa di un principe ammirato e amato.

Oscar Claude Monet, ossia l'impressionismo. Fu lui, infatti che si impose e che delineò con le sue opere, "impressioni su tela" destinate a diventare le capostipiti di una corrente artistica che divenne predominante tra la fine del 1800 e l'inizio del 1900. Di sicuro il dotatissimo ragazzo di Montmartre di origini modeste non poteva immaginare che la sua passione per la pittura, l'avrebbe reso celebre, e che le sue tele sarebbero diventate icone di bellezza in grado di suscitare ammirazione e di emozionare.

Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; "By A Lady" appears on the cover page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, both of age to marry. The novel follows the young women to their new home with their widowed mother, a meagre cottage on the property of a distant relative, where they experience love, romance, and heartbreak.

Women’s identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history’s classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles. In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images - from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites.

The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense—economic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of American culture in the pivotal years from the end of World War II to Vietnam and stresses the rich flow of ideas across the Atlantic.

Mythology Trilogy - three audiobooks in one! Greek mythology, Norse mythology, and Egyptian mythology.

Shortly after completing his searing work of nonfiction, The Return, Hisham Matar set off for Siena, a city he had never visited before. His plan was to see the paintings of the Sienese school, to immerse himself in the work of artists he admired perhaps above all others.

Si hiciésemos una encuesta para saber cuántos pintores conocemos, la mayoría consultada mencionaría a Goya, Velázquez o Van Gogh, pero con seguridad no se hallaría a ninguna mujer en esta lista. Como si no hubiesen existido, pero no es verdad, existieron muchas y excelentes pintoras. ¿Por qué no las conocemos? Porque a lo largo de los siglos han estado escondidas en conventos en el Medievo o dedicándose a labores domésticas en el Renacimiento o el Barroco.

Kenneth Clark was the grandest figure in the arts in Britain in the 20th century. Museum director, patron, pioneer of television, cultural panjandrum, he effortlessly dominated the art world for over half a century. Clark belonged to that stratum of society that used to be called "the top people" and was befriended by both the Queen Mother and Winston Churchill. His closest friendships, however, were amongst writers and artists, men such as John Betjeman, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and John Piper.

Somewhere within the iconic images, carefully made personae, star-studded milieu, million-dollar price tags and famous quotes lies the real Andy Warhol. But who was he? With Andy Warhol, Robert Shore unfolds the multi-dimensional Warhol, dissecting his existence as undisputed art-world hotshot, recreating the amazing circle that surrounded him, and tracing his path to stardom back through his early career and his awkward and unusual youth.

Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realised portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies he encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the world of the Henrician court, Holbein was a protean and multi-faceted genius.

The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century has often been called a decisive turning point in human history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new perspective on how to understand what happened then, arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much as rational thought played a critical role in creating new visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-opening discoveries.

This essay considers the major Cézanne exhibition at the Tate Gallery London, staged from 8th February until 28th April 1995. Rather than focusing exclusively on the artist's work, the piece attempts to place the exhibition in context, exploring the institutional arena of presentation and the social and economic strata to which the retrospective is mainly addressed.

La nascita di Venere di Sandro Botticelli è un'immagine senza tempo, espressione di un senso estetico astratto, che si rifà alla mitologia per proiettarsi in una dimensione eterna. Allo stesso tempo, quest'opera è forse l'espressione più compiuta di un ambiente sociale e culturale ben definito: la Firenze degli ultimi decenni del Quattrocento.

Walter Benjamin beschreibt in seinem berühmtesten Aufsatz Ursprung und Technik der Reproduktion von Kunstwerken und bietet damit die theoretische Basis für die Diskussion über die Vervielfältigung von Kunst in der Neuzeit.

Until the 20th century, art history was, in the main, written by white, western men who tended to write about other white, western men. The idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet, they have - and, of course, continue to do so - often against tremendous odds, from laws to religion and the pressures of family and public disapproval. Feminism has shaken up the story of art and, for the first time, cast light on the often-brilliant work by women artists who were often ignored, patronised or marginalised.

The Tazza Farnese is one of the most admired objects from classical antiquity. A libation bowl carved from banded agate, it features Medusa's head on its outside and, inside, an assembly of Egyptian gods. For more than two millennia, these radiant figures have mesmerized emperors and artists, popes and thieves, merchants and museum goers. In this, the first book-length account of this renowned masterpiece, Marina Belozerskaya traces its fascinating journey through history. That it has survived at all is a miracle.

As Hitler was attempting to conquer the western world, his armies were methodically pillaging the finest art in Europe, from Michelangelos to Vermeers, all stolen for the Führer. The Monuments Men had a mandate from President Roosevelt to find these artworks, but no vehicles, typewriters, or authority. In a race against time to save the world’s greatest cultural treasures from destruction at the hands of Nazi fanatics, each man constructed his own treasure map....

Leonardo da Vinci was a revolutionary thinker, artist, and inventor who has been written about and celebrated for centuries. Lesser known, however, is his revolutionary and empowering portrayal of the modern female centuries before the first women's liberation movements. Before da Vinci, portraits of women in Italy were still, impersonal, and mostly shown in profile. Leonardo pushed the boundaries of female depiction having several of his female subjects, including his Mona Lisa, gaze at the viewer, giving them an authority which was withheld from women at the time.

From the best-selling author of Natasha's Dance, The Europeans is a richly enthralling, panoramic cultural history of 19th-century Europe, told through the intertwined lives of three remarkable people: a great singer, Pauline Viardot, a great writer, Ivan Turgenev, and a great connoisseur, Pauline's husband, Louis. Their passionate, ambitious lives were bound up with an array of writers, composers and painters all trying to make their way through the exciting, prosperous and pan-European culture that came about as a result of huge economic and technological change.