It is impossible to reflect upon Frederic Remington’s art without thinking of the merely human elements. Remington became interested in the American Indian, probably because he became interested in the active, exciting life of the American Great Plains. The Indian appealed to him not in any histrionic way, not as a figure stepped out from the pages of Hiawatha, but just as a human subject. Remington hit upon this truth when he travelled west. What he found there was majesty that he did not make, solely, an affair of Indians in war paint and feathers. Remington knew how the light …

Cézanne was perhaps the most complex artist of the 19th century. One of the greatest of the Postimpressionists, his works and ideas were crucial to the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism. Cézanne’s ambition, in his own words, was "to make out of Impressionism something as solid and durable as the paintings of the museums". He aimed to achieve the monumental in a modern language of glowing, vibrating tones. Cézanne wanted to retain the natural colour of an object and to harmonize it with the various influences of light and shade trying to destroy it; …

William Hogarth wrote his Analysis of Beauty in 1753, during the Age of Enlightenment. Through this captivating text, he tends to define the notion of beauty in painting and states that it is linked, per se, to the use of the serpentine lines in pictorial compositions. He calls it the line of beauty . His essay is thus dedicated to the study of the composition of paintings, depending on the correct use of the pictorial lines, light, colour, and the figure's attitudes. These timeless concepts have been applied by several artists through the centuries. Paintings from every period have here …

Known for his posters for cabarets and performances, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864- 1901) was the painter of Parisian nightlife par excellence. Completely immerged in the bohemian milieu of the period, he produced numerous paintings and lithographs representing the lower levels of society. More than any other painter of his time, Lautrec stands out as the embodiment of Paris. At night, the city of hidden and frenzied pleasures, as well as of outdoor games during the day; the city on whose perpetual stage-boards the passing show ceaselessly changes into history has never been better understood or more strikingly expressed on canvas. …

Abandoning a French look on the subject, Mrs. Bossan, the author, develops her study with a dichotomous vision: that of time that touches the history of mankind and that of geography and sociology, which lead to an almost ethnographic analysis. The author dissects the shoe and all that surrounds it: from its history to painting and literature. After this book, it will be difficult to publish a book with a more complete treatment of the subject. Illustrated with an iconography that is exceptional both for its aestheticism and the pieces chosen, this book is a reference for historians, sociologists and …

The Dada movement and then the Surrealists appeared in the First World War aftermath with a bang: revolution of thought, creativity, and the wish to break away from the past and all that was left in ruins. This refusal to integrate into the Bourgeois society lead Georg Grosz to remark of Dada, “it’s the end of-isms.” Breton asserted that Dada does not produce perspective, “a machine which functions full steam, but where it remains to be seen how it can feed itself.” Surrealism emerged amidst such feeling. These artists often changed from one movement to another. They were united by …

Since the mythical Tower of Babel, humans have continuously tried to erect monuments to match their oversized egos. With ancient ziggurats, the Taj Mahal or the Empire State Building, man has for centuries demonstrated his force by raising structures for purposes both religious and profane. As international cultural statements without words, symbols of a peoples values devotion, patriotism, power symbols of a civilisationÊs grandeur, these monuments still fascinate and attract an ever-growing public who is captivated by the createvity and ingenuity of these architects and stonemasons. Their historical message goes far beyond mere art history, for they tell us of …

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is not a very well-known artist. Famous throughout his life yetquickly forgotten by the history of art, his work remains little-studied in comparison to the Impressionist masterpieces of the same period. His oeuvre, however, was crucialin France at the end of the 19th century, in particular his mural paintings which are stillvisible today in numerous important public buildings, such as the Hotel de Ville and the Pantheon in Paris, or the Palais des Beaux-arts in Lyon. Puvis’ specialty was monumental decorative works. He tackled traditionalsubjects from a more general angle and his works were accepted by …

The Bauhaus movement (meaning the “house of building”) developed in three German cities - it began in Weimar between 1919 and 1925, then continued in Dessau, from 1925 to 1932, and finally ended in 1932-1933 in Berlin. Three leaders presided over the growth of the movement: Walter Gropius, from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer, from 1928 to 1930, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, from 1930 to 1933. Founded by Gropius in the rather conservative city of Weimar, the new capital of Germany, which had just been defeated by the other European nations in the First World War, the movement …