Focusing on the arcades of 19th-century Paris--glass-roofed rows of shops that were early centers of consumerism--Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources. 46 illustrations.

With its fittingly dramatic design, Courbet and the Modern Landscape accompanies the first major museum exhibition specifically to address Gustave Courbet's extraordinary achievement in landscape painting. Many of these carefully selected works produced from 1855 to 1876--gathered from Asia, Europe, and North America--will be new to readers. The catalogue--which accompanies an exhibition at the Getty Museum to be held from February 21 to May 14, 2006--highlights the artist's expressive responses to the natural environment. Essays by the curators examine Courbet's distinctly modern practice of landscape painting. Mary Morton's essay situates his landscapes in relation to his work in other genres, his critical reputation, and his role in establishing a new pictorial language for landscape painting. Charlotte Eyerman's essay investigates how later generations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists responded to Courbet's example. The catalogue also includes an essay by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, curator of photographs at the Musee d'Orsay, on the relationship between Courbet's work and landscape photography of the 1850s and 1860s. With its fittingly dramatic design, Courbet and the Modern Landscape accompanies the first major museum exhibition specifically to address Gustave Courbet's extraordinary achievement in landscape painting. Many of these carefully selected works produced from 1855 to 1876--gathered from Asia, Europe, and North America--will be new to readers. The catalogue--which accompanies an exhibition at the Getty Museum to be held from February 21 to May 14, 2006--highlights the artist's expressive responses to the natural environment. Essays by the curators examine Courbet's distinctly modern practice of landscape painting. Mary Morton's essay situates his landscapes in relation to his work in other genres, his critical reputation, and his role in establishing a new pictorial language for landscape painting. Charlotte Eyerman's essay investigates how later generations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists responded to Courbet's example. The catalogue also includes an essay by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, curator of photographs at the Musee d'Orsay, on the relationship between Courbet's work and landscape photography of the 1850s and 1860s.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April 5-July 4, 2011.

From T.J. Clark comes this provocative study of the origins of modern art in the painting of Parisian life by Edouard Manet and his followers. The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was a brand-new city, recently adorned with boulevards, cafés, parks, Great Exhibitions, and suburban pleasure grounds—the birthplace of the habits of commerce and leisure that we ourselves know as "modern life." A new kind of culture quickly developed in this remade metropolis, sights and spectacles avidly appropriated by a new kind of "consumer": clerks and shopgirls, neither working class nor bourgeois, inventing their own social position in a system profoundly altered by their very existence. Emancipated and rootless, these men and women flocked to the bars and nightclubs of Paris, went boating on the Seine at Argenteuil, strolled the island of La Grande-Jatte—enacting a charade of community that was to be captured and scrutinized by Manet, Degas, and Seurat. It is Clark's cogently argued (and profusely illustrated) thesis that modern art emerged from these painters' attempts to represent this new city and its inhabitants. Concentrating on three of Manet's greatest works and Seurat's masterpiece, Clark traces the appearance and development of the artists' favorite themes and subjects, and the technical innovations that they employed to depict a way of life which, under its liberated, pleasure-seeking surface, was often awkward and anxious. Through their paintings, Manet and the Impressionists ask us, and force us to ask ourselves: Is the freedom offered by modernity a myth? Is modern life heroic or monotonous, glittering or tawdry, spectacular or dull? The Painting of Modern Life illuminates for us the ways, both forceful and subtle, in which Manet and his followers raised these questions and doubts, which are as valid for our time as for the age they portrayed.

Recent restoration campaigns, particularly to the Sistine Chapel, have focused attention on the importance of colour in our experience of paintings, but until recently it has been neglected by art historians. The author believes that the work of art can only be fully appreciated when it is regarded as the product of both the artist's hand and mind. This study utilizes the traditional sources, such as contemporary theoretical writings and iconographical analysis, but in addition draws on the scientific findings of the conservation laboratories. This is a new body of data assembled in large part since World War II, which art historians are only beginning to exploit to fill out the history of technique. Rather than writing merely a history of technique, however, the author has integrated this material with traditional approaches to cultural history. She undertakes to examine twenty major paintings of the period from Giotto to Tintoretto to elucidate how colour and technique contribute to their meaning. She gives us then, the first modern consideration of Renaissance paintings both as physical objects and as monuments of cultural history.

An inspired collection of new fiction from some of today’s most celebrated writers, exploring the charm, potency and seductive powers of a classic genre . . . the love letter. When did you last receive a love letter? Have emails and text messages taken over from this romantic form of communication? Would a love letter by a novelist or poet be better than one written by you or me? How would the literary traits of a writer shape the love letters he or she writes? And might a love letter tell us something about its author their other writing could not? Editors Joshua Knelman and Rosalind Porter have assembled an exciting and unique collection of new fiction: they’ve asked some of our most celebrated contemporary writers to explore the distinctive form of the love letter to remind us how enticing words can be and perhaps even to resurrect a dying custom. Each of the pieces in this anthology is radically different from the others, each is a testimony to the creative powers of our leading writers today, and each is guaranteed to seduce. Four Letter Word brings us work from 35 of today’s best writers, including Margaret Atwood, Miriam Toews, David Bezmozgis, Douglas Coupland, Michel Faber, A.L. Kennedy, Audrey Niffenegger, Lionel Shriver, Jan Morris, Jeanette Winterson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Joseph Boyden, Panos Karnezis, Jonathan Lethem, Graham Roumieu, M.G. Vassanji and Neil Gaiman.

Thirty full-color postcards showcase magnificent Impressionist paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, and others. Perfect to mail, share, or keep and cherish. 30 postcards.

This is a new release of the original 1940 edition.

Exile and migration played a critical role in the diffusion and development of modernism around the globe, yet have long remained largely understudied phenomena within art historiography. Focusing on the intersections of exile, artistic practice and urban space, this volume brings together contributions by international researchers committed to revising the historiography of modern art. It pays particular attention to metropolitan areas that were settled by migrant artists in the first half of the 20th century. These arrival cities developed into hubs of artistic activities and transcultural contact zones where ideas circulated, collaborations emerged, and concepts developed. Taking six major cities as a starting point – Bombay (now Mumbai), Buenos Aires, Istanbul, London, New York, and Shanghai –the authors explore how urban topographies and landscapes were modified by exiled artists re-establishing their practices in metropolises across the world. Questioning the established canon of Western modernism, Arrival Cities investigates how the migration of artists to different urban spaces impacted their work and the historiography of art. In doing so, it aims to encourage the discussion between international scholars from different research fields, such as exile studies, art history, social history, architectural history, architecture, and urban studies.