Paperback:  233 pages
Company: Rutgers University Press  (2002-02-01)
ISBN: 0813530180
List Price: $35.00
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Not only was Claude Monet (1840-1926) a leading member of the impressionist movement, he was also, as this charming book reveals, a master interior decorator. A virtual room-by-room guided tour of Monet's beautiful and much-visited home at Giverny, this volume offers a vivid impression of daily life in the beloved house where the artist lived for 40 years with his second wife and their eight children. With its pink stucco walls, green shutters, and brightly painted original furniture, the house reveals Monet's brilliance and innovation as a colorist, which transcended his light-infused canvases to inform his choice of hues for wall paint and furniture. Each room is explored in its own chapter with glorious color photos: the dining room, painted in two shades of yellow and adorned with Japanese prints; the blue-and-white-tiled kitchen; the blue drawing room; the studio as it appeared in its heyday. Enlarged paint swatches of Monet's unique color combinations accompany each chapter so that readers can reproduce them in their own homes.

Author: Heidi Michaels
Paperback:  144 pages
Company: Frances Lincoln  (2006-08-17)
ISBN: 0711226083
List Price: $29.95
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This first comprehensive presentation of this collection from the Cleveland Museum of Art, includes paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Boudin and Manet among other innovative artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist period. Each painting is presented with descriptions detailing the artist's motifs and context of the work in the Impressionist era. The title, with its essays and over 100 colour plates, provides a thorough focus of the dramatic artistic development of the century between 1850 and 1950 through the remarkable pieces of this collection.

Author: Laurence Channing
Hardcover:  136 pages
Company: Hudson Hills Press  (2007-08-25)
ISBN: 0940717905
List Price: $50.00
Amazon Price: $27.80
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Author: Xavier Bray, Michael Clarke, John Collins, John House, Frances Jowell, Richard Rand, George T. M. Shackelford, Lesley Stevenson
Paperback:  280 pages
Company: Denver Art Museum  (2007-11-05)
ISBN: 0300131321
List Price: $65.00
Amazon Price: $39.94
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Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Hardcover:  368 pages
Company: Harcourt  (2005-05-16)
ISBN: 0151010765
List Price: $26.00
Amazon Price: $0.75
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Famous for outdoor scenes bathed in light, the impressionists are hard to imagine as dedicated still-life painters. By and large, they weren't. But Monet's rare small paintings of flowers were snapped up by contemporary collectors. And several artists who exhibited with the impressionists, influenced them, or were influenced by them--including Manet, van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cézanne--devoted a sizable portion of their oeuvre to the genre. While Impressionist Still Life is a somewhat misleading title--yet another marketing ploy to attract lovers of a popular style, it seems--this book makes a good case for the importance of this intimate genre of painting to major themes and techniques of later-19th-century art. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (September 22, 2001, to January 13, 2002, then traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), this volume is lavishly illustrated and rich in detailed information. Five essays trace themes ranging from the influence of 18th-century painter Jean-Baptiste Chardin on still-life composition and the use of color to the strikingly modern way Cézanne's famous apples devalued subject matter to emphasize the physicality of brush strokes. The stunning paintings featured in full-page plates include some rarely seen canvases, such as Monet's Jar of Peaches from 1866. In this tour de force of illusionism, the flattened look of peaches packed in a glass jar contrasts with fuzzy whole peaches that cast reflections on a marble table scribbled with bold white veins. A genre that could encompass both the luminous intimacy of Eva Gonzalès' White Shoes and the restless drama of Cézanne's Still Life with Ginger Jar and Eggplants turned out to be uniquely suited to individual perceptions of modern life. --Cathy Curtis

Author: Eliza E. Rathbone, George M. Shackelford
Hardcover:  240 pages
Company: Harry N. Abrams  (2001-09-01)
ISBN: 0810906139
List Price: $45.00
Amazon Price: $69.08
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Author: Henri Lallemand
Hardcover:  144 pages Illustrated
Company: New Line Books  (1998-11-01) (2005-01-01)
ISBN: 188090814X
List Price: $19.95
Amazon Price: $15.96
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Reproductions of some of the world's favorite artworks celebrate leisure activities in the nineteenth century.

