"How Art Works explores puzzles that have preoccupied philosophers as well as the general public: Can art be defined? How do we decide what is good art? Why do we gravitate to sadness in art? Why do we devalue a perfect fake? Could 'my kid have done that'? Does reading fiction enhance empathy? Drawing on careful observations, probing interviews, and clever experiments, Ellen Winner reveals surprising answers to these and other artistic mysteries. We may come away with a new understanding of how art works on us."--Jacket.
What goes into creating art? How can we learn to "read" paintings? What are the key elements of composition? If you’ve ever found yourself seeking the answers to the above questions and more, then this may be the book for you! An art book like no other, How Art Works uses practical graphics to demonstrate the techniques, styles, materials, and concepts that lie behind great art. It shows you how to interpret paintings, drawings, and sculptures, and reveals how art is made, laying out the key techniques and materials in visual detail. It also explains the nuts and bolts of the technical aspects behind art, such as perspective and composition, and shows how to identify major artistic styles and movements. This awe-inspiring art history book features: - Oil and watercolor painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, and more - Explains the technical aspects of visual arts including perspective, light, color, form, and texture - A selection of major art movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and more - Shows how information, messages, and emotion can be conveyed through art - Highlights key inventions and developments Providing all you need to know to build on your artistic understanding and appreciation, this is the perfect book for art lovers of all kinds, whether you’re an art student, or you’re simply a lover of visual art and are looking to discover more about art but aren’t sure where to begin. At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. So why stop there? How Art Works is part of DK’s widely successful How Stuff Works series. Discover the inner workings of the mind with How the Brain Works, succeed in all things science with How Science Works and discover the cosmos like you’ve never known before with How Space Works. Whatever topic sparks your interests, there’s a plethora of knowledge to discover!
More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do. Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.” Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.” Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.... Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).
What is art? Where do artists get their ideas from? How do artists make pictures look "real"? This lively book answers these questions and many more, to explore how art works. It features scores of cartoons and over 65 full-colour reproductions, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Bridget Riley and Damien Hirst. Illustrations: Full colour throughout
What goes into creating art? How can we learn to "read" paintings? What are the key elements of composition? An art book like no other, How Art Works uses practical graphics to demonstrate the techniques, styles, materials, and concepts that lie behind great art. It shows you how to interpret paintings, drawings, and sculptures, and reveals how art is made, laying out the key techniques and materials in visual detail. It also explains the nuts and bolts of the technical aspects behind art, such as perspective and composition, and shows how to identify major artistic styles and movements. Providing all you need to know to build on your artistic understanding and appreciation, this is the perfect book for art lovers - and for anyone who wants to know more about art but isn't sure where to begin
The creative collaborations of engineers, artists, scientists, and curators over the past fifty years. Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art began to be breached. In this book, W. Patrick McCray shows how in this era, artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works. This art emerged from corporate laboratories, artists' studios, publishing houses, art galleries, and university campuses. Many of the biggest stars of the art world--Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, and John Cage--participated, but the technologists who contributed essential expertise and aesthetic input often went unrecognized.
‘a game-changer, a must-read for scholars, students and artists alike’ – Tom Finkelpearl At a time when art world critics and curators heavily debate the social, and when community organizers and civic activists are reconsidering the role of aesthetics in social reform, this book makes explicit some of the contradictions and competing stakes of contemporary experimental art-making. Social Works is an interdisciplinary approach to the forms, goals and histories of innovative social practice in both contemporary performance and visual art. Shannon Jackson uses a range of case studies and contemporary methodologies to mediate between the fields of visual and performance studies. The result is a brilliant analysis that not only incorporates current political and aesthetic discourses but also provides a practical understanding of social practice.
Art develops its effect through contemplation. Even before we interpret it, we grasp it by means of inspired seeing, by "feeling our way," thus giving rise to an opinion. It precedes an interpretation of the content--and the interplay of form and content becomes the experience of art. Unlike classic guidebooks, this publication is dedicated to the aesthetic experience, which the comparative contemplation and presentation of masterpieces from the Gemäldegalerie and Bode Museum focuses on beyond the boundaries of art forms. The sensual experience of art via forms, surfaces, materiality, movement, and their significance is curated for readers based on some fifty selected works over various epochs and clearly communicated in numerous close-up photographs.
Look no further for than this compendium of the biggest, oldest, most amazing artworks throughout history. All over the world, since Prehistoric times, human beings have been creating works of art that defy the imagination. Join countless painters, sculptors, and other artistic innovators in their quest for grandeur and beauty, and embark on a global journey to discover their most awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping masterpieces. Amazing Art Records is an original and fun way to explore the history of art and human creative expression.
