An accessible, stylish guide to still-usable vintage film cameras: which to buy, where to find them, and how to get the most out of them.
Retro Cameras is a stylish guide for a generation that has moved from sharing vintage-filtered digital images via Instagram to embracing «old school» analog film photography and manual cameras of all formats. Quick reference shooting guides accompany each camera type, allowing even a camera phone junkie to quickly come to grips with shooting on film with a vintage camera. More than 100 camera models are included, from 35mm SLRs to Roll Film SLRs and Instant Cameras.
With over 400 specially commissioned photographs, an in-depth test drive of each camera type, practical advice on how to use and get the most out of each camera, buyers tips, and a dedicated glossary, Retro Cameras is a perfect reference for amateurs and professionals alike.
500+ illustrations
While acknowledging the legacy of Herbert Reads classic 1959 study A Concise History of Modern Painting in the World of Art series, academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundation of modern art much earlier than Read, at the emergence of Romanticism and the dawn of the industrial age. Structured loosely chronologically by period, the focus is as much on individual artists as well as movements, with works discussed within a broader context — stylistic, historical, geographical, and gender and ethnic frames — themes that recur throughout the chapters. Generously illustrated, the global and diverse range of artists featured include William Blake, Edouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold and Kehinde Wiley.
This guide also includes an Appendix in the form of questions the reader might like to ask in relation to the artists and the ideas discussed — in order to reconsider the works from a contemporary perspective.
Salvador Dali was, and remains, among the most universally recognizable artists of the twentieth century. What accounts for this popularity? His excellence as an artist? Or his genius as a self-publicist?
In this searching text, partly based on interviews with the artist and fully revised, extended and updated for this edition, Dawn Ades considers the Dali phenomenon. From his early years, his artistic friendships and the development of his technique and style, to his relationship with the Surrealists and exploitation of Freudian ideas, and on to his post-war paintings, this essential study places Dali in social, historical and artistic context, and casts new light on the full range of his creativity.
The art and architecture of Egypt during the age of the pharaohs capture the imagination of the modern world. Vivid, graceful forms decorating monuments that emanated ambition and authority spark our wonder about this distant culture. Ever youthful and elegant men and women encounter odd, animal-headed gods and monsters amid scenes of work and leisure, in a paradise of plain, bright colours, where hieroglyphic texts hint at grand ideas.
The tombs and temples of ancient Egypt reveal how art and monumental building first flowered at the heart of civilization. Among the great creative achievements of ancient Egypt we discover a set of constant forms: archetypes in art and architecture that state clearly and concisely the contemporary view of authority, divinity, beauty and meaning. Whether adapted to fine, delicate jewelery or colossal statues, these forms maintain a human face — with human ideas and emotions as their explicit inspiration.
These artistic templates, and the ideas they articulated, were refined and reinvented through dozens of centuries, until scenes first created for the earliest kings, around 3000 bc, were used to represent Roman emperors and the last officials of pre-Christian Egypt. Bill Manleys account of the art of draws on the finest works of a uniquely successful and enduringly compelling civilization through more than 3,000 years, including celebrated masterpieces, from the Narmer palette to Tutankhamuns gold mask, as well as their contexts of origin in the tombs, temples and palaces of the pharaohs and their citizens.
Rembrandt is among the few outstanding artists of universal appeal, his striking self-portraits lauded the world over — yet he remains an elusive, enigmatic figure.
Here, the distinguished art historian Christopher White carefully considers the known facts to build a sensitive and thorough account of the artists life and work. He describes the radiant happiness of Rembrandts marriage, tragically cut short by the death of his wife, and discusses the catastrophe of his bankruptcy. The psychological factors that may have awakened Rembrandts sudden interest in landscape are also explored, as is the artists final decade, when he retreated into the private world of his imagination. This comprehensive introduction has now been revised and updated to reflect recent scholarship, and the bibliography has been expanded; Rembrandts artworks are now faithfully reproduced in colour throughout.
Britain has played a key part in the history of the last five centuries, and its art reflects this in absorbing and complex ways. The distinguished art historian Andrew Wilton traces the story of British painting from its hesitant beginnings under the influence of Holbein through its maturity in the time of Hogarth and Reynolds, when it reflected a prosperous society with growing imperial influence.
The pioneering role of Constable and Turner in the revolutions of the Romantic period is fully explored, and the enigmatic position of artists in Victorian England, when a stiff moral code came into conflict with the uncertainties of the age of Darwin. Consistent undercurrents revealed include Britains preference for the real world (landscape, portraiture) as against high art and abstraction.
Andrew Wilton offers new insights into the great personalities of British painting, and assesses afresh the latest flowering, in which many threads of modern art come together in sometimes startling guises.
