“I am not interested in myself as a subject for painting, but in others, particularly women…”Beautiful, sensuous and above all erotic, Gustav Klimt’s paintings speak of a world of opulence and leisure, which seems aeons away from the harsh, post-modern environment we live in now. The subjects he treats – allegories, portraits, landscapes and erotic figures – contain virtually no reference to external events, but strive rather to create a world where beauty, above everything else, is dominant. His use of colour and pattern was profoundly influenced by the art of Japan, ancient Egypt, and Byzantium. Ravenne, the flat, two-dimensional …

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This quote alone from William Morris could summarise the ideology of the Arts & Crafts movement, which triggered a veritable reform in the applied arts in England. Founded by John Ruskin, then put into practice by William Morris, the Arts & Crafts movement promoted revolutionary ideas in Victorian England. In the middle of the “soulless” Industrial Era, when objects were standardised, the Arts & Crafts movement proposed a return to the aesthetic at the core of production. The work of artisans and …

Deriving from the French word rocaille, in reference to the curved forms of shellfish, and the Italian barocco, the French created the term ‘Rococo’. Appearing at the beginning of the 18th century, it rapidly spread to the whole of Europe. Extravagant and light, Rococo responded perfectly to the spontaneity of the aristocracy of the time. In many aspects, this art was linked to its predecessor, Baroque, and it is thus also referred to as late Baroque style. While artists such as Tiepolo, Boucher and Reynolds carried the style to its apogee, the movement was often condemned for its superficiality. In …

Greek Sculpture is probably the most well known aspect of Greek art, for a contemporary it expresses the most beautiful ideal and plastic perfection. It is the first of the Ancient Arts that looked to free itself from the imitative constraints, of the faithful representation of nature. Only a small part of the production of Greek Sculpture is known to us. Many of the masterpieces described by Antique literature are henceforth lost or badly damaged, and a large part, we know are copies, more or less skillful and faithful to the Roman era. Many have been restored by Western Sculptors, …

Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Emil Nolde, E.L. Kirchner, Paul Klee, Franz Marc as well as the Austrians Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele were among the generation of highly individual artists who contributed to the vivid and often controversial new movement in early twentieth-century Germany and Austria: Expressionism. This publication introduces these artists and their work. The author, art historian Ashley Bassie, explains how Expressionist art led the way to a new, intense, evocative treatment of psychological, emotional and social themes in the early twentieth century. The book examines the developments of Expressionism and its key works, highlighting the …

El Simbolismo apareció en Francia y Europa entre la década de 1880 y el principio del siglo veinte. Los simbolistas, fascinados por la mitología de la Antigüedad, intentaban escapar del reino del pensamiento racional impuesto por la ciencia. Deseaban trascender el mundo de lo visible y lo racional para alcanzar el mundo del pensamiento puro, coqueteando constantemente con los límites del inconsciente. Los franceses Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, los belgas Fernand Khnopff y Félicien Rops, los ingleses Edward Burne-Jones y Dante Gabriel Rossetti, así como el holandés Jan Toorop son los artistas más representativos del movimiento.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: five young women that changed modern art forever. Faces seen simultaneously from the front and in profile, angular bodies whose once voluptuous feminine forms disappear behind asymmetric lines - with this work, Picasso revolutionised the entire history of painting. Cubism was thus born in 1907. Transforming natural forms into cylinders and cubes, painters like Juan Gris and Robert Delaunay, led by Braque and Picasso, imposed a new vision upon the world that was in total opposition to the principles of the Impressionists. Largely diffused in Europe, Cubism developed rapidly in successive phases that brought art history to …

“The Devil holds the strings which move us!” (Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, 1857.) Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer… the Devil has many names and faces, all of which have always served artists as a source of inspiration. Often commissioned by religious leaders as images of fear or veneration, depending on the society, representations of the underworld served to instruct believers and lead them along the path of righteousness. For other artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch, they provided a means of denouncing the moral decrepitude of one’s contemporaries. In the same way, literature dealing with the Devil has long offered inspiration …

La leyenda de Miguel Ángel (1475-1564) ha permanecido incólume durante quinientos años. Eruditos como Chateaubriand, Manzoni y Rilke vieron en él un maestro de la renovación del arte occidental. En efecto, dotado con un genio creativo casi sobrehumano, Miguel Ángel encarna al “hombre universal” del Renacimiento italiano, y la calidad y alcance de su obra son incomparables, ni siquiera en el caso de Leonardo da Vinci -obras como la Piedad, el David y los frescos de la Capilla Sixtina son prueba de ello. ¿Cómo fue capaz, en tan pocos años, de desarrollar los métodos de una obra digna de sus …