Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Emil Nolde, E.L. Kirchner, Paul Klee, Franz Marc as well as the Austrians Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele were among the generation of highly individual artists who contributed to the vivid and often controversial new movement in early twentieth-century Germany and Austria: Expressionism. This publication introduces these artists and their work. The author, art historian Ashley Bassie, explains how Expressionist art led the way to a new, intense, evocative treatment of psychological, emotional and social themes in the early twentieth century. The book examines the developments of Expressionism and its key works, highlighting the often intensely subjective imagery and the aspirations and conflicts from which it emerged while focusing precisely on the artists of the movement.

Long thought of as the neglected stepchild of painting, the art of drawing has recently begun to enjoy a place in the sun. With major museums around the world, from the Met to the Uffizi, mounting exhibitions focused on the art of draughtsmanship, drawing is receiving more critical and academic attention than ever before. This captivating text gives readers a sweeping analysis of the history of drawing, from Renaissance greats like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to Modernist masters like M.C. Escher, Pablo Picasso, and everyone in between.

Marc Chagall was born into a strict Jewish family for whom the ban on representations of the human figure had the weight of dogma. A failure in the entrance examination for the Stieglitz School did not stop Chagall from later joining that famous school founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and directed by Nicholas Roerich. Chagall moved to Paris in 1910. The city was his “second Vitebsk”. At first, isolated in the little room on the Impasse du Maine at La Ruche, Chagall soon found numerous compatriots also attracted by the prestige of Paris: Lipchitz, Zadkine, Archipenko and Soutine, all of whom were to maintain the “smell” of his native land. From his very arrival Chagall wanted to “discover everything”. And to his dazzled eyes painting did indeed reveal itself. Even the most attentive and partial observer is at times unable to distinguish the “Parisian”, Chagall from the “Vitebskian”. The artist was not full of contradictions, nor was he a split personality, but he always remained different; he looked around and within himself and at the surrounding world, and he used his present thoughts and recollections. He had an utterly poetical mode of thought that enabled him to pursue such a complex course. Chagall was endowed with a sort of stylistic immunity: he enriched himself without destroying anything of his own inner structure. Admiring the works of others he studied them ingenuously, ridding himself of his youthful awkwardness, yet never losing his authenticity for a moment. At times Chagall seemed to look at the world through magic crystal – overloaded with artistic experimentation – of the Ecole de Paris. In such cases he would embark on a subtle and serious play with the various discoveries of the turn of the century and turned his prophetic gaze like that of a biblical youth, to look at himself ironically and thoughtfully in the mirror. Naturally, it totally and uneclectically reflected the painterly discoveries of Cézanne, the delicate inspiration of Modigliani, and the complex surface rhythms recalling the experiments of the early Cubists (See-Portrait at the Easel, 1914). Despite the analyses which nowadays illuminate the painter’s Judaeo-Russian sources, inherited or borrowed but always sublime, and his formal relationships, there is always some share of mystery in Chagall’s art. The mystery perhaps lies in the very nature of his art, in which he uses his experiences and memories. Painting truly is life, and perhaps life is painting.

Picasso was born a Spaniard and, so they say, began to draw before he could speak. As an infant he was instinctively attracted to artist’s tools. In early childhood he could spend hours in happy concentration drawing spirals with a sense and meaning known only to himself. At other times, shunning children’s games, he traced his first pictures in the sand. This early self-expression held out promise of a rare gift. Málaga must be mentioned, for it was there, on 25 October 1881, that Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born and it was there that he spent the first ten years of his life. Picasso’s father was a painter and professor at the School of Fine Arts and Crafts. Picasso learnt from him the basics of formal academic art training. Then he studied at the Academy of Arts in Madrid but never finished his degree. Picasso, who was not yet eighteen, had reached the point of his greatest rebelliousness; he repudiated academia’s anemic aesthetics along with realism’s pedestrian prose and, quite naturall

The smoothly metallic portraits, nudes and still lifes of Tamara de Lempicka encapsulate the spirit of Art Deco and the Jazz Age, and reflect the elegant and hedonistic life-style of a wealthy, glamorous and privileged elite in Paris between the two World Wars. Combining a formidable classical technique with elements borrowed from Cubism, Lempicka’s art represented the ultimate in fashionable modernity while looking back for inspiration to such master portraitists as Ingres and Bronzino. This book celebrates the sleek and streamlined beauty of her best work in the 1920s and 30s. It traces the extraordinary life story of this talented and glamorous woman from turn of the century Poland and Tsarist Russia, through to her glorious years in Paris and the long years of decline and neglect in America, until her triumphant rediscovery in the 1970s when her portraits gained iconic status and world-wide popularity.