No group of painters pursued the civilized and sensual pleasures of life so avidly while reflecting them so deliciously in their paintings as the Impressionists. Here Pamela Todd skillfully interweaves diaries, letters, memoirs, and her own acute observations into a fresh take on these colorful characters—all illustrated with a captivating and unique selection of paintings, drawings, photographs, posters, and ephemera.

Nineteenth-century Paris and its environs are brought vividly to life. Here are the bustling bars and cafés, the dazzling Opera, the lively dances at the Moulin de la Galette, and raucous nights at the Moulin Rouge. These are balanced by the frequent escapes that the Impressionists made from the city for a day boating on the Seine, a few weeks spent painting by the sea, or a vacation on the French Riviera.

The book includes the Impressionists and Impressionist-inspired artists of other countries—the United States, Germany, Italy, and the Scandinavian nations—amply demonstrating the enthusiastic spread of Impressionism outside France. It is completed with biographies of the key figures in the book and addresses and contact details for the most important sites discussed, allowing readers to plan their own pilgrimages to the haunts that captured the Impressionists' hearts. 170 illustrations, 120 in color.

Author: Pamela Todd
Hardcover:  176 pages
Company: Thames & Hudson  (2007-10-31)
ISBN: 0500238391
List Price: $40.00
Amazon Price: $12.00
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Impressionists by the Sea accompanies a joyous summer exhibition of the same name at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Through some sixty popular Impressionist works, coauthor John House considers the pictorial representation of the seaside during the 19th century, when the coastline of northern France was transformed from a fishing center into a popular vacation spot.

This handsomely produced book reveals how painting developed in tandem with social and economic changes. House shows how painters initially cast the coastline in a romantic role, focusing on the evocation of the sublime force of nature and the picturesque display of local fishermen, but by the early 1860s—at the moment the resorts of Deauville and Trouville were coming into vogue—painters such as Boudin, Manet, and Monet were capturing vacationers in all their relaxed glory.

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:

Royal Academy of Arts, London, July 7–September 30, 2007
Phillips Collection, Washington DC, October 20–July 13, 2008
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, February 9–May 11, 2008

Author: John House, David Hopkins
Hardcover:  144 pages
Company: Royal Academy of Arts  (2007-09-01)
ISBN: 1903973880
List Price: $55.00
Amazon Price: $34.88
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A beautiful anthology of Impressionist paintings by a dazzling roll-call of artists. One of the world's best-loved art historians, Sister Wendy Beckett combines her deep knowledge of art history with her unique powers of observation to create a personal anthology of over 50 Impressionist masterpieces. Led by visionary artists such as Manet, Monet, and Pissarro, the Impressionists sought to capture the brilliant colors of nature and the ever-changing effects of light on a scene. Sister Wendy invites us to immerse ourselves in the colorful, energizing , and revolutionary paintings of this late 19th-century movement. Gallery of Great Artists: From Bonnard and Cezanne to Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard, all the artists are presented alphabetically, and each is represented by one or two key works. Here you will find the leading French Impressionists including Degas, Renoir, and Signac. Also represented are Singer Sarget, and Whistler, American artists who trained in Paris and knew and worked alongside the Impressionists. Sister Wendy also includes Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, female Impressionists whose paintings captured the intimacy of domestic life. Sister Wendy invites us to take a fresh look at Impressionism. Seen through her eyes, each of the paintings in her wide-ranging selection weaves its magic around you when you follow her lead.

Hardcover:  96 pages
Company: DK ADULT  (2001-03-12)
ISBN: 0789463067
List Price: $19.95
Amazon Price: $39.84
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Brew Like a Monk delves into monastic brewing, detailing this rich-flavored region of the beer world. It also examines methods for brewing these unique ales suited to commercial and amateur brewers.

Author: Stan Hieronymus
Paperback:  295 pages
Company: Brewers Publications  (2005-10-25)
ISBN: 093738187X
List Price: $17.95
Amazon Price: $10.13
Used Price: $7.94

Paperback:  942 pages
Company: Princeton University Press  (1986-03-01)
ISBN: 0691027641
List Price: $39.95
Amazon Price: $28.00
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Almost 500 years after Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the site still attracts throngs of visitors and is considered one of the artistic masterpieces of the world. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling unveils the story behind the art's making, a story rife with all the drama of a modern-day soap opera.

