LITMIR.BIZ

What happened to the insolence of the 18th-century libertines or to the carefree excesses of the Belle Époque and its legalized brothels? They have merely been inhibited and buried by the nowadays political correctness and the aggressive one-eyed morality. This book disregards conventional thinking and presents 800 reproductions that illustrate erotic art from Ancient Greece down to the present era in both Europe and Asia: when reproduction is not seen as an end in itself. With no hesitation nor inhibition, the author explains why erotic art is a key factor of societal development.

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“The Devil holds the strings which move us!” (Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, 1857.) Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer… the Devil has many names and faces, all of which have always served artists as a source of inspiration. Often commissioned by religious leaders as images of fear or veneration, depending on the society, representations of the underworld served to instruct believers and lead them along the path of righteousness. For other artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch, they provided a means of denouncing the moral decrepitude of one’s contemporaries. In the same way, literature dealing with the Devil has long offered inspiration to artists wishing to exorcise evil through images, especially the works of Dante and Goethe. In the 19th century, romanticism, attracted by the mysterious and expressive potential of the theme, continued to glorify the malevolent. Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, the monumental, tormented work of a lifetime, perfectly illustrates this passion for evil, but also reveals the reason for this fascination. Indeed, what could be more captivating for a man than to test his mastery by evoking the beauty of the ugly and the diabolic?

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From the Middle Ages to contemporary times, decorative art can be defi ned by the artistic materials, designs and objects used in both architecture and interior design. Similar to many art forms decorative art continues to evolve, originating with pieces as simple as a chair, noted for its utility, to purely ornamental objects, celebrated for their aesthetic beauty. Decorative Art aims to eulogize these often undervalued objects by giving praise to all mediums of decorative art throughout the centuries. Originally never considered as fi ne art, their artistic potential was not acknowledged until the twentieth century when industrial production replaced artisanal creation. The age, authenticity and above all the uniqueness of these precious objects have now become the new standards of quality and beauty found in decorative art. Join us in discovering the evolution of decorative art through this enticing survey of major masterpieces throughout time.

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Painter, designer, creator of bizarre objects, author and film maker, Dalí became the most famous of the Surrealists. Buñuel, Lorca, Picasso and Breton all had a great influence on his career. Dalí's film, An Andalusian Dog, produced with Buñuel, marked his official entry into the tightly-knit group of Parisian Surrealists, where he met Gala, the woman who became his lifelong companion and his source of inspiration. But his relationship soon deteriorated until his final rift with André Breton in 1939. Nevertheless Dalí's art remained surrealist in its philosophy and expression and a prime example of his freshness, humour and exploration of the subconscious mind. Throughout his life, Dalí was a genius at self-promotion, creating and maintaining his reputation as a mythical figure.

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Ornans, Courbet’s birthplace, is near the beautiful valley of the Doubs River, and it was here as a boy, and later as a man, that he absorbed the love of landscape. He was by nature a revolutionary, a man born to oppose existing order and to assert his independence; he had that quality of bluster and brutality which makes the revolutionary count in art as well as in politics. In both directions his spirit of revolt manifested itself. He went to Paris to study art, yet he did not attach himself to the studio of any of the prominent masters. Already in his country home he had had a little instruction in painting, and preferred to study the masterpieces of the Louvre. At first his pictures were not sufficiently distinctive to arouse any opposition, and were admitted to the Salon. Then followed the Funeral at Ornans, which the critics violently assailed: “A masquerade funeral, six metres long, in which there is more to laugh at than to weep over.” Indeed, the real offence of Courbet’s pictures was that they represented live flesh and blood. They depicted men and women as they really are and realistically doing the business in which they are engaged. His figures were not men and women deprived of personality and idealised into a type, posed in positions that will decorate the canvas. He advocated painting things as they are, and proclaimed that la vérité vraie must be the aim of the artist. So at the Universal Exposition of 1855 he withdrew his pictures from the exhibition grounds and set them in a wooden booth, just outside the entrance. Over the booth he posted a sign with large lettering. It read, simply: “Courbet – Realist.” Like every revolutionary, he was an extremist. He ignored the fact that to every artist the truth of nature appears under a different guise according to his way of seeing and experiencing. Instead, he adhered to the notion that art is only a copying of nature and not a matter also of selection and arrangement. In his contempt for prettiness Courbet often chose subjects which may fairly be called ugly. But that he also had a sense of beauty may be seen in his landscapes. That sense, mingled with his capacity for deep emotion, appears in his marines – these last being his most impressive work. Moreover, in all his works, whether attractive or not to the observer, he proved himself a powerful painter, painting in a broad, free manner, with a fine feeling for colour, and with a firmness of pigment that made all his representations very real and stirring.