Manet is one of the most famous artists from the second half of the nineteenth century linked to the impressionists, although he was not really one of them. He had great influence on French painting partly because of the choice he made for his subjects from everyday life, the use of pure colours, and his fast and free technique. He made, in his own work, the transition between Courbet’s Realism and the work of the impressionists. Born a high bourgeois, he chose to become a painter after failing the entry to the Marine School. He studied with Thomas Couture, an Academic painter, but it was thanks to the numerous travels he made around Europe from 1852 that he started to find out what would become his own style. His first paintings were mostly portraits and genre scenes, inspired by his love for Spanish masters like Velázquez and Goya. In 1863 he presented his masterpiece Luncheon on the Grass at the Salon des Refusés. His work started a fight between the defenders of Academic art and th

Until the end of the 19th century Na?ve Art, created by untrained artists and characterised by spontaneity and simplicity, enjoyed little recognition from professional artists and art critics. Na?ve painting is often distinguished by its clarity of line, vivacity and joyful colours, as well as by its rather clean-cut, simple shapes, as represented by French artists such as Henri Rousseau, Séraphine de Senlis, André Bauchant and Camille Bombois. However, this movement has also found adherents elsewhere, including Joan Miró (who was influenced by some of its qualities), Guido Vedovato, Niko Pirosmani, and Ivan Generalic.

The influence of works by French artists extends itself across all artistic styles, and many French works have gained world fame as classics. This book gives an overview of the French milestones in still lifes, portraits, and landscapes, and includes artists like Poussin, Clouet, Moreau, Millet, Courbet, Signac, and Rouault. The convenient format makes the Mega Square edition an ideal gift for any art lover.

Cézanne transformed a teacup into something alive, raising still-life to the point that it ceased to be inanimate. Wassily Kandinsky said about the French artist: “He painted these things as human beings because he was endowed with the gift of divining the inner life in everything.” In addition to those of Cézanne, this book is devoted to still-life paintings by artists such as Van Gogh, Matisse, Chardin and Picasso.

拜占庭的宫殿、教堂、绘画、珐琅、陶瓷和镶嵌细工的辉煌宏伟在本书中都展现得淋漓尽致，读者仿佛遨游于穿越时空的旅程之中。拜占庭传统中蕴涵着非凡的力量，在帝国崩溃后的漫长岁月里，其传统仍然生生不息，拜占庭的艺术遗产一直召唤着当今的我们。

直到二十世纪中期，长期以来备受争议的意大利画家卡拉瓦乔（Caravaggio,1571-1610）才重新被发现。作为现实主义的倡导者，这位反宗教改革的艺术家挑战陈习旧规，回归圣人形象的人性感。这位神秘的画家赋予了圣人纵欲之情，远远超出了通常的圣人崇拜，为模糊的色情打开了一扇门，这也导致了教廷的愤怒。这位影子画家矛盾而强烈地阐释了他堕落的生活方式和放荡的道德准绳。他所创造的明暗处理技巧，在艺术史上留下了血腥的印象。

Popular blogger Karen Alpert shares her hysterical take on the many "joys" of parenting I Heart My Little A-Holes is full of hilarious stories, lists, thoughts and pictures that will make you laugh so hard you'll wish you were wearing a diaper.

