The most comprehensive retrospective of Renoir’s work
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841–1919) timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history’s most well-loved painters—undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good spirit.
In an incisive text tracing the artist’s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret shows how Renoir reinvented the painted female form, with his everyday goddesses and their plump contours, rounded hips and breasts. Renoir’s later phase, marked by his return to the simple pleasure of the female nude in his Bathers series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential, and would inspire such masters as Matisse and Picasso.
With a complete chronology, bibliography, photos, sketches, and brilliant reproductions, this is the essential work of reference on this enduring master artist.
Shots from the world’s greatest collection of Polaroid images
The Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest portfolio of Polaroid images in the world. Begun by Polaroid founder Edwin Land and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection now includes some 23,000 images by hundreds of photographers throughout the world, including pieces by the likes of David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and Jeanloup Sieff.
The Polaroid Book dives into these archives, paying tribute to a medium that continues to defy the digital age. Like an oversized Polaroid film pack, this collection curates works by luminaries and unknowns alike, celebrating the boundless possibilities that develop inside the white borders of the original instant photograph.
Balinese homes in harmony with nature
Loved by travelers for its lush tropical scenery and charming people, Bali is one of the most magnificent places on Earth. Spirituality and nature are integral parts of everyday life for the Balinese, so one can easily see why the island’s traditional architecture has a peaceful presence to it, mimicking its surroundings and sometimes blending in with them.
When it comes to Balinese houses, walls are not compulsory, wood is everywhere, earth tones are dominant, and thatched roofs abound. Opening onto gorgeous green landscapes, majestic mountains, or beautiful coastlines, the homes herein ooze relaxing, contemplative vibes. This portfolio of Southeast Asian living features a swath of fresh and inspiring photographs and comes in a compact size, so you can take a little bit of paradise with you wherever you go.
Gazing at these opulent examples of simple and elegant living, it’s a wonder why more people aren’t rushing to move to Bali.
Lyrical forms from Finland
Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) made a unique modernist mark. Influenced by both the landscape and the political independence of his native Finland, he designed warm, curving, compassionate buildings, wholly set apart from the slick, mechanistic, geometric designs that characterized much contemporary European practice.
Whether a church, a villa, a sauna, or a public library, Aalto’s organic structures tended to replace plaster and steel with brick and wood, often incorporating undulating, wave-like forms, which would also appear in his chair, glassware, and lamp designs. An adherent to detail, Aalto insisted upon the humanity of his work stating: “Modern architecture does not mean using immature new materials; the main thing is to work with materials towards a more human line.”
Many of Aalto’s public buildings such as Säynätsalo Town Hall, the lecture theatre at Otaniemi Technical University, the Helsinki National Pensions Institute and the Helsinki House of Culture may be seen as psychological as well as physical landmarks in the rebuilding of Finland after the ravages of war.
Peter Lindbergh and Azzedine Alaia, the photographer and the couturier, were united by their love of black, a love that they would cultivate alike in silver print and solid color garments. Lindbergh ceaselessly turned to black and white to signify his search for authenticity in the faces he brought to light. Alaia drew on the monochrome of timeless clothes to create veritable sculptures for the body.
A Revolution in Painting
The mysterious genius who transformed European art
Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. Today, he is considered one of the greatest influences in all art history.
This edition offers a neat and comprehensive Caravaggio catalogue raisonné. Each of his paintings is reproduced from recent top-quality photography, allowing for a vivid encounter with the artist’s ingenious repertoire of looks and gestures, as well as numerous detail shots of his boundary-breaking naturalism. Five accompanying chapters trace the complete arc of Caravaggio’s career from his first public commissions in Rome through to his growing celebrity status and trace his tempestuous personal life, in which drama loomed as prominently as in his canvases.
“Once there was a nation that went to war, but after they conquered a continent their own country was destroyed by atom bombs... then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think... although they were very different characters, the architects worked closely together to realize their dreams, staunchly supported by a super-creative bureaucracy and an activist state... after 15 years of incubation, they surprised the world with a new architecture―Metabolism―that proposed a radical makeover of the entire land... Then newspapers, magazines, and TV turned the architects into heroes: thinkers and doers, thoroughly modern men... Through sheer hard work, discipline, and the integration of all forms of creativity, their country, Japan, became a shining example... when the oil crisis initiated the end of the West, the architects of Japan spread out over the world to define the contours of a post-Western aesthetic....” ―Rem Koolhaas / Hans Ulrich Obrist
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