Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet
Author: Georges Riat
Publisher: Parkstone Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2008
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Child of materialism and positivism, Courbet was without a doubt one of the most complex painters of the nineteenth century. Symbolising the rejection of traditions, Courbet did not hesitate to confront the public with the truth by liberating painting of conventional rules. He became from then on the leader of pictorial realism.

Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses
Author: Emanuele Coccia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2021-06-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509545689

We are all fascinated by the mystery of metamorphosis – of the caterpillar that transforms itself into a butterfly. Their bodies have almost nothing in common. They don’t share the same world: one crawls on the ground and the other flutters its wings in the air. And yet they are one and the same life. Emanuele Coccia argues that metamorphosis – the phenomenon that allows the same life to subsist in disparate bodies – is the relationship that binds all species together and unites the living with the non-living. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, plants, animals: they are all one and the same life. Each species, including the human species, is the metamorphosis of all those that preceded it – the same life, cobbling together a new body and a new form in order to exist differently. And there is no opposition between the living and the non-living: life is always the reincarnation of the non-living, a carnival of the telluric substance of a planet – the Earth – that continually draws new faces and new ways of being out of even the smallest particle of its disparate body. By highlighting what joins humans together with other forms of life, Coccia’s brilliant reflection on metamorphosis encourages us to abandon our view of the human species as static and independent and to recognize instead that we are part of a much larger and interconnected form of life.

Byzantium After Byzantium

Byzantium After Byzantium
Author: Nicolae Iorga
Publisher: Center For Romanian Studies
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: Byzantine Empire
ISBN: 9781592111367

Originally published in French in 1935, the author's formula Byzantium after Byzantium defines several centuries of world history. Iorga points out the great contributions of Byzantine civilization to the Western world, especially during the Renaissance. He demonstrates that Byzantium survived through its people and local autonomies, as well as through its exiles--clerics, scholars, merchants, and political officials. One of the most important expressions of this was found in the Romanian principalities where Greeks from the Phanar district of Istanbul played a major role in Romanian political life, defining an entire period of Romanian history--the Phanariot Period. They continued the Byzantine ideas, aspirations, education, and way of life. All of this allows us to speak of a Byzantium after Byzantium.

Florentine Renaissance Sculpture

Florentine Renaissance Sculpture
Author: Charles Avery
Publisher: John Murray Pubs Limited
Total Pages: 274
Release: 1970
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780719519321

"Some of the greatest names in the history of art are those of Florentine sculptors: Ghiberti, Donatello and Luca della Robbia; Verrocchio and Michelangelo; Cellini and Giovanni Bologna. These were the creators of a school of sculpture that remained supreme for over two centuries."--BOOK COVER.

The Open Work

The Open Work
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1989
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780674639768

This book is significant for its concept of "openness"--the artist's decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance--and for its anticipation of two themes of literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interaction between reader and text.

Verrocchio

Verrocchio
Author: John K. Delaney
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 069123308X

A comprehensive survey of the work of this most influential Florentine artist and teacher Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488) was one of the most versatile and inventive artists of the Italian Renaissance. He created art across media, from his spectacular sculptures and paintings to his work in goldsmithing, architecture, and engineering. His expressive, confident drawings provide a key point of contact between sculpture and painting. He led a vibrant workshop where he taught young artists who later became some of the greatest painters of the period, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. This beautifully illustrated book presents a comprehensive survey of Verrocchio's art, spanning his entire career and featuring some fifty sculptures, paintings, and drawings, in addition to works he created with his students. Through incisive scholarly essays, in-depth catalog entries, and breathtaking illustrations, this volume draws on the latest research in art history to show why Verrocchio was one of the most innovative and influential of all Florentine artists. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC