Bøger i Dover Fine Art, History of Art serien

Forty important lithographic prints with line and composition comparable to the works of Miro's friend Picasso. Eerie, droll, technically brilliant, and aggressive.

First republication of remarkable repainting of great Mexican codex, dated to ca. AD 1400. 76 large full-color plates show gods, kings, warriors, mythical creatures, and abstract designs. Introduction.

This collection gathers breathtaking art from early editions of "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," and other classics. 180 elegant images -- most in color -- include works by Rackham, Dore, Dulac, Nielsen, and others.

Forty-six outstanding studies, including sketches for David, Sistine Ceiling, Last Judgment, and more. Nudes, figure studies, children, animals, mythical and religious works, more.

Lush, full-color reproductions of 56 dazzlingly inventive full-color silkscreens. Exquisite visions of "The Seven Deadly Sins," "The Four Emotions," "The Zodiac," "At the Theatre," and more will delight enthusiasts and win new admirers.

Using scientific methods in his investigations of the human body -- the first ever by an artist -- da Vinci was able to produce remarkably accurate depictions of the "ideal" human figure. This exceptional collection reprints 59 of his sketches of the skeleton, skull, upper and lower extremities, human embryos, and other subjects.

To many, Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939) is best known for his beautiful bell époque posters and magnificent decorative panels. His distinctive graphic approach to the 1895 poster advertising Sarah Bernhardt's performance in Gismonda captured the Parisian public's imagination and catapulted the artist into overnight success. During the next ten years he became the high priest of Art Nouveau, publishing several stylebooks which were to have a lasting influence on 20th-century art and design.Figures decoratives, originally published in 1905, is a landmark book of the Art Nouveau movement and perhaps best exemplifies Mucha's artistic product in the years 1895-1905, the decade that made him famous. Mucha's purity of line and beauty of proportion take their inspiration from nature. But more than nature's imitator, he was its interpreter, translating its rhythms and designs into works that exude an indefinable charm. His unique approach combined originality of invention with spontaneous energy supported by flawless draftsmanship.This new edition of Figures decoratives carefully reproduces all forty of the original two-color plates from a rare first edition now valued at several thousand dollars. Comprised of finished pen, pencil, charcoal, and chalk, this volume represents the essence of Mucha's genius and documents the subtle shadings and linear excellence that characterized his masterful illustrations. Placed in rectangles, triangles, stars, circles, and a number of irregular geometric forms are figures of women, young girls, and children of both sexes. The harmony between the movement of head, limbs, and drapery and the sense of balance in each pose are the result of Mucha's instinct for composition, gift for ornamentation, and profound knowledge of his craft.Mucha's hand and eye are clearly evident in all his work though one can see other artistic influences which shaped the artist's development, including Gauguin's cloissonnism, Horta's and Van de Velde's kinetic treatment of curvilinear design, as well as the linear conventions of Moorish architecture and Islamic ornamentation. Yet Mucha himself believed that he owed his greatest artistic debt to the folk art traditions of his native Moravia.

In the brief span of his life and career, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) galvanized public attention in 1890s London with his exotic renderings of subjects, which often projected the sensual and the grotesque. This splendid volume brings together the best of Beardsley's work--a rich selection ranging from illustrations for Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Balzac's La Comédie Humaine to magazine cover designs, book plate silhouettes, title-page ornaments, and delightful mini-portraits of major composers. Also included are two photographs of the artist, consisting of private portrait studies by Frederick H. Evans.Over 180 beautifully reproduced black-and-white plates capture the uniqueness of Beardsley's vision and reveal the seductive power of his art. Among the illustrations are brilliantly conceived vignettes from Le Morte D'arthur, Venus and Tannhäuser, Salome, and Lucian's True History as well as enchanting creations for The Yellow Book (an influential British arts quarterly), and much more.Characterized by bold black masses, elongated shapes, and sensually provocative figures, these works are the product of a remarkable individual style that transformed the art of illustration. Reproduced here in an inexpensive high-quality format, they are certain to thrill not only Beardsley enthusiasts but anyone interested in the early years of modern graphic art.Dover (1990) original publication.

Pater's graceful essays discuss the achievements of Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and other artists. The book concludes with an uncompromising advocacy of hedonism, urging readers to experience life as fully as possible.

