Download or read book Leonardo s Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts written by Martin Kemp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.
Download or read book Leonardo s Salvator Mundi the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts written by Margaret Dalivalle and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, the world's most expensive painting; this volume recounts the story of the painting's modern-day discovery and restoration, but also delves into the collecting of Leonardo's works at the courts of Charles I and Charles II.
Download or read book The Last Leonardo written by Ben Lewis and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth. Praise for The Last Leonardo “The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian “As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times
Download or read book Rappaccini s Daughter Gothic Classic written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2024-01-06 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This carefully crafted ebook: "Rappaccini's Daughter (Gothic Classic)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Excerpt: "Does this garden belong to the house?" asked Giovanni. "Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any that grow there now," answered old Lisabetta. "No; that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor, who, I warrant him, has been heard of as far as Naples." (Rappaccini's Daughter) "Rappaccini's Daughter" is the story of Beatrice, the daughter of Giacomo Rappaccini, who is in turn a medical researcher in medieval Padua and grows a garden of poisonous plants. American novelist and short story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's (1804-1864) writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. Hawthorne has also written a few poems which many people are not aware of. His works are considered to be part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark romanticism. His themes often centre on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity.
Download or read book Living with Leonardo Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond written by Martin Kemp and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the world- renowned da Vinci expert recounts his fifty- year journey with the work of the world’s most famous artist A personal memoir interwoven with original research, Living with Leonardo takes us deep inside Leonardo da Vinci scholar Martin Kemp’s lifelong passion for the genius who has helped define our culture. Each chapter considers a specific work as Kemp offers insight into his encounters with academics, collectors, curators, devious dealers, auctioneers, and authors— as well as how he has grappled with legions of “Leonardo loonies,” treaded vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non- Leonardos. Kemp explains his thinking on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, retells his part in the identification of the stolen Buccleuch Madonna, and explains his involvement on the two major Leonardo discoveries of the last 100 years: La Bella Principessa and Salvator Mundi. His engaging narrative elucidates the issues surrounding attribution,the scientific analyses that support experts’ interpretations, and the continuing importance of connoisseurship. Illustrated with the works being discussed, Living with Leonardo explores the artist’s genius from every angle, including technical analysis and the pop culture works he inspired, such as The Da Vinci Code, and his enduring influence 500 years after his death.
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci s Codex Leicester Transcription and translation written by Leonardo (da Vinci) and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester is the most comprehensive scholarly edition of any of Leonardo's manuscripts. It contains a high-quality facsimile reproduction of the Codex, a new transcription and translation, accompanied by a paraphrase in modern language and a page-by-page commentary, and a series of interpretative essays.The Codex Leicester deals almost exclusively with science, water and hydraulics. There are also studies on the subjects of astronomy, cosmology, geology, with important notes regarding the composition and nature of the "body" of the earth. This codex is now comprised of 18 loose double sheets, with densely compiled script in Leonardo's characteristic mirror writing and over 300 small illustrations in the margins.
Download or read book 1478 a Year in Leonardo da Vinci s Career written by Edoardo Villata and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1478 was the year in which Leonardo da Vinci, aged 26, obtained his first official commission and witnessed the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici family. In that year, he probably opened his independent workshop, leaving that of his master Andrea del Verrocchio, and, in its final months, he began to paint two paintings representing the Virgin Mary. One of these paintings is very likely the Benois Madonna at the State Hermitage, St. Petersburg; a work that marks a strong change in Leonardo’s style and power of expression and his representation of light and human emotions. This book provides an in-depth analysis of Leonardo’s growth as an artist in this year, detailing his training, his culture, his collaboration with Verrocchio, and his engagement in the artistic and cultural life of 1460s and 1470s Florence.
Download or read book The Topkapi Scroll written by Gülru Necipoğlu and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 1996-03-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since precious few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the premodern Islamic world, the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum Library is an exceedingly rich and valuable source of information. In the course of her in-depth analysis of this scroll dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, Gülru Necipoğlu throws new light on the conceptualization, recording, and transmission of architectural design in the Islamic world between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. Her text has particularly far-reaching implications for recent discussions on vision, subjectivity, and the semiotics of abstract representation. She also compares the Islamic understanding of geometry with that found in medieval Western art, making this book particularly valuable for all historians and critics of architecture. The scroll, with its 114 individual geometric patterns for wall surfaces and vaulting, is reproduced entirely in color in this elegant, large-format volume. An extensive catalogue includes illustrations showing the underlying geometries (in the form of incised “dead” drawings) from which the individual patterns are generated. An essay by Mohammad al-Asad discusses the geometry of the muqarnas and demonstrates by means of CAD drawings how one of the scroll’s patterns could be used co design a three-dimensional vault.
