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Zarina Hashmi's main working medium is paper, which she employs in woodcuts, etchings, drawings, rubbings and casts made from paper pulp. This volume places Zarina's work within a tradition of the use and fabrication of paper on the Indian subcontinent.
This fascinating publication sheds light on a medium that combines the qualities of drawing with those of sculpture, printmaking, and painting, and is the first to focus exclusively on the art technique known as frottage, derived from the French word frotter, meaning "to rub." Over 100 pieces, ranging from contemporary conceptual works to rubbings recording tombs and inscriptions, are assembled and sumptuously reproduced in color. More than 50 artists--including the famous, like Max Ernst, inventor of the term "frottage," and the relatively unknown--are presented. Four thematic sections explore different aspects of frottage: its roots in Surrealism and the practice of automatic drawing; the notion of trace, of either a place or an idea left behind in a rubbing; the "apparitions" or ghostlike attributes that can appear on the surface of an artwork; and the associations between rubbings, death, and memory. Distributed for the Menil Collection Exhibition Schedule: Hammer Museum, UCLA (02/08/15-05/31/15) The Menil Collection (09/11/15-01/03/16)
The first reader in critical plant studies, exploring a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field—the intersection of philosophy with plant science and the visual arts. In recent years, philosophy and art have testified to how anthropocentrism has culturally impoverished our world, leading to the wide destruction of habitats and ecosystems. In this book, Giovanni Aloi and Michael Marder show that the field of critical plant studies can make an important contribution, offering a slew of possibilities for scientific research, local traditions, Indigenous knowledge, history, geography, anthropology, philosophy, and aesthetics to intersect, inform one another, and lead interdisciplinary and tran...
Marking the three hundredth anniversary of Jean Antoine Watteau’s death, this publication takes a close, revealing look at his recently rediscovered painting La Surprise. The painting La Surprise by Jean Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) belongs to a new genre of painting invented by the artist himself—the fête galante. These works, which show graceful open-air gatherings filled with scenes of courtship, music and dance, strolling lovers, and actors, do not so much tell a story as set a mood: one of playful, wistful, nostalgic reverie. Esteemed by collectors in Watteau’s day as a work that showed the artist at the height of his skill and success, La Surprise vanished from public view in 1...
"A sculptor who began working during the postwar period in a classical figurative style, Alina Szapocznikow radically reconceptualized sculpture as an imprint not only of memory but also of her own body. Though her career effectively spanned less than two decades (cut short by the artist's premature death in 1973 at age 47), Szapocznikow left behind a legacy of provocative objects that evoke Surrealism, Nouveau Râealisme, and Pop art. Her tinted polyester casts of body parts, often transformed into everyday objects like lamps or ashtrays; her poured polyurethane forms; and her elaborately constructed sculptures, which at times incorporated photographs, clothing, or car parts, all remain as ...
This comprehensive and richly illustrated catalogue focuses on the finest illustrated manuscripts produced in Europe during the great epoch in Flemish illumination. During this aesthetically fertile period – beginning in 1467 with the reign of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold and ending in 1561 with the death of the artist Simon Bening – the art of book painting was raised to a new level of sophistication. Sharing inspiration with the celebrated panel painters of the time, illuminators achieved astonishing innovations in the handling of color, light, texture, and space, creating a naturalistic style that would dominate tastes throughout Europe for nearly a century. Centering on the n...
This handsome book offers a unified and fascinating portrait of Leonardo as draftsman, integrating his roles as artist, scientist, inventor, theorist, and teacher. 250 illustrations.
For too long, the ?centre? of the Renaissance has been considered to be Rome and the art produced in, or inspired by it. This collection of essays dedicated to Deborah Howard brings together an impressive group of internationally recognised scholars of art and architecture to showcase both the diversity within and the porosity between the ?centre? and ?periphery? in Renaissance art. Without abandoning Rome, but together with other centres of art production, the essays both shift their focus away from conventional categories and bring together recent trends in Renaissance studies, notably a focus on cultural contact, material culture and historiography. They explore the material mechanisms fo...
The fantasy of a male creator constructing his perfect woman dates back to the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Yet as technology has advanced over the past century, the figure of the lifelike manmade woman has become nearly ubiquitous, popping up in everything from Bride of Frankenstein to Weird Science to The Stepford Wives. Now Julie Wosk takes us on a fascinating tour through this bevy of artificial women, revealing the array of cultural fantasies and fears they embody. My Fair Ladies considers how female automatons have been represented as objects of desire in fiction and how “living dolls” have been manufactured as real-world fetish objects. But it also examines the many works ...
Using close visual analysis of drawings, artist interviews, critical analysis and exegesis, Drawing Investigations examines how artists use drawing as an investigative tool to reveal information that would otherwise remain unseen and unnoticed. How does drawing add shape to ideas? How does the artist accommodate to challenges and restraints of a particular environment? To what extent is a drawing complementary and continuous with its subject and where is it disruptive and provocative? Casey and Davies address these questions while focusing on artists working collaboratively and the use of drawing in challenging or unexpected environments. Drawing Investigations evaluates the emergence of a w...