"A long-needed presentation of Japanese art that concisely offers inclusive coverage from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. " -Choice
The uniqueness of Japanese culture rests on the fact that, throughout its history, Japan has continually taken, adapted, and transformed diverse influences-whether from Korea, China, and the South Seas, or Europe and America-into distinct traditions of its own. This book, an authoritative and provocative survey of the arts of Japan from the prehistoric period to the present, brings together the results of the most recent research on the subject. In this expanded and updated edition, a new chapter explores Japanese art from the 1980s to the new millennium. Profusely illustrated with examples from a range of arts as well as an extensive bibliography, Japanese Art is a concise, thought-provoking overview of a fascinating culture. 185 illustrations, 50 in color
An updated edition of this classic survey illustrated in color throughout, this book is the definitive overview of Paul Cezannes life and work.
For Picasso he was «like our father»; for Matisse, "a god of painting. " Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is widely regarded as the father of modern art. In this authoritative and accessible study, Richard Verdi traces the evolution of Cezannes landscape, still-life, and figure compositions from the turbulently romantic creations of his youth to the visionary masterpieces of his final years. The painters biography-his fluctuating reputation and strained relations with his parents, wife, and close friend Emile Zola-is vividly evoked using excerpts from his own letters and from contemporary accounts of the artist. Cezanne was torn between the desires to both make and find art-to master the themes of the past, through his copying sessions in the Louvre, and to explore the eternal qualities of nature in the countryside of his native Provence. In this way, the artist sought "to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums. " In this richly illustrated overview, now updated throughout and with a new preface, Verdi explores the strength, vitality, and magnitude of Cezannes achievement. 182 color illustrations
Paul Gauguin achieved a high public profile during his lifetime, and was one of the first artists of his generation to achieve international recognition. But his prominence has always had as much to do with the dramatic events of his life — his self-imposed exile on a remote South Sea island, his turbulent relationships with his peers — as with the appeal of his art.
Belinda Thomson gives a comprehensive and accessible account of the life and work of one of the most original artists of the late 19th century. Gauguins work — painting, sculpture, prints and ceramics — is discussed in the light of his public persona, his relations with his contemporaries, his exhibitions and their critical reception. Belinda Thomson reveals Gauguins private world, beliefs and aspirations through his extensive cache of journals, letters and other writings. Fully updated throughout, drawing on the insights of thirty years of scholarship since its first edition, Thomsons text remains the best introduction of this controversial and often contradictory artist.
Embracing over a thousand years of history and an area stretching from the Atlantic to the borders of India and China, this is an unrivalled synthesis of the arts of Islamic civilization. From the death of the Prophet Muhammad to the present day, Robert Hillenbrand traces the evolution of an extraordinary range of art forms, including architecture, calligraphy, book illumination, painting, ceramics, glassware, textiles and metalwork.
New to this edition is a chapter ranging from c. 1700 to c. 1900, a period very often neglected in books on this subject. Hillenbrand explores how recent centuries, far from being a dark age, saw extraordinary artistic ferment and creativity across the Islamic world. Throughout, full-colour illustrations of masterpieces of Islamic art and architecture — from Moorish Spain to modern Iran — show the far-reaching stylistic developments as well as the recurrent preoccupations that have shaped the arts of Islam since the seventh century.
What makes Scottish art Scottish? In this now classic book, Murdo Macdonald explores the distinctive characteristics of Scottish art over the centuries — such as the heritage of Celtic design with its emphasis on intricate pattern; the importance of the landscape, particularly the Highlands and the sea; and a close connection with France. He ranges from the earliest surviving art — Neolithic standing stones — through the art of the Picts and Gaels, and the tumultuous centuries of the Reformation, to the great flowering of Scottish art in the Enlightenment. The final chapters focus closely on art produced since 1900, with succinct and revealing analyses of the Scottish Colourists and the major figures of contemporary art in all media.
Masterpieces from the Book of Kells to paintings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Joan Eardley are illustrated in full colour, and such key works are set in a clearly explained historical context throughout. Macdonalds lucid and deeply researched book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of Scotlands artistic past and present.
The Greek myths are so much part of our culture that we tend to forget how they entered it in the first place. Visual sources — vase paintings, engraved gems and sculpture in bronze and stone — often pre-date references to the myths in literature, or offer alternative, unfamiliar tellings. In some cases visual art provides our only evidence, as there is no surviving account in ancient Greek literature of such important stories as the Fall of Troy, or Theseus and the Minotaur.
T. H. Carpenters illuminating and succinct survey will enable you to identify scenes from myths across the full breadth of archaic and classical Greek art. Copiously illustrated, it is an essential reference work for everybody interested in the art, drama, poetry or religion of ancient Greece.
Genius. Anti-artist. Charlatan. Impostor! Marcel Duchamp has been called all of these. Almost no other artist of the twentieth century has inspired more passion — or greater controversy. Duchamp challenged the very nature of art, striving to redefine it as conceptual rather than as a product; his influence is felt everywhere in todays art world. Always the provocateur, he never ceased his engagement, openly or secretly, in activities and works that transformed traditional modes of art-making.
This revised and expanded edition of Marcel Duchamp remains one of the most original books written on this enigmatic artist. Featuring a new chapter and preface, as well as updates throughout, this is the definitive introduction to Duchamp. Generously illustrated, this volume combines significant research by three expert authors to challenge and reshape historys presumptions, misunderstandings, and misinformation about Marcel Duchamp and his legacy.