Искусство - скачать книги или читать онлайн. Страница 530

Журнал, полностью посвященный стилю жизни. Еженедельно на страницах издания все только новое и самое интересное: анонсы ближайших выставок, театральные и кинопремьеры, обзоры бутиков и магазинов, последние коллекции одежды и самая полезная и интересная информация о столичной жизни.

Born in 1912, in a small town in Wyoming, Jackson Pollock embodied the American dream as the country found itself confronted with the realities of a modern era replacing the fading nineteenth century. Pollock left home in search of fame and fortune in New York City. Thanks to the Federal Art Project he quickly won acclaim, and after the Second World War became the biggest art celebrity in America. For De Kooning, Pollock was the “icebreaker”. For Max Ernst and Masson, Pollock was a fellow member of the European Surrealist movement. And for Motherwell, Pollock was a legitimate candidate for the status of the Master of the American School. During the many upheavals in his life in Nez York in the 1950s and 60s, Pollock lost his bearings – success had simply come too fast and too easily. It was during this period that he turned to alcohol and disintegrated his marriage to Lee Krasner. His life ended like that of 50s film icon James Dean behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile, after a night of drinking.

Michelangelo, like Leonardo, was a man of many talents; sculptor, architect, painter and poet, he made the apotheosis of muscular movement, which to him was the physical manifestation of passion. He moulded his draughtsmanship, bent it, twisted it, and stretched it to the extreme limits of possibility. There are not any landscapes in Michelangelo's painting. All the emotions, all the passions, all the thoughts of humanity were personified in his eyes in the naked bodies of men and women. He rarely conceived his human forms in attitudes of immobility or repose. Michelangelo became a painter so that he could express in a more malleable material what his titanesque soul felt, what his sculptor's imagination saw, but what sculpture refused him. Thus this admirable sculptor became the creator, at the Vatican, of the most lyrical and epic decoration ever seen: the Sistine Chapel. The profusion of his invention is spread over this vast area of over 900 square metres. There are 343 principal figures of prodigious variety of expression, many of colossal size, and in addition a great number of subsidiary ones introduced for decorative effect. The creator of this vast scheme was only thirty-four when he began his work. Michelangelo compels us to enlarge our conception of what is beautiful. To the Greeks it was physical perfection; but Michelangelo cared little for physical beauty, except in a few instances, such as his painting of Adam on the Sistine ceiling, and his sculptures of the Pietà. Though a master of anatomy and of the laws of composition, he dared to disregard both if it were necessary to express his concept: to exaggerate the muscles of his figures, and even put them in positions the human body could not naturally assume. In his later painting, The Last Judgment on the end wall of the Sistine, he poured out his soul like a torrent. Michelangelo was the first to make the human form express a variety of emotions. In his hands emotion became an instrument upon which he played, extracting themes and harmonies of infinite variety. His figures carry our imagination far beyond the personal meaning of the names attached to them.

What is the social merit or purpose of all those bras and panties on perfectly sculpted bodies that we see spread across billboards and magazines? Many women indulge in lingerie to please men. Yet, ever since Antiquity, women have always kept lingerie hidden away under outer garments. Thus, lingerie must be more than erotic bait. Authors Muriel Barbier and Shazia Boucher have researched iconography to explore the relationship of lingerie to society, the economy and the corridors of intimacy. They correlate lingerie with emancipation, querying whether it asserts newfound freedoms or simply adjusts to conform to changing social values. The result is a rigorous scientific rationale spiced with a zest of humour. And the tinier lingerie gets, the more scholarly attention it deserves.

The smoothly metallic portraits, nudes and still lifes of Tamara de Lempicka encapsulate the spirit of Art Deco and the Jazz Age, and reflect the elegant and hedonistic life-style of a wealthy, glamorous and privileged elite in Paris between the two World Wars. Combining a formidable classical technique with elements borrowed from Cubism, Lempicka’s art represented the ultimate in fashionable modernity while looking back for inspiration to such master portraitists as Ingres and Bronzino. This book celebrates the sleek and streamlined beauty of her best work in the 1920s and 30s. It traces the extraordinary life story of this talented and glamorous woman from turn of the century Poland and Tsarist Russia, through to her glorious years in Paris and the long years of decline and neglect in America, until her triumphant rediscovery in the 1970s when her portraits gained iconic status and world-wide popularity.

Spanish architect and designer, Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) was an important and influential figure in the history of contemporary Spanish art. His use of colour, application of a range of materials and the introduction of organic forms into his constructions were an innovation in the realm of architecture. In his journal, Gaudí freely expressed his own feelings on art, “the colours used in architecture have to be intense, logical and fertile.” His completed works (the Casa Batlló, 1905-1907 and the Casa Milà, 1905-1910) and his incomplete works (the restoration of the Poblet Monastery and the altarpiece of Alella in Barcelona) illustrate the importance of this philosophy.

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.

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.

Pierre Bonnard was the leader of a group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘prophet’. Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Denis, the most distinguished of the Nabis, revolutionized the spirit of decorative techniques during one of the richest periods in the history of French painting. Influenced by Odilon Redon and Puvis de Chavanne, by popular imagery and Japanese etchings, this post-impressionist group was above all a close circle of friends who shared the same cultural background and interests. An increasing individualism in their art often threatened the group’s unity and although tied together by a common philosophy their work clearly diverged. This publication lets us compare and put into perspective the artists within this fascinating group. The works presented in this collection offer a palette of extraordinary poetic expressions: candid in Bonnard, ornamental and mysterious in Vuillard, gently dream-like in Denis, grim and almost bitter in Vallotton, the author shares with us the lives of these artists to the very source of their creative gifts.