From satyrs and sea creatures to griffins and dragons, monsters lay at the heart of the medieval world. Believed to dwell in exotic, remote areas, these inexplicable parts of God's creation aroused fear, curiosity and wonder in equal measure. Powerfully captured in the illustrations of manuscripts, such as bestiaries, travel books and devotional works, they continue to delight audiences today with..
As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast..
Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big Topics
Art has always been part of history. But we often think of it as outside history. When we look at a painting by Raphael, Rembrandt or Rubens it speaks to us directly, but it's also an historical document, part of a living world. Renowned art historian Martin Kemp takes the reader on an extraordinary trip through art, from devotional works to..
O celebrare a artei vechilor egipteni reprezentata in artefactele si piturile hieroglifice. Dupa introducerea in descifrarea hieroglifelor si a tehnicilor implicate, cartea prezinta o colectie de reproduceri ale unor capodopere din Valea Regilor, Valea Reginelor si din mai putin cunoscuta Cale a Artizanilor.
The perfect compact reference guide for all would-be art buffs. Art historian Susie Hodge takes you on a whistle-stop international tour of all the major artistic cultures, movements, phases, developments, artists and themes, from Prehistoric art to Hyperrealism. Contents also include Greek classicism, Gothic art, the Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Cubism, surrealism, P..
On a journey that takes her from Afghanistan, to the Australian outback, to ancient caves in China, and the saffron harvest in Spain, Victoria Finlay gives an extraordinary, and compelling account of the history of colour.
Part travelogue, part narrative history, Colour unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded ..
Part manifesto, part artistic joke, Fillippo Marinetti's Futurist Cookbook is a provocative work about art disguised as an easy-to-read cookbook. Here are recipes for ice cream on the moon; candied atmospheric electricities; nocturnal love feasts; sculpted meats. Marinetti also sets out his argument for abolishing pasta as ill-suited to modernity, and advocates a style of cuisine that will incre..
Death is the one certainty in life, yet, with the decline of religion in the West, we have become collectively reluctant to talk about it. Our contemporary rituals seek to sanitise death and distance us from our own inevitable fate. If we want to know how previous generations dealt with death, graveyards (famous and not) tell us the history -- if we are able to read them. If we want to know how ..
This handy, easy-to-carry book provides the reader with a strictly visual approach to reading the architecture of churches. Covering all the ecclesiastical building types of Western Christianity, readers are taken on a journey tracing the development of the church building from the simple stone halls of the Anglo-Saxon period right through to the eclectic designs of the nineteenth century. Anoth..
Fashion is all around us, and few of us are unaffected by it. Yet how many people know the origins of the little black dress, or the bowler hat, or the ladies trouser suit? How many people can pin down the famous brand of leather jacket Marlon Brando wore in The Wild One, or why the Chanel bag is known as the 2:55 bag? How to Read Fashion identifies the main fashion trends of the past 200 years ..
How to Read Modern Buildings is an indispensable pocket-sized guide to understanding the architecture of the modern era.
It takes the reader on a guided tour of modern architecture through its most iconic and significant buildings, showing how to read the hallmarks of each architectural style and how to recognize them in the buildings all around.
From Art Deco and Arts and..
How to Read Paintings is a valuable visual guide to Western European painting. Through a gallery of artworks accompanied by informative commentary, it enables readers to swiftly develop their understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of painting, and to discover how to look at diverse paintings in detail, closely reading their meanings and methods.
In the first part of the book, the Gr..
How to Read Towns & Cities is a pocket-sized primer to understanding the forces that have shaped the world's cities. It takes a practical, highly visual approach – showing us how to read the stories embedded in the fabric of the neighbourhoods, towns, and cities in which we live today.
The fortunes of towns and cities rise and fall along with the fate of the civilisations to wh..
John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and ten..
Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics.
'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.'
'But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surroundin..