In his works, Hopper poetically expressed the solitude of man confronted to the American way of life as it developed in the 1920s. Inspired by the movies and particularly by the various camera angles and attitudes of characters, his paintings expose the alienation of mass culture. Created using cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hopper’s paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression. Through a series of different reproductions (etchings, watercolours, and oil-on-canvas paintings), as well as thematic and artistic analysis, the author sheds new light on the enigmatic and tortured world of this outstanding figure.

Ilya Repin was the most gifted of the group known in Russia as “The Itinerants”. When only twelve years old, he joined Ivan Bounakov’s studio to learn the icon-painter’s craft. Religious representations always remained of great importance for him. From 1864 to 1873 Repin studied at the Academy of the Arts in Saint Petersburg under Kramskoï. Repin also studied in Paris for two years, where he was strongly influenced by outdoor painting without, becoming an Impressionist, a style that he judged too distant from reality. Taken with French pictorial culture, he worked to understand its role in the evolution of …

Conveying six centuries of gallantry, serving as the world capital of fashion and love, Paris is the very symbol of eroticism and of joyful sexuality. Offenbach, in La Vie Parisienne, had already created a hymn dedicated to the pleasure of senses. The author, with complete freedom, follows André Malraux’s approach by building an imaginary museum, in a Paris where time no longer exists, space is neverending, and desire is always present. The iconography is exceptional, coming from unpublished private collections and covering five centuries of Paris’ erotic story. It is accompanied by an academic text which allows the reader to …

Mary was born in Pittsburgh. Her father was a banker of liberal educational ideas and the entire family appears to have been sympathetic to French culture. Mary was no more than five or six years old when she first saw Paris, and she was still in her teens when she decided to become a painter. She went to Italy, on to Antwerp, then to Rome, andfinally returned to Paris where in 1874, she permanently settled. In 1872, Cassatt sent her first work to the Salon, others followed in the succeeding years until 1875, when a portrait of her sister was …

A jeweler with an established reputation through the world, Louis Comfort Tiffany was the spearhead of the Art Nouveau movement in the United States. At a time and in a country in perpetual growth, Tiffany succeeded in elevating the decorative to the rank of fine art. Glass was the field of expertise of Tiffany’s workshops. There they developed groundbreaking techniques of treatment which produced beautiful effects on glass. Following the examples of Gallé or Daum, Tiffany made the most of this material: playing with colors, opaqueness and transparency… However, his most famous success is his lamps in mosaic of glass, …

Sargent was born in Florence, in 1856, the son of cultivated parents. When Sargent entered the school of Carolus-Duran he attained much more than the average pupils. His father was a retired Massachusetts gentleman, having practised medicine in Philadelphia. Sargent’s home life was penetrated with refinement, and outside it were the beautiful influences of Florence, combining the charms of sky and hills with the wonders of art in the galleries and the opportunities of an intellectual and artistic society. Accordingly, when Sargent arrived in Paris, he was not only a skilful draughtsman and painter as a result of his study …

Taoist meditation is an essential aspect of spiritual practice in the Taoist tradition. Focused on harmony with nature and the Universe, it offers a path to inner peace and deep understanding of oneself and the world around us. Unlike other forms of meditation, it emphasizes flow and transformation, mimicking the natural movement of the Tao, the universal force. In Taoist literature, such as Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching", these principles are explored and guided, allowing for rewarding and enlightening practice. This book on Taoist meditation will be a valuable addition for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of these ancient …

This book presents a selection of oceanic charts dating from the 13th to the 17th century. Though to us they may appear rudimentary, they bear excellent witness to the achievements of the early European navigators, and to their determination to explore the very ends of the Earth. What the charts may lack in geographical accuracy they undoubtedly make up for in charm. And of course they are priceless historical records. Recounting the epic voyages of maritime exploration, from Erik the Red to Robert Peary, author Donald Wigal leads us on an exciting journey from Terra Incognita to the World As …

In 1905 Georgia travelled to Chicago to study painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1907 she enrolled at the Art Students’ League in New York City, where she studied with William Merritt Chase. During her time in New York she became familiar with the 291 Gallery owned by her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In 1912, she and her sisters studied at university with Alon Bement, who employed a somewhat revolutionary method in art instruction originally conceived by Arthur Wesley Dow. In Bement’s class, the students did not mechanically copy nature, but instead were taught the principles of …