Showing titles in History & Criticism

Who are the Medici brothers? And who is trying to assassinate them? Why was the Pitti Palace never completed? And what part did Leonardo play in all of this? Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as an artist and inventor. But who was he before anyone knew his name? This family-friendly novel explores the history and the legends of his early years in Florence. It also weaves a mystery of politics and power.

La storia dell'arte può essere raccontata da tanti punti di vista: attraverso le tecniche, i movimenti, le committenze, i linguaggi o gli stili. Questo audiolibro sceglie un'altra strada. Ci invita a compiere un viaggio nel tempo, dall'antichità ad oggi, per scoprire come gli artisti hanno rappresentato le emozioni, quelle che si annidano nei nostri stati d'animo più ineffabili e affascinanti.

La saga des Médicis, sous la plume du grand Dumas. Les Médicis sont une des familles les plus riches et les plus influentes de Florence. Des ressources financières considérables leur permirent d'investir dans l'architecture, la sculpture, la peinture mais aussi dans la collection de pierres précieuses et d'objets d'orfèvrerie. La maison de Médicis est apparue, au XIIe siècle, au sein de la République de Florence, et devient, au XVIe siècle, la famille régnant sur le grand-duché de Toscane.

Qu'est-ce que l'art ? Comment s'est-il constitué et défini à travers l'histoire ? Quels rapports entretient-il avec la philosophie ?

Inner growth and healing through art Why artists get stuck Finding yourself through art Traps that artists fall into Art and sex The three stages of art In this highly original work, John Ruskan explores the intricacies of feeling-oriented art. He presents radical insights about the nature of the art process that explain exactly what it is that artists do, how they can do it better, and how to make art an essential route to enlightenment through revealing and integrating the personal subconscious. This book is not just a rehash of old art therapy principles, but breaks new ground in the ...

Fragile Cargo will share the as-yet-untold story of the brave people who saved China's art from the ravages of the Second World War, undertaking a perilous journey across the vast country in order to protect these fragile treasures. After the end of the war, and the beginning of the Communist regime, the Forbidden City curators were each faced with a stark choice: remain with their rescued artefacts in China, or flee with them to Taiwan. Depending on their choice, the curators' fates took startlingly different, sometimes heart-breaking turns.

Hidden Hands tells the stories of the artisans, artists, scribes and readers, patrons and collectors who made and kept the beautiful, fragile objects that have survived the ravages of fire, water and deliberate destruction to form a picture of both English culture and the wider European culture of which it is part. Without manuscripts, she shows, many historical figures would be lost to us, as well as those of lower social status, women and people of colour, their stories erased and the remnants of their labours destroyed.

Ascolta e scopri il capolavoro del pittore olandese. Quando pensiamo a Hieronymus Bosch ci viene subito in mente il genere fantastico. Il carattere distintivo essenziale di Bosch, rispetto a tanti altri artisti del suo tempo, è la vivacissima immaginazione che lo portò a popolare le sue opere con creature strane, allo stesso modo bizzarre e spaventose, tali da colpire l'attenzione di chi guarda.

L'Ultima Cena o Il Cenacolo è una delle opere più grandiose, per dimensioni e complessità, dell'artista-scienziato che da sempre incuriosisce e appassiona per il suo genio e per il fascino della sua personalità: Leonardo da Vinci. Nell'ex-refettorio del convento di Santa Maria delle Grazie a Milano, si trova il dipinto parietale raffigurante l'ultima cena di Cristo, composto tra il 1494 e il 1498 su incarico di Ludovico il Moro.

La Dama con l'ermellino è uno dei dipinti più famosi e conosciuti di Leonardo. Realizzato durante il suo primo soggiorno milanese, tra il 1482 e il 1499, in questo ritratto l'artista offre una molteplicità di suggestioni e fini giochi allusivi attraverso la semplice immagine di un'affascinante dama raffigurata con delica-tezza ed eleganza.

Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of Turner by Franny Moyle, read by John Sackville. J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life.

Of all the self-doubting people in the world, nobody, it seems, doubts themselves more than creative people. Whether creating code for a new application, painting a mural, forging a new way forward in business, or writing a book, creatives tend to suffer from more self-doubt than other humans. Because, while creativity is demanded, it is rarely respected. Many fear the power of creative influence because they fear the unknown.

Colour unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book, part travelogue part narrative history, remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple.

A historical fiction book set in Paris, France, during the mid to late 19th century.Immerse yourself in the vibrant and eclectic world of Paris's Latin Quarter with The Unstable Musician. This richly detailed narrative incorporates elements of artistry, love, camaraderie, and the tragic complexity of ambition and passion. The Tale BeginsEmbark on a journey with three young English artists whose lives become intertwined amidst the hustle and bustle of Paris's burgeoning art scene. Experience the rich blend of British and French influences as they set up their eclectic studio, a testament to ...

Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the 21st century. Now, a new collection of Franzen’s non-fiction brings fresh demonstrations of his vivid, moral intelligence, confirming his status not only as a great American novelist but also as a master noticer, social critic, and self-investigator. In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, the writer returns with renewed vigour....

Serving as a supplement to the existing scholarship on AIDS activism of the 1980s and 1990s, Viral Cultures is the first book to critically examine the archives that have helped preserve and create the legacy of those radical activities. Marika Cifor charts the efforts activists, archivists, and curators have made to document the work of AIDS activism in the United States and the infrastructure developed to maintain it, safeguarding the material for future generations to remember these social movements and to revitalize the epidemic's past in order to remake the present and future of AIDS.

In the first years of the Weimar Republic, the German psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn gathered a remarkable collection of works by schizophrenic patients that would astonish and delight the world. The Prinzhorn collection, as it was called, inspired a new generation of artists, including Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali. What the doctor could not have known, however, was that these works would later be used to prepare the ground for mass-murder.

Milan, 1497: Leonardo is completing "The Last Supper". Pope Alexander VI is determined to execute him after realizing that the painting contains clues to a baffling and blasphemous message that he is driven to decode. The Holy Grail and the Eucharistic Bread are missing, there is no meat on the table, and the apostles, shockingly, are portraits of well-known heretics and none of them are depicted with halos. And why has the artist painted himself into the scene with his back turned toward Jesus?

A debate, nearly to the death, about life and art, cocktails included. And a soon-to-be major motion picture from James Franco! Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life (he's a stay-at-home dad to three young girls), whereas his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human being, but he has overcommitted to art.

Though many have never heard her name, Alice Prin—Kiki de Montparnasse—was the icon of 1920s Paris. She captivated as a ground-breaking nightclub performer, wrote a bestselling memoir, sold out exhibitions of her paintings, and shared drinks with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim, Marcel Duchamp and Gertrude Stein. She also shepherded along the career of the then-unknown American photographer: Man Ray.