Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), scion of an ancient aristocratic family, was a crippled dwarf. His familys wealth gave him financial security, and he chose to become an artist. In Paris he was drawn to the world of the In the cafes, cabarets, dance halls and brothels he observed the theatre of life, viewing this world not from the moralizing standpoint of the 19th-century bourgeoisie, but with the eyes of one for whom all inhibitions had long since vanished. Lautrec had the gift of painting life as it is. No one else has captured the entertainment world of the belle poque in so unadulterated, so masterful and so timelessly true a manner as did Lautrec in his paintings, lithographs and posters. This monograph sets out to examine the close relations between Lautrec work and life. It thereby offers the reader a lively impression of Lautrec art, and at the same time provides an understanding of his private life and of the magnificent Paris of the belle poque.

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec: 1864-1901

Arts & Photography

N'Ret, Gilles

Individual Artists

Taschen America, LLC

Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply “Il Divino” (“the divine one”).
This book provides the essential introduction to Michelangelo with all the awe-inspiring masterpieces and none of the queues and crowds. With vivid illustration and accessible texts, we explore the artist’s extraordinary figuration and celebrated style of terribilità (momentous grandeur), which allowed human and biblical drama to exist in compelling scale and fervor. Through the power hubs of Renaissance Italy, we take in his major commissions and phenomenal capacity for compositional schemes, whether the famous Medici library in Florence, or the extraordinary 500-square-meter ceiling (1508–1512) in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
From the towering David to the aching grief and faith of The Pietà and the vivid drama of the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgment, this is a succinct, dependable reference to a true giant of art history and to some of the most famous artworks in the world.

Michelangelo: 1475-1564: Universal Genius of the Renaissance

History & Criticism

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941, increasing frailty, and the confines of a wheelchair, the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art. With what he called une seconde vie, a second life, he embarked on a remarkable collage period, cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into gouaches découpées of birds, plants, flowers, and the female form.
Emphasizing color and contrast, the cut-out technique generated both striking lines and vivid juxtapositions. In works such as Icarus (1943), The Blue Nude (1952), The Snail (1953), and The Sheaf (1953), clean forms and elemental structures power a compositional force that belies the work’s decorative appeal, at once tightly organized and infectious with joie de vivre. As his work progressed, Matisse’s excitement with his results fueled ever-larger pieces, advancing from small works to vast wall-sized murals.
As his final years approached, Matisse reveled in the simplicity and brilliance of these pieces, avowing, “Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated…” In this essential introductory book, we revisit this joyful final chapter of Matisse’s long and prodigious career, examining how the cut-outs encapsulated the artist’s many years exploring the possibilities of composition, form, and color.

Matisse Cut-outs

Vilipendé sa vie durant pour son style comme pour le sujet de ses oeuvres, le peintre français Édouard Manet (1832-1883) est aujourd'hui reconnu comme une figure incontournable de l'histoire de l'art, ayant fait le lien entre réalisme et impressionnisme. Dans son oeuvre, Manet utilisa la peinture pour représenter des scènes étonnamment modernes, inspirées du monde qui l'entourait, notamment de la vie urbaine parisienne. Il sut capter les jardins de la ville, ses parcs et ses cabarets, souvent attiré par le frisson des bas-fonds ou se délectant d'un sujet provocant. À Paris, le Salon rejeta son Déjeuner sur l'herbe mettant en scène une femme nue entourée d'hommes habillés, tandis que la pose ouvertement décomplexée et le regard plein de défiance de la prostituée dans Olympia, réinvention éminemment moderne de la Vénus d'Urbin du Titien, fit scandale. À travers de magnifiques illustrations, ce livre présente l'oeuvre de Manet et son style unique, associant réalisme, impressionnisme et références aux grands maîtres de la peinture, ce style qui ouvrira un nouveau champ plein d'audace pour les générations modernistes à venir. À propos de la collection Chaque volume de la Basic Art Series de TASCHEN contient: une chronologique détaillée de la vie et de l'oeuvre de l'artiste qui rend compte de son importance culturelle et artistique une biographie concise une centaine d'illustrations couleur accompagnées de légendes explicatives

Manet

Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Manet’s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city’s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Déjeuner sur l’herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal.
This richly illustrated book introduces Manet’s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.

Edouard Manet: 1832-1883: the First of the Moderns

Salvador Dalí 1904-1989: La Obra Pictórica

Descharnes, Robert

Baroque and Roll Meet Sir Peter Paul Rubens, master painter and polymathThere are over 1,000 catalogued works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the 16th-century flag bearer for Baroque drama, movement, and sensuality. This essential introduction takes in the most important works from this astonishingly prolific oeuvre to explore Rubens’s influences and innovations, and his remarkable visual, and art historical, impact. The richly illustrated survey takes in Rubens’s portraits, landscapes, historical paintings, as well as his famed and bountiful nudes. Along the way, we examine the artist’s astonishing technique and his deft ability to depict narrative in a compelling and legible visual form, whether an erotic mythologial scene or a tender biblical story. This remarkable artistic bravura is placed in context both with Rubens’s long art historical legacy through van Dyck, Velázquez, and beyond, and his other talents as a classical scholar, diplomat, and knight.

Peter Paul Rubens: The Homer of Painting

A perfect synthesis of color and line: The trailblazing paper cut-outs of Henri Matisse When Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was forced to give up painting in the mid-1940s due to a serious illness, he began to work with painted paper and a pair of scissors, “carving into color” to create bright, bold patterns and forms. Though many critics at the time were unstinting in their cruel remarks about the supposed foolishness of an old man, the work, termed gouaches découpées (“gouache cut-outs”), in fact represented a milestone in modern art. Matisse had not only defied frailty to pursue his artistic impetus, he had also created a whole new medium for exploring the age-old conflict between color and line. This 96-page, hardcover edition includes rich image reproductions from many of Matisse’s most celebrated cut-outs,and a detailed biography for context of the artist’s life and work. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series features:<ul>
<li>a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance</li> <li>a concise biography</li> <li>approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions</li> </ul>

Henri Matisse: Cut-outs: 1869-1954

Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and all-round showman Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the 20th century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis to art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as the soft watches or the lobster telephone, now hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general. 
Dalí frequently described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” Their tantalizing tension and interest resides in the precise rendering of bizarre elements and incongruous arrangements. As Dalí himself explained, he painted with “the most imperialist fury of precision,” but only “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.” 
Revolutionizing the role of the artist, the mustache-twirling Dalí also had the intuition to parade a controversial persona in the public arena and, through printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and film, to create work that could be consumed and not just contemplated on a gallery wall. 
This book explores both the painting and the personality of Dalí, introducing his technical skill as well as his provocative compositions and challenging themes of death, decay, and eroticism.\nAbout the series 
Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features: 
a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance 
a concise biography 
approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989; La Conquista De Lo Irracional

Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and all-round showman Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the 20th century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis to art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as the soft watches or the lobster telephone, now hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general.
Dalí frequently described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” Their tantalizing tension and interest resides in the precise rendering of bizarre elements and incongruous arrangements. As Dalí himself explained, he painted with “the most imperialist fury of precision,” but only “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.”Revolutionizing the role of the artist, the mustache-twirling Dalí also had the intuition to parade a controversial persona in the public arena and, through printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and film, to create work that could be consumed and not just contemplated on a gallery wall.
This book explores both the painting and the personality of Dalí, introducing his technical skill as well as his provocative compositions and challenging themes of death, decay, and eroticism.

Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989: Conquest of the Irrational

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