With the patronage of the powerful Medici family, a canon of secular and religious work, and contributions to the celebrated Sistine Chapel, Sandro Botticelli (1444/45–1510) was well placed for fame. After his death, however, his work was eclipsed for some four hundred years. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the painter began to gain major art-historical recognition.Today, Botticelli is hailed as a towering figure of the Florentine Early Renaissance. His secular works Th...
As a boy, Tom’s first crush was a strapping young farmhand who worked the fields around his family home. Finland is a land of tough physical men, catching fish in the icy sea; cutting logs in the endless forests; threshing oats, rye, and barley on the farms. Tom, a more sensitive boy, admired these rough men and their distinctive clothing, designed for protection and utility.He later said, “When I was young, leather was worn by people who worked outside because it was warm. A...
This book documents a revolution. With photos, plans, and descriptions, it explores new approaches in building and presents resourceful and green private homes. Rejecting “stardom” but celebrating diversity, talents such as Suzuko Yamada, Gurjit Matharoo, and the collective Frankie Pappas truly build our future.
The earliest forms of human creativity – in carvings, markings, and cave paintings – bear witness to humanity’s engagement with color. Almost as old as these examples is the desire to assign structure, order, and meaning to this universal yet elusive concept, and it is this fascination that unites the works compiled in this expansive edition. Gathering over 40 rare books and manuscripts from a wealth of institutions, including the most distinguished color collections worldwid...
Encompassing the entire NFT ecosystem from algorithmic art to avatars and AI, the first major art historical survey of this field is now available in an updated, budget-friendly edition and includes 11 additional artists. With 10 academic essays and 111 artists in total, the book offers an extensive insight into digital art on the blockchain today.
A voyage through mysterious and haunted lands, the sixth volume of The Library Esoterica delves into the art, rituals, and global mythologies of the spirit realms. Unearthing our complex beliefs around death, rebirth and resurrection, we explore the art, traditions and ancient stories of the afterlife. Through interviews with scholars and practicioners, insightful essays and over 400 works of visionary art, Spirit Worlds delves into the shadows of the supernatural, from dark ...
In every crisis situation, children are the greatest victims. Physically weak, they are often the first to succumb to hunger, disease, and dehydration. Innocent to the workings and failings of the world, they are unable to understand why there is danger, why there are people who want to hurt them, or why they must leave, perhaps quite suddenly, and abandon their schools, their friends, and their home.In this companion series to Exodus, Sebastião Salgado presents 90 portraits ...
Discover a world of decorative ideas with this compendium of history’s most elegant patterns and ornamental designs.The World of Ornament brings together the two greatest encyclopedic collections of ornament of the 19th century: Auguste Racinet’s L’Ornement polychrome Volumes I and II (1875–1888) and Auguste Dupont-Auberville’s L’Ornement des tissus (1877) to provide one lavish source book spanning jewelry, tile, stained glass, illuminated manuscript, textile, and ceramic orn...
Mario Testino is one of the world’s most successful fashion and portrait photographers, whose images are noted for their freshness and intimacy. Peruvian by birth, Testino has been fascinated by Rio de Janeiro since his earliest summer vacations. "When I was 14, on holiday, and going from my house to the beach and seeing everyone walk everywhere in their tiny bathing suits―the girls and boys were so sexy and carefree and wild―I just could not believe it."This easy sensuality,...
Favorites in Latin AmericaA journey to unique hotels and hideawaysLatin America is a cradle of ancient civilizations like those of the Incas, Maya and Aztecs, and later became the goal of European explorers and immigrants. It looks back on a long history, often full of contrasts and contradictions, but also has a very special multicultural atmosphere. This book presents breathtakingly beautiful landscapes and extraordinary hotels. Short texts and practical information complem...