Valerie Harper has a message for women of a certain age: "Work those laugh lines!" With the irreverence and wit that made her one of television's most beloved personalities, Harper (a.k.a. Rhoda Morgenstern) takes on those phony "fabulous at 50" books written by women whose skin is free of laugh lines and who wouldn't know a cellulite pocket if it bit them on the backside. With her trademark shoot-from-the-hip, call-'em-like-she-sees-'em style, she helps women celebrate, with humor and grace, what it means to be middle aged. Harper's essays explore the treacherous terrain women must travel -- from the tyrannies of fashion to the unmentionables of menopause. She tackles the most perplexing questions of the day: If you wear a size zero, do you existWould menopause be revered if it happened to menDo calories count if you eat standing upAre dressing rooms fitted with fun house mirrorsToday I Am a Ma'am is the perfect antidote to the youth obsession of our culture, offered by America's most reliable girlfriend. It is Humor Replacement Therapy for midlife women, a book you can pick up when ever you need a laugh or a reminder that midriff drift is not the end of the world.

罗马艺术指的是11世纪到13世纪的艺术史。这一时代有各种学派百家争鸣，多种多样，各具特色。在建筑和雕塑领域，罗马艺术的特色是具有原始的形式。这本著作通过丰富的插图和迷人的文字，重新发现这种在当今备受轻视的中世纪艺术仍然可与之后功成名就的哥特艺术相媲美。

For When You Need Just the Right Word Travelling is fantastic – we don't deny it. But sometimes when you're in another country, stuff happens. A thieving kid lifts your wallet, a cab driver nearly kills you, or a waiter charges you $25 for bottled water. You feel powerless without the ability to do what you really want to do – curse them out. And what's the use of knowing the right curse if you can't pronounce it correctly? The only thing you'll succeed in doing is looking like some lame tourist. But you don't have to look like an idiot anymore. Here are 100 of the best curses and insults in Italian, complete with an audio track featuring 25 curses and insults for your listening pleasure. So the next time a texting teen in Rome knocks over your gelato or a snickering Prada saleswoman in Milan insults your waistline, you'll know precisely how to say, Vaffanculo!

Within the genre of financial selfhelp, ‘Trusts A Practical Guide’ is an invaluable and rare resource for financial experts and members of the public alike who need a reference work on a subject that is, on the face of it, complex but which undeniably affects many people’s lives at one point or another. Whatever your occupation or background, you are almost certain at some time to need some understanding of this subject, whether in your own financial planning or in advising those around you – and this guide is particularly helpful when dealing with a relative’s probate or the complex issues arising from an inheritance.After thirtyfive years at the top of his profession, FSA member Terry O'Halloran writes passionately and informatively, not only about his subject but also about the importance of spreading the word to others. He has seen many times first hand the benefits of wellorganized and implemented financial planning on people’s lives. More poignantly, he has seen what can happen when such matters are left to chance.Using famous historical characters, placing them in recognizable situations and using real life case histories, he explains the organization and procedure of Trusts simply and easily bringing his subject alive by putting it in a perspective that is easily assimilated by the layman. Terry O'Halloran clearly explains the intricacies of Trusts and confronts their realities with reallife examples such as a family case involving a number of exwives, a business partnership that goes very expensively wrong and even the attempted murder of a director and removal of the wouldbe assassin (as a Trustee). Building the full picture from simple steps, the author explains the merits or otherwise of trusts and their uses with life assurance and pension products. “Trusts are the most important adjunct to life assurance, business protection, estate planning and pension provision. A basic understanding is essential,” he insists. After searching in vain for a book for his own use, the need for a reference book on this subject was clear. “I needed a reference book that I could refer to during the working day but which would also be simple enough for any of my clients to understand. So I wrote one – in fact I had to write it because there was simply nothing suitable in existence. Moreover, I use it all the time. My own copies are dogeared from use.” “I believe,’ Trusts’ is a practical tool for the professional’s everyday use and a good guide for the layman.

