Description: The Symbolist art movement of the late nineteenth century forms an important bridge between Impressionism and Modernism. But because Symbolism, more than the two movements it links, emphasizes ideas over objects and events, it has suffered from vague and conflicting definitions. In Symbolist Art in Context, Michelle Facos offers a clearly written, comprehensive, and accessible description of this challenging subject. Reaching back into Romanticism for Symbolism's origins, Facos argues that Symbolism enabled artists (including Munch and Gauguin) to confront an increasingly uncertain and complex world--one to which pessimists responded with themes of decadence and degeneration and optimists with idealism and reform.
Description: For over thirty years, Sir Richard Westmacott was the leading official sculptor of his generation. Yet, despite his pivotal role in the British art world, he has never been the subject of extensive examination. This book traces Westmacott's rise to fame and looks at all aspects of his distinguished career. Westmacott won many of the most prestigious commissions of the day, including monuments for Lord Nelson, George III, Charles James Fox and William Pitt, and sculpture for such discriminating collectors as the third Earl of Egremont and the sixth Duke of Bedford. Westmacott's works display many affinities with the classical style, yet they also reveal the rich diversity of style and imagery which is characteristic of sculpture of the nineteenth century.
Description: The volumes in this bibliophile series provide unique portraits of European art history. Readers gain fascinating insights into the artists' biographies and their styles: Durer and his famous portraits and altarpieces, the vivid farm scenes of Pieter Bruegel, the great painters of the Italian Renaissance, the symphonies in color of Titian, the mysterious chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio, the rococo worlds of Antoine Watteau, and the great historical paintings created by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Authoritative texts illuminate the decisive stages in the artists' lives and the development of their styles, explaining their impact against the background of their social context as well as their significance for following generations of artists. Plentiful large sized illustrations showcase each artist's oeuvre. Each volume contains a comprehensive appendix providing information on the artists' biographies in tabular form as well as an extensive bibliography. Each of the authors of the individual volumes is renowned in his or her field.
Description: Mucha's Byzantine beauties graced walls throughout Paris in the late 1890s. These romantic female figures were incredibly popular and forever changed the movement of art nouveau.