The temperament of the day was dictated by the politics of the papal court, a corrupt and powerful office steeped in controversy; Pope Julius II even had a nickname, "Il Papa Terrible," to prove it. Along with his violent outbursts and warmongering, Pope Julius II took upon himself to restore the Sistine Chapel and pretty much intimidated Michelangelo into painting the ceiling even though the artist considered himself primarily a sculptor and was particularly unfamiliar with the temperamental art of fresco. Along with technical difficulties, personality conflicts, and money troubles, Michelangelo was plagued by health problems and competition in the form of the dashing and talented young painter Raphael.

Author Ross King offers an in-depth analysis of the complex historical background that led to the magnificence that is the Sistine Chapel ceiling along with detailed discussion of some of the ceiling's panels. King provides fabulous tidbits of information and weaves together a fascinating historical tale. --J.P. Cohen

Author: Ross King
Hardcover:  304 pages Bargain Price
Company: Walker & Company  (2003-01-01)
List Price: $28.00
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Author: Brian Ladd
Paperback:  282 pages
Company: University Of Chicago Press  (1998-11-15)
ISBN: 0226467627
List Price: $18.00
Amazon Price: $11.40
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In 1947, Christian Dior’s “New Look” was greeted with both shock and delight, making headlines around the world. Accompanying the exhibition opening at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September 2007, this lavish book focuses on Parisian and British couture between 1947 and 1957, the decade Dior hailed as fashion’s “golden age.”

The “New Look” symbolized a new femininity. The full skirts and hourglass silhouettes were considered highly decadent, synonymous with luxury and prosperity, in marked contrast to the austerity of the WWII years. Nevertheless, the “New Look” caught the public imagination and ushered in a period of remarkable creativity. The Golden Age of Couture features stunning gowns and exquisite tailoring from Dior as well as from such designers as Balenciaga, Balmain, and Givenchy, along with evocative photographs by the likes of Richard Avedon and Cecil Beaton.

This beautifully designed book reveals the skill and craftsmanship of haute couture along with the inner workings of the exclusive design houses, and the inspiration behind some of the most famous styles of all time.

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, September 27–January 6, 2008

Hardcover:  224 pages
Company: Victoria and Albert Museum  (2007-09-01)
ISBN: 185177520X
List Price: $45.00
Amazon Price: $28.71
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On War is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of war. Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, sought to understand and analyze the phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and win conflicts more effectively.
He studied the human and social factors that affect outcomes, as well as the tactical and technological ones. He understood that war was a weapon of government, and that political purpose, chance, and enmity combine to shape its dynamics. On War continues to be read by military strategists,
politicians, and others for its timeless insights.
This abridged edition by Beatrice Heuser, using the acclaimed translation by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, selects the central books in which Clausewitz's views on the nature and theory of war are developed. Heuser's introduction explains the originality of Clausewitz's ideas, his education and
background, and summarizes his key theories, while explanatory notes provide further information on the historical examples Clausewitz cites.

Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Paperback:  336 pages
Company: Oxford University Press, USA  (2007-03-19)
ISBN: 0192807161
List Price: $12.95
Amazon Price: $7.25
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Renaissance man: Michelangelo as never seen before. Before reaching the tender age of thirty, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already sculpted David and Pieta, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. Like fellow Florentine Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo was a shining star of the Renaissance and a genius of consummate virtuosity. His achievements as a sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and architect are unique- no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multi-faceted, and wideranging oeuvre. Only a handful of other painters and sculptors have attained a comparable social status and enjoyed a similar artistic freedom. This is demonstrated not only by the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel but also by Michelangelo's monumental sculptures and his unconventional architectural designs, whose forms went far beyond the accepted vocabulary of his day. Such was his talent that Michelangelo was considered a demigod by his contemporaries and was the subject of two biographies during his lifetime. Adoration of this remarkable man's work has only increased on the intervening centuries. Following the success of our XL title Leonardo da Vinci, TASCHEN brings you this massive tome that explores Michelangelo's life and work in more depth and detail then ever before. The first part concentrates on the life of Michelangelo via an extensive and copiously illustrated biographical essay; the main body of the book presents his owrk in four parts providing a complete analytical inventory of Michelangelo's paintings, sculptures, buildings and drawings. Grorgeous, full page reproductions and enlarged details bring readers up close to the works. This sumptuous tome also takes account, to a previously unseen extent, of Michelangelo's more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his miserliness, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor. In addition, the book tackles the controversial issue of the attribution of Michelangelo drawings, an area in which decisions continue to be steered by the interests of the art market and the major collections. This is the definitive volume about Michelangelo for generations to come.

