Few tales of artistic triumph can rival the story of Zeuxis. As first reported by Cicero and Pliny, the painter Zeuxis set out to portray Helen of Troy, but when he realized that a single model could not match Helen’s beauty, he combined the best features of five different models. A primer on mimesis in art making, the Zeuxis myth also illustrates ambivalence about the ability to rely on nature as a model for ideal form. In Too Beautiful to Picture, Elizabeth C. Mansfield engages the visual arts, literature, and performance to examine the desire to make the ideal visible. She finds in the Zeuxis myth evidence of a cultural primal scene that manifests itself in gendered terms. Mansfield considers the many depictions of the legend during the Renaissance and questions its absence during the eighteenth century. Offering interpretations of Angelica Kauffman’s paintings, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Mansfield also considers Orlan’s carnal art as a profound retelling of the myth. Throughout, Mansfield asserts that the Zeuxis legend encodes an unconscious record of the West’s reliance on mimetic representation as a vehicle for metaphysical solace. Elizabeth C. Mansfield is associate professor of art history at the University of the South.

Few tales of artistic triumph can rival the story of Zeuxis. As first reported by Cicero and Pliny, the painter Zeuxis set out to portray Helen of Troy, but when he realized that a single model could not match Helen’s beauty, he combined the best features of five different models. A primer on mimesis in art making, the Zeuxis myth also illustrates ambivalence about the ability to rely on nature as a model for ideal form. In Too Beautiful to Picture, Elizabeth C. Mansfield engages the visual arts, literature, and performance to examine the desire to make the ideal visible. She finds in the Zeuxis myth evidence of a cultural primal scene that manifests itself in gendered terms. Mansfield considers the many depictions of the legend during the Renaissance and questions its absence during the eighteenth century. Offering interpretations of Angelica Kauffman’s paintings, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Mansfield also considers Orlan’s carnal art as a profound retelling of the myth. Throughout, Mansfield asserts that the Zeuxis legend encodes an unconscious record of the West’s reliance on mimetic representation as a vehicle for metaphysical solace. Elizabeth C. Mansfield is associate professor of art history at the University of the South.

The ultimate guide to building confidence in your body, beauty, clothes and life in an era of toxic social media-driven beauty standards. “A self-confidence bible that every woman should read.”—Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet Empowering, insightful, and psychology-driven, Beyond Beautiful is filled with proven, no-BS strategies for proactive self-care. This stylish and practical handbook takes a deep-dive into all of the factors that make it hard to feel good about yourself, and offers sage answers to tricky questions, like: • Why do I hate the way I look in pictures? • How can I stop feeling like a total slob compared to everyone on social media? • How exactly does this "self-love" thing work? • How do I find the confidence to use less make up, stop shaving, or wear what I want? • Is body positivity really the answer? Illustrated with full-color art, Beyond Beautiful is a much-needed breath of fresh air that will help you live your best life, know your worth, and stop wasting any more precious energy and mental space worrying about the way you look. Praise for Beyond Beautiful “This compact book delves into every aspect of the body-image problem and sets forth feasible ideas for accepting one’s physical appearance to enhance confidence and joy.”—Library Journal (starred review) “Rees’s emboldening message will surely help any reader struggling with self-confidence.”—Publishers Weekly

Have you ever been bullied? Betrayed by a friend? Critical of who you see in the mirror every day? Born with a clubfoot and enduring intense physical and emotional pain because of it, international speaker, TEDx speaker, and anti-bullying author Chloe Howard will help you overcome the pain and struggles in your own life, coming alongside you as a friend on your journey to live happy and free. You are enough. You are a daughter of God. And no matter how hard life gets, you don’t have to do it alone. In Stand Beautiful, Chloe shares her story of being bullied about a birth defect as a freshman and how it helped her not only overcome self-doubt, it also gave her the courage to rise up and speak out to help others. Ultimately, Stand Beautiful will inspire young people ages 12 and up to: Be brave and find beauty within diversity Speak up against injustice and stand up for what is right Redefine beauty as more than what the eye can see Stop being self-destructive and choose self-empowerment Fueled by a powerful encounter with Bono from the band U2, Stand Beautiful features: A “Lessons Learned” section that highlights valuable lessons every teen should know An “Interview with Chloe” section that gives readers details about her favorite iTunes playlist, books on her bookshelf, and much more The encouragement and hope teens need to accept their unique selves, just as they are

A life lesson that all parents want their children to learn: It’s OK to make a mistake. In fact, hooray for mistakes! A mistake is an adventure in creativity, a portal of discovery. A spill doesn’t ruin a drawing—not when it becomes the shape of a goofy animal. And an accidental tear in your paper? Don’t be upset about it when you can turn it into the roaring mouth of an alligator. An award winning, best-selling, one-of-a-kind interactive book, Beautiful Oops! shows young readers how every mistake is an opportunity to make something beautiful. A singular work of imagination, creativity, and paper engineering, Beautiful Oops! is filled with pop-ups, lift-the-flaps, tears, holes, overlays, bends, smudges, and even an accordion “telescope”—each demonstrating the magical transformation from blunder to wonder.

I Am Perfectly Designed is an exuberant celebration of loving who you are, exactly as you are, from Karamo Brown, the Culture Expert of Netflix's hit series Queer Eye, and Jason Brown—featuring illustrations by Anoosha Syed. In this empowering ode to modern families, a boy and his father take a joyful walk through the city, discovering all the ways in which they are perfectly designed for each other. "With tenderness and wit, this story captures the magic of building strong childhood memories. The Browns and Syed celebrate the special bond between parent and child with joy and flair...Syed's bright, cartoon illustrations enrich the tale with a meaningful message of kindness and inclusion."—Kirkus

Nature Prose seeks to explain the popularity and appeal of contemporary writing about nature. This book intervenes in key areas of contemporary debate about literature and the environment and explores the enduring appeal of writing about nature during an ecological crisis. Using a range of international examples, with a focus on late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century writing from Britain and the US, Dominic Head argues that nature writing contains formal effects which encapsulate our current ecological dilemma and offer a fresh resource for critical thinking. The environmental crisis has injected a fresh urgency into nature writing, along with a new piquancy for those readers seeking solace in the nonhuman, or for those looking to change their habits in the face of ecological catastrophe. However, behind this apparently strong match between the aims of nature writers and the desires of their readers, there is also a shared mood of radical uncertainty and insecurity. The treatment and construction of 'nature' in contemporary imaginative prose reveals some significant paradoxes beneath its dominant moods, moods which are usually earnest, sometimes celebratory, sometimes prophetic or cautionary. It is in these paradoxical moments that the contemporary ecological crisis is formally encoded, in a progressive development of ecological consciousness from the late 1950s onwards. Nature prose, fiction and nonfiction, is now contemporaneous with a defining time of crisis, while also being formally fashioned by that context. This is a mode of writing that emerges in a world in crisis, but which is also, in some ways, in crisis itself. With chapters on remoteness, exclusivity, abundance, and rarity, this book marks a turning point in how literary criticism engages with nature writing.

e-artnow presents the Mark Twain Christmas collection with the greatest stories author dedicated to this most beloved holiday season, including his most famous novels and tales: _x000D_ Letter from Santa Claus_x000D_ The Million Pound Bank Note_x000D_ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County_x000D_ Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven_x000D_ The Stolen White Elephant_x000D_ The Story of the Bad Little Boy_x000D_ My Platonic Sweetheart_x000D_ A Ghost Story_x000D_ The Five Boons of Life_x000D_ A Fable_x000D_ A Dog's Tale_x000D_ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_x000D_ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn