This volume brings into dialogue the ancient wisdom of Augustine of Hippo, a bishop of the early Christian Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, with contemporary theologians and ethicists on the topic of social justice. Each essay mines the major themes present in Augustine's extensive corpus of writings—from his Confessions to the City of God— with an eye to the following question: how can this early church father so foundational to Christian doctrine and teaching inform our twenty-f...

William Woodward (1859-1939) was a force in New Orleans and the art world, and his legacy endures. In this first compilation of examples of Woodward's work spanning his career, essayists offer unique perspectives on the artist and his art.Woodward was a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massachusetts Normal Art School. He started the School of Art and organized the Department of Architecture at Tulane University, and he taught evening art classes to citizens of ...

A new selection of Vincent Van Gough's letters, based on an entirely new translation, revealing his religious struggles, his fascination with the French Revolution, his search for love and his involvement in humanitarian causes.

“People like us . . . have different rights, different values than do ordinary people because we have different needs which put us . . . above their moral standards.” —ModiglianiAmedeo (“Beloved of God”) Modigliani was considered to be the quintessential bohemian artist, his legend almost as infamous as Van Gogh’s. In Modigliani’s time, his work was seen as an oddity: contemporary with the Cubists but not part of their movement. His work was a link between such portraitists as Whis...

Matisse and Picasso achieved extraordinary prominence during their lifetimes. They have become cultural icons, standing not only for different kinds of art but also for different ways of living. Matisse, known for his restraint and intense sense of privacy, for his decorum and discretion, created an art that transcended daily life and conveyed a sensuality that inhabited an abstract and ethereal realm of being. In contrast, Picasso became the exemplar of intense emotionality, of theatrical...

The first biography of visionary artist Agnes Martin, one of the most original and influential painters of the postwar periodOver the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest. Martin identified with the Abstract Expressionists but her commitment to linear geometry caused her to be...

Marcel Duchamp's life and work in more than 200 alphabetical entries, using the latest scholarship and research. Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968) was one of the founding fathers of modern art, Dada and Surrealism: in the words of artist Thomas Hirschhorn, Duchamp was 'the most intelligent mind of his time'. Despite his popularity and provocative art, discussions often shroud his work in theory, but this book uses lively dictionary entries (from Alchemy and Anatomy to Warhol, via the Bicycle Wh...

Matisse's profound impact on twentieth century art makes him essential to understanding the art of the present. His art conveys some of the most uplifting, life affirming imagery in western culture. At the same time it is among the most creative and influential.This ebook povides an understanding of Henri Matisse and his revolutionary art to students and anyone who wants to understand and appreciate this outstanding and much loved artist. Discussion is focused around the keys to de...

Piet Mondrian pioneered the de Stijl movement—Dutch for “The Style”—that emerged in the early 20th century and which served as an important transition from a focus on Symbolism and Realism to a new and growing focus on abstraction. The evolution of Mondrian’s initial, traditional style, akin to that of The Hague School, through to his much later works in primary colors and geometric forms, which he called Neo-plasticism, is marked by rather sharp deviations in stylistic form and experiment...

Focusing on the later work of the American photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-1981), Claire Raymond takes up the question of the disintegrative condition of the art she produced in the last year of her life. Departing from the techniques of her earlier compositions, Woodman worked in the diazotype process for many of these late pieces, most importantly the monumental Blueprint for a Temple. Raymond shows that through her use of diazotype, a medium that breaks down when exposed to light, ...

A dynamic tale of art and friendship, set between the World Wars, against the backdrop of a rapidly changing worldEric Ravilious is one of the best-known twentieth-century English artists. For many, his watercolors capture the spirit of midcentury England. But while he had a style of his own, he did not work in isolation; he worked within a network of artists that included fellow students at the Royal College of Art such as Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Mar...

This sensitive and compelling biography sheds new light on John Singer Sargent’s art through an intimate history of his family. Karen Corsano and Daniel Williman focus especially on his niece and muse, Rose-Marie Ormond, telling her story for the first time. In a score of paintings created between 1906 and 1912, John Singer Sargent documented the idyllic teenage summers of Rose-Marie and his own deepening affection for her serene beauty and good-hearted, candid charm. Rose-Marie married Ro...