"e;The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by 'the disenchantment of the world.'"e; Max Weber's statement remains a dominant interpretation of the modern condition: the increasing capabilities of knowledge and science have banished mysteries, leaving a world that can be mastered technically and intellectually. And though this idea seems empowering, many people have become disenchanted with modern disenchantment. Using intimate encounters with works of art to explore disenchantment and the possibilities of re-enchantment, Arts of Wonder addresses questions about the nature of humanity, the world, and God in the wake of Weber's diagnosis of modernity.?Jeffrey L. Kosky focuses on a handful of artists-Walter De Maria, Diller + Scofidio, James Turrell, and Andy Goldworthy-to show how they introduce spaces hospitable to mystery and wonder, redemption and revelation, and transcendence and creation. What might be thought of as religious longings, he argues, are crucial aspects of enchanting secularity when developed through encounters with these works of art. Developing a model of religion that might be significant to secular culture, Kosky shows how this model can be employed to deepen interpretation of the art we usually view as representing secular modernity. A thoughtful dialogue between philosophy and art, Arts of Wonder will catch the eye of readers of art and religion, philosophy of religion, and art criticism.

Eseuri ?i cronici teatrale structurate simultan ?n dou? planuri, ?nc?t se reconstituie panorama artei spectacolului ?n Rom?nia ?i par?ial ?n lume, ?n perioada 1993-2003, ?i se realizeaz? o privire din unghiul zilei de azi a artei dramatice, ?n evolu?ia ei, de la antici la contemporani.

It was a winter night, and the ground around Paris was covered with snow, although the flakes had ceased to fall since some hours.?Spite of the cold and the darkness, a young man, wrapped in a mantle so voluminous as to hide a babe in his arms, strode over the white fields out of the town of Villers Cotterets, in the woods, eighteen leagues from the capital, which he had reached by the stage-coach, towards a hamlet called Haramont. His assured step seemed to indicate that he had previously gone this road.?Soon above him streaked the leafless boughs upon the grey sky. The sharp air, the odor of the oaks, the icicles and beads on the tips of branches, all appealed to the poetry in the wanderer.??Through the clumps he looked for the village spire and the blue smoke of the chimneys, filtering from the cottages through the natural trellis of the limbs.?It was dawn when he crossed a brook, bordered with yellow cress and frozen vines, and at the first hovel asked for the laborer's boy to take him to Madeline Pi-tou's home.??Mute and attentive, not so dull as most of their kind, the children sprang up and staring at the stranger, led him by the hand to a rather large and good-looking cottage, on the bank of the rivulet running by most of the dwellings.?A plank served as a bridge.?"There," said one of the guides nodding his head to-wards it.?Gilbert gave them a coin, which made their eyes open still more widely, and crossed the board to the door which he pushed open, while the children, taking one another's hand, started with all their might at the handsome gentleman in a brown cloth coat, buckled shoes and large cloak, who wanted to find Madeline Pitou.?Apart from them, Gilbert, for such was the young man's name, simply so for he had no other, saw no liv-ing things: Haramont was the deserted village he was seeking.??As soon as the door was open, his sight was struck by a scene full of charm, for almost anybody, and par-ticularly for a young philosopher like our roamer.?A robust peasant woman was suckling a baby, while another child, a sturdy boy of four or five, was saying a prayer in a loud voice.?In the chimney corner, near a window or rather a hole in the wall in which was stuck a pane of glass, an-other woman, going on for thirty-five or six, was spin-ning, with a stool under her feet, and a fat poodle on an end of this stool.?Catching sight of the visitor the dog barked in a civil and hospitable manner just to show that he had not been caught napping. The praying boy turned, cutting the devotional phrase in two, and both females uttered an exclamation between joy and surprise.?"I greet you, good mother Madeline," said Gilbert with a smile.

Volumul lui Leo Butnaru este tot o ncercare de sintez, de a a duce n faa cititorilor texte prea puin sau chiar deloc cunoscute i cred c, doar aa, n dialogul intercultural, se poate nelege i originalitatea avangardei romneti i ce se ntmpl cu ei dup restaurarea comunismului. La Leo Butnaru avem din nou de aface cu o perioad post 1917 i cu transformri.“ – Carmen Muat

Despre Europa s-a vorbit mult, ?n special din perspectiva social? ?i economic?, ?ns? tema nu a fost dezb?tut?, a?a cum s-ar fi cuvenit, de pe pozi?ia culturii. Cartea Mituri ?i legende ale antichit??ii propune studii eseistice referitoare la baza culturii europene. Eseurile ne invit? s? g?ndim ?mpreun? Europa din perspectiva singurului factor care une?te – cultura.