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Since the dawn of Christianity, artists have been fascinated and stirred by the figure of Christ. His likeness appears in frescoes on the walls of catacombs that date from Roman times; he is featured in the stained glass windows of Gothic churches; and he can be found in various forms in today’s pop culture. The Biblical Saviour is not a static, immaterial deity: Christ’s mortal birth, unusual life and dramatic death make him an accessible subject for religious and secular artists alike.Whether they show the spirituality of God Incarnate or the earthly characteristics of a flesh-and-blood man, artistic depictions of Christ are the most controversial, moving or inspirational examples of religious art. This richly illustrated book explores the various ways that Christ is rendered in art, from Cimabue’s Nativity scenes and Fra Angelico’s paintings of the Crucifixion to the provocative portraits of Salvador Dalí and Andres Serrano. Author Joseph Lewis French guides the reader through the most iconic representations of Christ in art – tender or graphic, classical or bizarre, these images of the Messiah reveal the diverse roles of the Son of God in the social milieus and personal lives of the artists.

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Dealing not only with architecture, sculpture, and painting, but also with bronze and ceramics, this text offers a complete panorama of Chinese arts and civilisation. In his text, the author Bushell stresses the importance of knowing the society to understand the arts.

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From 12 October 2005 to 9 January 2006, the Musee Guimet in Paris will play host to an exceptional exhibition: ‘Treasures of Vietnamese Art… Champa Sculpture’. This show will bring together for the first time, outstanding pieces from the Musée Guimet, the National Museums of France and the national Vietnamese museums of Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon). The discretion of private collectors has meant that, until now, much of the wealth of this great Asian art form has remained relatively unknown but this show also includes several truly exceptional pieces from private collections, hitherto inaccessible to both the public and most curators. Jean-Francois Hubert, an international expert on Vietnamese art, has succeeding in creating a unique artistic opportunity. In the 5th century, the Champa kingdom held sway over a large area of today's Vietnam. Several magnificent structures still testify to their former presence in the Nha Trang region. Cham Sculpture was worked in a variety of materials, principally sandstone, but also gold, silver and bronze, and primarily illustrated themes from Indian mythology. The kingdom was gradually eroded during the 15th century by the irresistible descent of the people towards the south (“Nam Tiên”) from their original base in the Red River region. The author explores, describes and comments on the various styles of Cham sculpure, drawing on a rich and, as yet largely unpublished, iconographic vein.

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After staying in Milan for his apprenticeship, Michelangelo da Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1592. There he started to paint with both realism and psychological analysis of the sitters. Caravaggio was as temperamental in his painting as in his wild life. As he also responded to prestigious Church commissions, his dramatic style and his realism were seen as unacceptable. Chiaroscuro had existed well before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. His influence was immense, firstly through those who were more or less directly his disciples. Famous during his lifetime, Caravaggio had a great influence upon Baroque art. The Genoese and Neapolitan Schools derived lessons from him, and the great movement of Spanish painting in the seventeenth century was connected with these schools. In the following generations the best endowed painters oscillated between the lessons of Caravaggio and the Carracci.

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Canaletto began his career as a theatrical scene painter, like his father, in the Baroque tradition. Influenced by Giovanni Panini, he is specialised in vedute (views) of Venice, his birth place. Strong contrast between light and shadow is typical of this artist. Furthermore, if some of those views are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial subjects. He also published, thanks to John Smith, his agent, a series of etchings of Cappricci. His main purchasers were British aristocracy because his views reminded them of their Grand Tour. In his paintings geometrical perspective and colours are structuring. Canaletto spent ten years in England. John Smith sold Canaletto’s works to George III, creating the major part of the Royal Canaletto Collection. His greatest works influenced landscape painting in the nineteenth century.

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