"Girl before a Mirror" (1932), one of severalstandouts in MoMA's vast collection of Pablo Picasso's work, takesthe traditional artistic theme of a woman before her mirror andreinvents it in radically modern terms. The girl's profile andblonde hair identify her as Marie-Thérèse Walter, the artist'slover, muse and a profoundly transformative presence in both hislife and art, but the painting is far from a conventional portrait.Its dazzling jewel-like colors, boldly contoured shapes and surfacepatterning transform the girl and her shadowy reflection into adeeply mysterious image that is both captivating and strange. Inher essay, MoMA's Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Paintingand Sculpture, Anne Umland, explores this work in depth anddescribes the circumstances of its creation: the artist's privatelife, his practice as a sculptor, his rivalry with other artistsboth living and dead and his concern, at the age of 51, about hiscontemporary relevance and artistic legacy.
Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes ontoday’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature,or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci,Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role inthe controversy. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeksthrough the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenmentphilosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musicalscale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe. In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads usthrough the battles over that scale, placing them in the context ofquarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics andscience. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system knownas equal temperament called into question beliefs that hadlasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music ofBeethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filledwith original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits ofsome of th
FRENCH-GERMAN PAINTER COUNT BALTHASAR KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA (1908-2001), KNOWN AS BALTHUS, SHOCKED THE PARISIAN ART WORLD IN 1934 WITH HIS DREAMY, SENSUAL, NEO-CLASSICAL PORTRAITS OF NYMPHETS AT A TIME WHEN SURREALISM AND ABSTRACTION WERE DE RIGUEUR. AS A PROVOCATEUR, BALTHUS WAS OFTEN SCORNED; AS AN ARTIST, HE WAS WIDELY EMBRACED AS A PRODIGY. IN RESPONSE TO CRITICS OF HIS REALIST STYLE, BALTHUS SAID: "THE REAL ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE. ONE CAN BE A REALIST OF THE UNREAL AND A FIGURATIVE PAINTER OF THE INVISIBLE." HIS EROTIC, POETIC PAINTINGS LIVE ON AS EXAMPLES OF THE BEST FIGURATIVE WORK OF THE MODERN ERA.
Unique and comprehensive, this collection features a tremendous variety of slow movements for keyboard players. Highlights include selections from the sonatas of Haydn and Mozart, Chopin preludes, and classics such as the opening movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, Bach's Sinfonia in F Minor, and Debussy's Claire de Lune.
Addition to Basic Arts series covering the most prominentpieces of de Kooning's body of work
GET READY TO ROCK! In ten easy lessons, PLAY GREAT ROCK GUITAR will take you fromcloseted air guitarist to real-life rocker. Each lesson is linkedto audio files on the included CD, so you can hear exactly whatyou’re learning. Play along with the CD to get just what thosechords, riffs, and melodies are supposed to sound like. Soon you’llbe playing your favorite songs along with your favorite bands—or inyour own rock band! Including the basics of harmony and melody, riffs and solos, andthe fundamentals of blues, rock ‘n roll, classic rock, heavy metal,rhythm guitar, and alternative, PLAY GREAT ROCK GUITAR is foranyone who’s ever dreamed of playing popular music’s most supremelycool instrument—or who’s caught the “Guitar Hero” bug. With thehelpful CD, clear illustrations, and examples from the rock godsyou worship, PLAY GREAT ROCK GUITAR creates the world’s next mastershredder—you!
An invaluable guide for both casual opera fans and afficionados,this volume contains act-by-act de*ions of operatic worksranging from the early seventeenth century masterworks ofMonteverdi and Purcell to the modern classics of Menotti andBritten. Written in a lively anecdotal style, entries includecharacter de*ions, historical background, and much more.
This unique anthology samples the vast repertoire available for the beginning and intermediate guitarist. A number of these pieces have never appeared in a modern edition, while others have found their place among the world's best-loved compositions. Many periods and musical styles are reflected-from guitar tran*ions of the earliest Italian lute tablatures to an arrangement of the American favorite "Dixie's Land." Here also are such staples of classical guitar as selected Studies of the great Fernando Sor, as well as period and modern arrangements of popular themes from such beloved classics as Bach's "Minuet in G,"Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," the theme from Brahms's Symphony No. 1, a selection from Rossini's opera "William Tell," and the famous "Goin' Home" theme from Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. Edited by concert guitarist and music scholar David Nadal, who has newly transcribed many of the pieces for solo guitar, this practical, sturdily bound, inexpensive treasury will be welcomed by students, afic
A tribute to the Pacific Northwest's grunge genre draws on theobservations of individuals at the forefront of the movement fromSoundgarden and the Melvins to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, citing theinfluences of such factors as the rise of Seattle's Sub Pop recordlabel and the death of Kurt Cobain.
Asian Resorts is conceived to be the most comprehensivecollection on Asian resorts. Written and shot by the region'sbest known Asian architecture specialist, TanHock Beng, who has already put together five books on the designand aesthetics of tropical architecture, Asian Resorts promises toshow its readers the biggest variety of Asian resorts that no otherbook has ever shown. With its beautifully' shot images and relevantinformation, this book will certainly serve and entertain youbeyond just the coffee table. In fact, it is a must-have for everyarchitectural office and every home.
Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christianscholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science,and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s TheBasic Works of Aristotle –constituted out of the definitiveOxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover forsixty years–has long been considered the best available one-volumeAristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this editionincludes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, The ShortPhysical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, OnGeneration and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, NicomacheanEthics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety.
This illustratedsurvey of the work of Modigliani shows how he was regarded bycontemporaries as the very definition of a Parisian bohemian.Modigliani's style is seen as having roots in antiquity or Africa,and the text also brings to life the Parisian art scene of theearly 20th century.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is widely regarded as epitomizing the "painter as poet". The worldwide admiration he commanded remains unparalleled by any artist of the 20th century. Chagall's paintings, steeped in mythology and mysticism, portray colourful dreams and tales that are deeply rooted in his Russian Jewish origins. The memories and yearning they evoke recall his native Vitebsk, and the great events that mark the life of ordinary people: birth, love, marriage and death. They tell of a world full of everyday miracles - in the room of lovers, on the streets of Vitebsk, beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Heaven and earth seem to meet in a topsy-turvy world in which whimsical figures of people and animals float through the air with gravity-defying serenity. This art album presents Chagall's work.
In 2008, Bob Dylan became the first rock and roll artist to be honored with a Pulitzer Prize, for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power. A musician, poet, and celebrated nonconformist of unparallelled stature, Dylan is revered by critics and fans alikeas the most influential singer-songwriter in the history of popular music. Setting out in 1961 as a young man with a guitar and a harmonica, this elusive and enigmatic artist has grown into an international cultural icon as a tireless author of over 30 albums and a relentless live performer. The Music Icons series: Each title contains a painstaking selection of approximately 150 portraits, colorful posters and record covers, rare concert photos, and previously unpublished candid photos. "More bang for your buck! "... a fast-food, high-energy fix on the topic at hand." The New York Times Book Review"
When it was originally published in 1970, "How to Draw What YouSee" zoomed to the top of Watson-Guptill's best-seller list--and ithas remained there ever since. "I believe that you must be able todraw things as you see them--realistically," wrote Rudy de Reyna inhis introduction. Today, generations of artists have learned todraw what they see, to truly capture the world around them, usingde Reyna's methods. "How to Draw What You See" shows artists how torecognize the basic shape of an object--cube, cylinder, cone, orsphere--and use that shape to draw the object, no matter how muchdetail it contains.