Download or read book The Bouvier Affair written by Alexandra Bregman and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the art fraud battle that waged between Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and Swiss art magnate Yves Bouvier
Download or read book When Art Isn t Real written by Andrew Shortland and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-15 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How an initially valueless object becomes worth hundreds of millions. And vice versa. The art world is a multi-billion-dollar industry which captures world headlines on a regular basis, for both good and bad reasons. This book deals with one of the most-discussed areas of controversy: high-profile objects that have experts arguing about their veracity. Some may have been looted, others may be fakes, some may be heavily restored or misattributed. Often, in these cases, analytical science is called on to settle a dispute. The authors of this book have decades of experience in this field, working on a range of objects dating from prehistory to the twentieth century. They present seven of the most famous cases from the Getty Kouros to the Turin Shroud – some of which are still contested, and examine how a few words from a connoisseur or scientist can make a virtually valueless object worth hundreds of millions. And vice versa.
Download or read book The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist written by Angela Dressen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-02 with total page 731 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars have traditionally viewed the Italian Renaissance artist as a gifted, but poorly educated craftsman whose complex and demanding works were created with the assistance of a more educated advisor. These assumptions are, in part, based on research that has focused primarily on the artist's social rank and workshop training. In this volume, Angela Dressen explores the range of educational opportunities that were available to the Italian Renaissance artist. Considering artistic formation within the history of education, Dressen focuses on the training of highly skilled, average artists, revealing a general level of learning that was much more substantial than has been assumed. She emphasizes the role of mediators who had a particular interest in augmenting artists' knowledge, and highlights how artists used Latin and vernacular texts to gain additional knowledge that they avidly sought. Dressen's volume brings new insights into a topic at the intersection of early modern intellectual, educational, and art history.
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci written by Luke Syson and published by National Gallery London. This book was released on 2011 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new examination of Leonardo's career that illuminates his time as court painter to the Duke of Milan, an experience that fundamentally changed his outlook and his legacy
Download or read book Holy Blood Holy Grail written by Michael Baigent and published by Dell. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the traditional, accepted view of the life of Christ in some way incomplete? • Is it possible Christ did not die on the cross? • Is it possible Jesus was married, a father, and that his bloodline still exists? • Is it possible that parchments found in the South of France a century ago reveal one of the best-kept secrets of Christendom? • Is it possible that these parchments contain the very heart of the mystery of the Holy Grail? According to the authors of this extraordinarily provocative, meticulously researched book, not only are these things possible — they are probably true! so revolutionary, so original, so convincing, that the most faithful Christians will be moved; here is the book that has sparked worldwide controversey. "Enough to seriously challenge many traditional Christian beliefs, if not alter them." — Los Angeles Times Book Review "Like Chariots of the Gods?...the plot has all the elements of an international thriller." — Newsweek
Download or read book Pixels Paintings written by David G. Stork and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PIXELS & PAINTINGS “The discussion is firmly grounded in established art historical practices, such as close visual analysis and an understanding of artists’ working methods, and real-world examples demonstrate how computer-assisted techniques can complement traditional approaches.” —Dr. Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Van Gogh Museum The pioneering presentation of computer-based image analysis of fine art, forging a dialog between art scholars and the computer vision community In recent years, sophisticated computer vision, graphics, and artificial intelligence algorithms have proven to be increasingly powerful tools in the study of fine art. These methods—some adapted from forensic digital photography and others developed specifically for art—empower a growing number of computer-savvy art scholars, conservators, and historians to answer longstanding questions as well as provide new approaches to the interpretation of art. Pixels & Paintings provides the first and authoritative overview of the broad range of these methods, which extend from image processing of palette, marks, brush strokes, and shapes up through analysis of objects, poses, style, composition, to the computation of simple interpretations of artworks. This book stresses that computer methods for art analysis must always incorporate the cultural contexts appropriate to the art studies at hand—a blend of humanistic and scientific expertise. Describes powerful computer image analysis methods and their application to problems in the history and interpretation of fine art Discusses some of the art historical lessons and revelations provided by the use of these methods Clarifies the assumptions and applicability of methods and the role of cultural contexts in their use Shows how computation can be used to analyze tens of thousands of artworks to reveal trends and anomalies that could not be found by traditional non-computer methods Pixels & Paintings is essential reading for computer image analysts and graphics specialists, conservators, historians, students, psychologists and the general public interested in the study and appreciation of art.
Download or read book Voices of Conscience written by Nicole Reinhardt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work examines the role of royal confessors as political counsellors in seventeenth-century Spain and France, and how, against the backdrop of the momentous intellectual, theological, and political shifts that marked this period, questions of conscience became a major argument in the hegemonic struggle between the two competing Catholic powers.--Publishers description.
Download or read book The Last Leonardo written by Ben Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is 'the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived'. Its dazzling price also makes it the world's most expensive painting. For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo's assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie's auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo's studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer's workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we're never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.
