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The enchanting story of La Maison du Pastel, a tiny shop in Paris that has been providing pastels to artists since the eighteenth century, and the two women who fell in love and brought it back to life.

Everything about Picasso, except his physical stature, was on an enormous scale. His appetite for sex and money, eating and drinking, friends and quarrels, comedy and tragedy, are legendary. No artist of the first rank has been so aw-inspiringly productive. No artist of any rank has made so much money. A few artists have rivalled his life-span of ninety years, but none has attracted so insatiable a public interest. Patrick O’Brian, author of the famous Aubrey-Maturin novels, was a near neighbour of Picasso’s in the south of France for many years and knew him well.

The Stuff of History presents a thoughtful and often funny, curated selection of fascinating forgotten histories that give insight into some of the Western world's most important cultural moments. Told from the perspective of the overlooked, the book will present the curious and adventurous listener with the stories behind icons that surround us and inform our everyday lives, be they people or objects.

Edward W. Said, author of Beginnings and the controversial yet seminal Orientalism, is one of the most acclaimed public intellectuals of our time. In this sweeping and rigorous work of literary criticism, he pushes the field even further forward.

The volatile years of England's Tudor dynasty (1485–1603) and the five monarchs who ruled England during this period continue to fascinate and intrigue. Thanks to the paintings of artists like Hans Holbein, we have very definitive ideas about the appearance and personalities of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and her successor Elizabeth I. It is through their eyes of artists that we still see the dynasty which ruled England for just over a century.

In this book, comedian and art historian Verity Babbs journeys through 50 key art movements across history, answering ten questions for each in just one sentence at a time. Within these fascinating, and sometimes hilarious, nuggets of art wisdom, Verity covers everything from who inspired the movement and its impact on history, to the key artists and artworks for each.

Kate Bryan is a self-confessed art addict who has worked with art for over twenty years. But before she studied art history at university, she’d been into a gallery just twice in her life and had no idea she was entering an elitist world. Now, she’s on a mission to help everybody come to art. Like playing or listening to music, or cooking and eating great food, reading or watching films, making art or looking at other people’s deserves to be an enriching part of all our lives. So here, in HOW TO ART, is a nifty way to take art on your own terms.

In the spring of 1790 two of the most gifted artists in Europe met in Rome and became fast friends, sharing their views on art, visiting the city’s ancient sites and making trips to the opera together. The Swiss history painter Angelica Kauffman and the French portraitist Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun are no longer household names in the early twenty-first century but were much-fêted celebrities in the late eighteenth. Franny Moyle uses their meeting in the eternal city as the point of departure for a lavishly illustrated 'life and times’ biography of two brilliant but neglected women artists.

Culture is like a language. Art, architecture, history and philosophy are its grammar. And, like a language, anyone can learn it. In 2022, Sheehan Quirke took to Twitter (now X) as The Cultural Tutor with the aim of making culture accessible for everyone. He wrote about poetry, paintings, building design, and counter-intuitive but fascinating facts about history and geography. It wasn’t the sort of content you usually find on a newsfeed. Taught in forty-nine short lessons, Sheehan takes listeners on a delightful and fascinating journey through culture.

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our families, communities and regions. Craftland brings to life the vanishing skills, traditions and trades that shaped the fabric and governed the rhythms of everyday life in Britain for hundreds of years. For as long as there are humans, there will be craft, ever evolving in response to changing technologies, environments and communities. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit.

Since the inception of mainstream art history, Blackness has been distinctly ignored. In Reframing Blackness, art historian and founder of @ABlackHistoryOfArt, Alayo Akinkugbe challenges this void. Exploring the presentation of Black figures in Western art, Blackness in museums, Blackness in feminist art movements, as well as Blackness in the curriculum, Alayo unveils an overlooked but integral part of our collective art history.

Today it's routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, or watch a movie or view an X-ray. But the photographic innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were experimental, revelatory, and sometimes dangerous. In Flashes of Brilliance, New York Times photo editor Anika Burgess engagingly blends art, science, and social history to reveal the most dramatic developments in photography from its birth in the 1830s to the early twentieth century.

Step into the extraordinary world of William Verdult—an acclaimed Dutch-American painter whose work blended royal heritage, mythological influence, and raw emotional depth. From his early life in war-torn Europe to his rise among American elites, The Life and Times of William Verdult explores the artist’s journey through fame, scandal, artistic brilliance, and ultimate legacy.

«Мы находим красоту не в самой вещи, а в узорах теней, света и тьмы, которые создаёт одна вещь на фоне другой… Если бы не тени, не было бы никакой красоты» - утверждает Дзюнъитиро Танидзаки в своем эссе «Похвала тени». Эта книга – настоящий поэтический гимн японской эстетике. Танидзаки учит нас слушать красоту в малом: потускневшем металле, неглазурованной керамике, напоминая о том, что слишком много яркости и цвета могут скрыть от нас главное.

What does it mean to call something "new"? Why is Western art and culture, even after postmodernism, still so obsessed with the concept? What are the consequences of relying on culture to bring about social change? In this provocative book, David Balzer argues that Western culture was never designed to produce truly new or original artifacts. Rather, we move from fixation to fixation, trend to trend—a cycle of creation and destruction with deep origins in Judeo-Christianity and the paganism that preceded it.

Essere donna ed essere artista, agli albori del Novecento, era quasi inconciliabile. Eppure qualcuna è riuscita, con grande maestria, a lasciare incantevoli tracce del proprio passaggio nel mondo. Questa è la storia di Leonora Carrington e Remedios Varo: non più muse, ma "amabili streghe". Dall'Inghilterra alla Francia, dalla Spagna al Messico, dal Messico agli Stati Uniti, le loro vite sono unite da un labirinto di fughe, di guerre, di passioni e amicizie.

Wrapped up in a snarky idealism, it starts as a funny and poignant love letter to art, and winds up making a compelling case for a kinder, more connected world.

In Defence of Leisure presents Marion Milner as a writer for our times. In asking the simple question: how do I want to spend my free time? Milner developed a method for discovering her true likes and dislikes. As Singh follows Milner's approach - from keeping a diary to painting, building a home and travelling to the sea - she discovers the importance of rest, creativity and play in all of our lives, and how it can open the door to achieving what we truly desire.

In The Buried City, Gabriel Zuchtriegel takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Pompeii and reveals new archaeological finds that are being unearthed at the site’s biggest dig in a generation. As director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, Zuchtriegel presents a uniquely intimate perspective on this city that was tragically destroyed and frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Among the ruins, we find unmade beds, dishes left drying, and bodies of victims encased in ash, but Zuchtriegel shows that we’ve only begun to understand this fascinating place.

Art has the power to move us, to spark an unexplainable connection, or to leave us cold. We might focus on small details or take in the entire piece of art, searching for something familiar. This book explores how we see art, how our experiences shape our perceptions, and why some works resonate deeply while others do not.