Author: Frank Zollner, Christof Thoenes, Thomas Popper
Hardcover:  768 pages Illustrated
Company: Taschen  (2007-10-01)
ISBN: 3822830550
List Price: $200.00
Amazon Price: $126.00
Used Price: $139.18

Author: Ross King
Hardcover:  464 pages Bargain Price
Company: Walker & Company  (2006-01-10) (2006-01-10)
List Price: $28.00
Amazon Price: $6.33
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An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review


"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist


From the Hardcover edition.

Author: Jonathan Harr
Paperback:  320 pages
Company: Random House Trade Paperbacks  (2006-11-07) (2006-11-07)
ISBN: 0375759867
List Price: $13.95
Amazon Price: $3.79
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Every few months you'll read a newspaper story of the discovery of some long-lost art treasure hidden away in a German basement or a Russian attic: a Cranach, a Holbein, even, not long ago, a da Vinci. Such treasures ended up far from the museums and churches in which they once hung, taken as war loot by Allied and Axis soldiers alike. Thousands of important pieces have never been recovered. Lynn Nicholas offers an astonishingly good account of the wholesale ravaging of European art during World War II, of how teams of international experts have worked to recover lost masterpieces in the war's aftermath and of how governments "are still negotiating the restitution of objects held by their respective nations."

Author: Lynn H. Nicholas
Paperback:  512 pages
Company: Vintage  (1995-04-25) (1995-04-25)
ISBN: 0679756868
List Price: $16.95
Amazon Price: $9.99
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Author: Charles Jones
Unknown Binding:  90 pages
Company: Author  (1995)
ISBN: 0964350114
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Hardcover: 
Company: Reinhold  (1965)
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Acclaimed artist Anton Gutknecht invites you into his artistic world as he shows you how to re-create an array of captivating oil landscapes—from dry desert washes to seascapes and snowy mountain scenes. In this step-by-step book, he explains a number of oil panting techniques, as well as his own method of developing a painting from initial sketches to final details. As you follow along with his excellent instruction, you will refine your skills as you discover how to portray illumination, softness, and even mood. Best of all, you’ll find a wealth of beautiful oil landscape paintings to both copy and admire. This book will be a welcome addition to any artist’s library!

Author: Walter Foster
Paperback:  32 pages
Company: Walter Foster  (1998)
ISBN: 0929261410
List Price: $7.95
Amazon Price: $4.69
Used Price: $5.28

Paperback: 
Company: Hp Books    (1982)
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Author: Peter John Garrard
Paperback: 
Company: Hp Books  (1982)
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Used Price: $8.10

Author: Eugene M. Frandzen
Paperback:  30 pages
Company: Foster Art Service  (1967)
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Author: Henri Clarise
Hardcover: 
Company: Amateur Art Company  (1903)
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Author: Marion Kemble
Unknown Binding:  154 pages
Company: S.W. Tilton & company  (1888)
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Jerry Yarnell’s acclaimed television painting series has touched the lives of thousands, and now he can help you paint landscapes in acrylic too! He walks you through the essentials—from choosing acrylic supplies to setting up your studio—before explaining his own approach to painting techniques. He also reveals his personal methods of approaching and developing paintings, step by step, through a series of easy-to-follow lessons. The beautiful landscape scenes and impressive how-to instruction in this book make it a welcome addition to any acrylic artist’s library!

Author: Jerry Yarnell
Paperback:  32 pages
Company: Walter Foster  (2000)
ISBN: 1560103639
List Price: $7.95
Amazon Price: $4.69
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Author: H. P. McLaughlin, Walter Foster
Paperback: 
Company: Walter Foster Pub  (1990-06)
ISBN: 0929261216
List Price: $5.50
Amazon Price: $12.45
Used Price: $4.30