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 …

Encaustic painting is one of the world’s most venerable art forms, having been practised consistently around the world since the ancient Egyptians first used it to decorate sarcophagi, and enjoying continuing popularity in the modern era with artists such as Paul Klee and Diego Rivera. In this new text, Jennifer Margell offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the medium, featuring instructive how-tos for encaustic art beginners, revealing interviews with some of the most celebrated practitioners of the medium, and a gallery featuring one of the largest published collections of encaustic art to date.

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 English school of painting was officially recognised at the beginning of the 18th century through the work of William Hogarth. It includes works by the most famous English artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Constable, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This subject is introduced with a very unique text, published in 1882: a French study of English pictorial art. The author, Ernest Chesneau, was highly-cultured, an art historian and inspector of Fine Arts. He explains the beginnings of this school which excels in portraiture and landscapes, and reminds us of the English brilliance regarding …

Romanticism was a reaction against the Neoclassicism that invaded the 19th century, and marked a veritable intellectual rupture. Found in the writings of Victor Hugo and Lord Byron, amongst others, its ideas are expressed in painting by Eugène Delacroix, Caspar David Friedrich and William Blake. In sculpture, François Rude indicated the direction this new artistic freedom would take, endowing his work with a movement and expression never previously seen. By retracing the different stages of its evolution, this book offers a study of the different aspects of the Romantic movement. Thanks to a thorough and in-depth analysis, the reader can …

Poet, draughtsman, engraver and painter, William Blake’s work is made up of several elements – Gothic art, Germanic reverie, the Bible, Milton and Shakespeare – to which were added Dante and a certain taste for linear designs, resembling geometric diagrams, and relates him to the great classical movement inspired by Winckelmann and propagated by David. This is the sole point of contact discernible between the classicism of David and English art, though furtive and indirect. Blake is the most mystic of the English painters, perhaps the only true mystic. He was ingenious in his inner imagination, and his interpretations of …

Over the course of history, many wars have changed the political and cultural landscape of our world. While these events are defined by their upheaval and violence, they frequently contribute to the formation of the identity of entire generations or groups of people, and thus have significant cultural effects. Despite the physical and emotional destruction that occurs during these turbulent periods, they have inspired prolific artistic creation. In the wake of traumatic events over the centuries, a myriad of artists have produced works that immortalise the most dramatic moments of these wars in order to establish them in history forever. …

Ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) is a branch of Japanese art which originated during the period of prosperity in Edo (1615-1868). Characteristic of this period, the prints are the collective work of an artist, an engraver, and a printer. Created on account of their low cost thanks to the progression of the technique, they represent daily life, women, actors of kabuki theatre, or even sumo wrestlers. Landscape would also later establish itself as a favourite subject. Moronobu, the founder, Shunsho, Utamaro, Hokusai, and even Hiroshige are the most widely-celebrated artists of the movement. In 1868, Japan opened up to …

In Victorian England, with the country swept up in the Industrial Revolution, the Pre-Raphaelites, close to William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement, yearned for a return to bygone values. Wishing to revive the pure and noble forms of the Italian Renaissance, the major painters of the circle (such as John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt) favoured realism and biblical themes over the academicism of the time. This work, with its captivating text and rich illustrations, describes with enthusiasm this singular movement which notably inspired Art Nouveau and Symbolism.

The Renaissance began at the end of the 14th century in Italy and had extended across the whole of Europe by the second half of the 16th century. The rediscovery of the splendour of ancient Greece and Rome marked the beginning of the rebirth of the arts following the break-down of the dogmatic certitude of the Middle Ages. A number of artists began to innovate in the domains of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Depicting the ideal and the actual, the sacred and the profane, the period provided a frame of reference which influenced European art over the next four centuries. …

For more than a millennium, from its creation in 330 CE until its fall in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was a cradle of artistic effervescence that is only beginning to be rediscovered. Endowed with the rich heritage of Roman, Eastern, and Christian cultures, Byzantine artists developed an architectural and pictorial tradition, marked by symbolism, whose influence extended far beyond the borders of the Empire. Today, Italy, North Africa, and the Near East preserve the vestiges of this sophisticated artistic tradition, with all of its mystical and luminous beauty. The magnificence of the palaces, churches, paintings, enamels, ceramics, and mosaics from …