German Expressionism was an extraordinarily vivid presence in the art of the early twentieth century, its violent colors and often distorted, stylized forms reflecting not only the rebellious spirit of its participants, but the revolutionary mood of the new century itself. One of the most popular media used by the German Expressionists was the woodcut, important in the history of German art from the time of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), and especially suited to Expressionism's bold graphics.This superb collection presents over 100 finely reproduced woodcuts from the work of nearly 30 major artists in the movement who worked in the woodcut medium. Among them are Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and many others. Most of the woodcuts reproduced here date from the first three decades of the twentieth century. They are powerful works, ranging in mood from Felix Müller's pensive portrait of Carl Sternheim (1925) to Franz Marc's electric Riding School (1913) and Ernst Barlach's profoundly moving Christ on the Mount of Olives (1920).Readers interested in the art of the woodcut as well as students and enthusiasts of twentieth-century art will find this volume ideal for browsing and study. Individual captions for each selection, notes on each artist, and an informative introduction to the art of the woodcut and the German Expressionist movement add to the book's value as a reference work.Dover (1994) original publication.

This book contains 101 of Hogarth's finest and most important engravings, including all the major series or progresses: The South Sea Scheme, A Harlot's Progress, A Midnight Modern Conversation, A Rake's Progress, Before and After, Marriage à la Mode, Industry and Idleness, The March to Finchley, The Four Stages of Cruelty, Time Smoking a Picture, Tailpiece, and many more, including ten study sketches and paintings that show how the final works evolved. Sean Shesgreen, a foremost authority on Hogarth, has consistently selected the best states of the plates to be used in this edition and has carefully introduced them, commenting upon the artist's milieu and the importance of plot, character, time, setting, and other dimensions. A most important aspect of this book, found in no other Hogarth edition, is the positioning of the editor's commentary on each plate on a facing page. With the incredible and sometimes overwhelming amount of detail and action going on in these engravings, this is a most helpful feature.Dover Original.

One of the most renowned and best-loved illustrators of his day, English artist Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) brought countless stories and fairy tales to life though his vivid imagination and eye for telling details. Combining a sensitive use of line and subdued watercolors, he skillfully depicted forests of startling trees with claw-like roots, wholesome fairy maidens, monsters, and demons, and backgrounds filled with obscure figures. His inspired illustrations for the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900) brought him his first great success, with a long and distinguished career to follow.This collection of 55 full-color plates, reproduced from rare early editions, contains a rich selection of Rackham's best fairy tale images: a giant terrorizing the inhabitants of an isolated village in English Fairy Tales, a wicked witch greeting two lost children on her doorstep in Hansel and Gretel, a young maiden beset by snarling wolves in Irish Fairy Tales, and many more, including illustrations from Snowdrop and Other Tales, Little Brother and Little Sister, and The Allies' Fairy Book.

These 66 drawings and 8 picture-stories represent the best of Steinlen's scattered, rare cat depictions, available nowhere else. Artists will learn cat dynamics from the spare, expressive lines.

Seminal modern study explains ideas beyond superficial changes. Analyzes over 150 works by masters. 121 illustrations.

The locale of these 120 brilliantly satiric drawings is that of Berlin in the 1920s, but a most remarkable thing about them is their startling contemporaneity. We have to keep reminding ourselves that they were not drawn in New York, London, and Paris of the twenty-first century but in the sensation-hungry, inflation-fed milieu of the Weimar Republic."On an Expense Account," for example, shows a well-fed businessman and his wife. We see only his back and neck, note her tastelessly modish skirts, and we know the whole story. "Total Devotion from 5:00 to 7:00" is a cocktail-bar scene, and in the dancing of the slick-haired man and the posture of his partner there is something depraved because it is only sensual. "Lunch" depicts a matron with unmistakably porcine features holding knife and fork affectedly as she swills. Her dining partner needs no animalization; the blasé bag below his eye, the expression, and the fold below his chin are enough.Can prostitutes, contrary to sentimental folklore, appear smug, bloated with satisfaction, and wallowing in cheap gratification? See "Transit Trade" to realize the effects of mindless materialism. Schiller wrote, "Swim if you can and if you are too weak, sink." Grosz takes this as his text for a compelling contrast between rich and poor in just two figures that completely refute the Übermensch doctrine. Hemingway in Nada did not depict more tellingly the utter despair of empty lives in the hour when the café closes than does Grosz in "They Don't Sing Any More." Love Above All? We are only partway through this portfolio when we realize suddenly how bitterly sarcastic is the title.But the mordant eye, angry wit, and social consciences of Grosz were shared by many of his period. What lifts his art above the transient event is his supremely eloquent use of pen and brush. No one has more expressively, piercingly, and economically, drawn the scenes of his special civilization--so strangely like ours--than did George Grosz.Dover unabridged republication of Über alles di Liebe and Die Gezeichneten, both Berlin, 1930.