Take a tour through the wilder side of art history, and discover true tales of murder, forgery, and trickery—featuring jaw-dropping profiles over 30 iconic artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Salvadori Dalí. With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Caravaggio to Edward Hopper, Secret Lives of Great Artists recounts the seamy, steamy and gritty history behind the great masters of international art. Here, you’ll learn that Michelangelo’s body odor was so bad, his assistants couldn’t stand working for him; that Vincent van Gogh sometimes ate paint directly from the tube; and Georgia O’Keeffe loved to paint in the nude. This is one art history lesson you’ll never forget!

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 28, 2011-Jan. 8, 2012.

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

"A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard"--

Brando "Good Life News" Interview Joe: ..."The Master Painter" describe the book tell us what it's about. Brando: It's actually a novel that contains Villains, Cowboys, and Indians and takes place out here in Arizona. Joe: Excellent Brando: My Grandfather he was kind of the inspiration for that, he was an artistic man and he lived here in a small town in Arizona for 100 years, he just died this past February. He was the inspiration for my novel and for the title "The Master Painter". The Master Painter was actually an Apache trained painter and they deal with some spiritual arts, not everything that you see meets the eye. Joe: Right. Brando: So there is some intrigue there in the book, a young boy becomes his apprentice and it's taking place during 1931 which was the year of the Great Depression and a lot of businesses were closing people were losing their homes and the nation was in an economic crisis. In the book the Master Painter paints a magical painting which the young boy the apprentice can reach into and take out as much wealth as he needs whenever he needs it he describes it as taking a cold drink of water from a mountain stream that's never ending. Joe: Excellent Brando: There are of course the cunning villains who are trying to steal the painting. There's a comedy duo team which I attribute to Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello which try to help the apprentice locate the Master Painters painting after he mysteriously disappears. Joe: Excellent, excellent. Brando: There are also a few science fiction parts thrown in there with some creatures that call themselves, "The Watchers of Prisoners" so there are a lot of elements in this book which people might find interesting Joe.

Very few books try to capture a subject as vast as the world of art, and even fewer succeed. But Robert Payne has succeeded, and in this book he portrays, in vivid, fresh, nontechnical language, the entire history and achievement of the world’s artists—from the original caveman painters who decorated their homes with animal paintings to contemporary artists, who fill their canvases with often bewildering abstract forms. Payne approaches each artistic period and each great artist with sympathetic understanding and an appreciation of the values and aesthetic ideals of the time. Through carefully chosen illustrations woven into his text, moreover, he shows exactly what makes a work of art great. WORLD OF ART casts its view over all the types of art: not only the Western tradition, but the contributions of Egypt, Persia, India, China, Japan, and other important cultures as well. Yet the book is more than a mere survey, for Robert Payne's special brilliance lies in showing the common spirit and aspiration that have united all the world's great artists. “The main value of this book is spontaneity. There is nothing pedantic about it. Although it ranges all over the world art from its earliest beginnings to the present, the author keeps the flow of his account moving at a rapid pace. Its importance is to offer a fast-paced critical reassessment of the history of art in terms of today’s outlook. Mr. Payne relies chiefly on a beautiful use of language, which enables him to telescope the essence of a culture or period into a few well-turned paragraphs. He gives the reader a dynamic reevaluation based on critical judgments and first-hand observations rather than a rehash of conventional academic views... “Rather than the pedantic accuracy of an encyclopedia approach, Mr. Payne’s book possesses the rare quality of persuasiveness and enthusiasm, and it will send the reader off to go and look.” —Henry A. La Farge, Senior Editor, Art News

Millions of people recognize the religious painting know as Head of Christ, of which an estimated five hundred million prints have been sold. Very few, however, know the artist, Warner E. Sallmann. Sallman's lack of notoriety in professional art circles can be explained by the fact that he made little or no attempt to put himself forward as a Chicago or even a Swedish American artist. He had no exhibitions of his works, and his public life consisted largely of appearances before church and community groups to do chalk drawings. More important was his attitude regarding personal fame. Sallman let the Christ he painted be in the foreground, while the artist remained in the background. "The time has come," argues Jack Lundbom, "for a broader public to know the man who stands behind the painting and the other artwork bearing the Sallman signature." Master Painter is a fascinating story of a gifted man with humble beginnings who overcame disappointment, ill health, and personal limitations in order to live out a vision: that his art serve not only for the enjoyment of humankind, but the practical end of instructing persons in the ways of God. Readers who know the art can now know the artist. It is a story eminently worth telling and one a broad public will be interested to know.

Explains how to make realistic drawings of the arms, legs, feet, hands, and other parts of the human body