“The Tower is also present to the entire world... a universal symbol of Paris... from the Midwest to Australia, there is no journey to France which isn’t made, somehow, in the Tower’s name.” — Roland Barthes When Gustave Eiffel completed his wrought iron tower on Paris’s Champ de Mars for the World’s Fair in 1889, he laid claim to the tallest structure in the world.Though the Chrysler Building would, 41 years later, scrape an even higher sky, the Eiffel Tower lost none of its...
Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp’s 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th century saw ever more fertile exchange between sounds and shapes, marks and melodies, and different fields of composition and performance. In Francesco Spampinato’s unique anthology of artists’ record covers, we discover the rhy...
'For me, it's really the joy of looking out into the world and getting this positive energy... It's opening up our vision, and how we look'—David HockneyWhen David Hockney discovered the iPhone as an artistic medium, it opened up entirely new possibilities for his art. He made his first digital paintings in spring 2009, describing the morning landscape in broad lines and dazzling colors directly on a display that offered subtle hues as unmixed expressions of pure light.Then i...
In 1965, Tom of Finland began flirting with the idea of an ongoing character for his panel stories, the ultimate Tom’s Man. He tried out a blond named Vicky—a common male name in Finland—followed by a Tarzan-inspired Jack. Then in 1968 Tom settled on Kake, a dark-haired, mustached leatherman who often wore a tight white T-shirt bearing the motto “Fucker.” Kake lived up to this moniker, a sort of post-Stonewall, hyper-masculine Johnny Appleseed traveling the world on his motor...
With his instantly recognizable decorative style, Czech artist and Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) defined the look of the fin-de-siècle. In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre, and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers, and beautiful women became paradigms of the Belle Époque years. Mucha’s work permeated illustration, posters, postcards, and the advertising designs of his day.His striking posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt were particu...
Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color and line and is today credited with creating the first purely abstract work. As much a teacher and theorist as he was a practicing artist, Kandinsky’s interests in music, theater, poetry, philosophy, ethnology, myth, and the occult...
Famed for his motto “less is more,” Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) was one of the founding fathers of modern architecture and a hotly-debated tastemaker of twentieth-century aesthetics and urban experience.Mies van der Rohe’s philosophy was one of underlying truth in pure forms and proportions. With the help of contemporary technological and material developments, he sought a stripped-down purity to architecture, showcased by the likes of the Seagram Building and Farnsw...
The world appears to be divided into cat and dog lovers, but fortunately Walter Chandoha, the 20th century’s greatest pet photographer found himself happily in the middle. He loved these intriguing creatures equally for their unique beauty and individualism, and as subjects to photograph in a career spanning over 70 years. While working on his critically acclaimed TASCHEN book Cats, Chandoha handpicked his favorite dog photos for a potential follow-up title, putting into care...
On a winter’s night in 1949 in New York City, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha spotted a stray kitten in the snow, bundled it into his coat, and brought it home. Little did he know he had just met the muse that would determine the course of his life. Chandoha turned his lens on his new feline friend—which he named Loco—and was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter.These images marked the start of ...
Clothes define people. A person’s attire, whether it be a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Indeed, clothing has the power to define people and their generation.Recognizing this sartorial significance is the Kyoto Costume Institute, whose team of curators examine fashion through sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has ...
With the cold war ebbing, crime and inflation at record levels, and movie star-turned-President Ronald Reagan launching a Star Wars of his own, the 1980s did not seem likely to become one of the most outrageous, flamboyant, and prosperous decades of the 20th century. The "greed is good" mantra on Wall Street spawned the power-dressing, exercise-obsessed "Me Generation" of Yuppies. The art world enjoyed the influx of capital; computers and video games ruled in the office and a...
Following up on the best-selling Bibliotheca Universalis logo manual, this second volume focuses on corporate identity. In a globalized world, more and more symbols convey values ??such as trust, quality, or reliability. This catalog comprehensively breaks down how texts, images, and ideas are condensed into distinctive brands.From airlines and groceries, sportswear and computers, museums, and magazines, to car brands, music labels, pharmaceuticals, and internet portals, this...
