Dada was probably the most perplexing, astonishing and revolutionary art movement in world art history. How does one account for a work such as Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' 1917, a porcelain urinal just as if taken from a men's toilet, tipped sideways, inscribed with the fictional artist's name of 'R. Mutt' and submitted for prestigious exhibition in New York? Or a performance at the Cabaret Voltaire at around the same time in Zürich where an audience is goaded into a hostile reaction to no...

Matisse's profound impact on twentieth century art makes him essential to understanding the art of the present. His art conveys some of the most uplifting, life affirming imagery in western culture. At the same time it is among the most creative and influential.This ebook povides an understanding of Henri Matisse and his revolutionary art to students and anyone who wants to understand and appreciate this outstanding and much loved artist. Discussion is focused around the keys to de...

The story of Australian Colonial art. This ebook provides a comprehensive introduction to Australia's history and development from precolonial times, discovery, settlement and exploration to the centenary period (1880s) through the eyes of the artists at the time, including free settlers, visitors and convicts. It explores the way artists related to their new and alien landscape, the indigenous population and emerging society over time. The art is presented with analysis in its historical ...

Nineteenth century France was a period of rapid modernisation and expansion. Édouard Manet, the quintessential painter of modern life, was a man of his times and his paintings were powerful, often shocking, representations of modern society. In particular, Manet scandalised French society with his iconoclastic depictions of women as objects of pleasure and commerce, as products of a burgeoning capitalism and a commodity of the bourgeois male. An understanding of the historical and social c...

Art Deco style was established on the ashes of a disappeared world, the one from before the First World War, and on the foundation stone of a world yet to become, opened to the most undisclosed promises. Forgetting herself in the whirl of Jazz Age and the euphoria of the “Années Folles”, the Garçonne with her linear shape reflects the architectural style of Art Deco: to the rounded curves succeed the simple and plain androgynous straight line… Architecture, painting, furniture and sculptur...

A founder of French Impressionist painting and the most prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, Claude Monet created a large body of works, developing his own method of producing repeated studies of the same motif in a series, whilst changing canvases with the shift in light. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive ...

The often harsh and unforgiving Australian landscape was a far cry from what the early colonisers were used to, and it proved a daunting obstacle to settlement. However, a few brave and at times foolhardy men were determined to prove themselves equal to the challenge. AUSTRALIA'S GREAT EXPLORERS looks at the tragedies and triumphs of men such as Wentworth and Lawson, Hume and Hovell, Burke and Wills, Leichhardt and Strzelecki as they battled to conquer the Great Diving Range, find an elusi...

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.First there was Girt. Now comes . . . True GirtTrue Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, a...

The Colony is the story of the marvellously contrary, endlessly energetic early years of Sydney. It is an intimate account of the transformation of a campsite in a beautiful cove to the town that later became Australia's largest and best-known city.From the sparkling beaches to the foothills of the Blue Mountains, Grace Karskens skilfully reveals how landscape shaped the lives of the original Aboriginal inhabitants and newcomers alike. She traces the ways in which relation...

This illustrated Travel Guide is a part of the Mobi Sights series, our concise guides that only feature the most essential information on city attractions. This guide is designed for optimal navigation on eReaders, smartphones, and other mobile electronic devices. Inside you will find a locator map and a list of top attractions linked to individual articles. Addresses, telephones, hours of operation and admissions information are included. The guide also features an itiner...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges on 25 February 1841. In 1854, the boy’s parents took him from school and found a place for him in the Lévy brothers’ workshop, where he was to learn to paint porcelain. Renoir’s younger brother Edmond had this to say this about the move: “From what he drew in charcoal on the walls, they concluded that he had the ability for an artist’s profession. That was how our parents came to put him to learn the trade of porcelain painter.” One of the Lévys’ w...

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was one of the great personalities of fin de siecle Paris, a famous and popular figure known by, and knowing, everyone who mattered in bohemian circles. He is usually classified as a postimpressionist painter, along with his contemporaries Gauguin and van Gogh. In common with many artists, Toulouse-Lautrec had to struggle to gain acceptance, but unlike his peers, his fight was not so much for his art as for himself. At just slightly over 5 feet tall, he faced prej...