Download or read book Stealing the Mystic Lamb written by Noah Charney and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece is on any art historian's list of the ten most important paintings ever made. Often referred to by the subject of its central panel, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, it represents the fulcrum between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time. Since its completion in 1432, this twelve-panel oil painting has been looted in three different wars, burned, dismembered, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, censored, hidden, attacked by iconoclasts, hunted by the Nazis and Napoleon, used as a diplomatic tool, ransomed, rescued by Austrian double-agents, and stolen a total of thirteen times. In this fast-paced, real-life thriller, art historian Noah Charney unravels the stories of each of these thefts. In the process, he illuminates the whole fascinating history of art crime, and the psychological, ideological, religious, political, and social motivations that have led many men to covet this one masterpiece above all others.
Download or read book Van Eyck written by Till-Holger Borchert and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This stunning compilation of the work of Jan van Eyck, the master Flemish painter, is being published to coincide with a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition in Ghent. Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1390–1441) towered above his contemporaries. With his unprecedented technique, scientific knowledge, and unparalleled powers of observation, Van Eyck lifted oil painting to previously unknown heights and helped determine the course of Western art. In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent will host the largest ever exhibition of Van Eyck’s work. Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution includes artwork by Van Eyck, several pieces from his studio, and international masterpieces from the late Middle Ages while making the world of Van Eyck more tangible than ever. This tie-in exhibition catalog unravels some of the myths that surround Van Eyck and his techniques, while showing his complete oeuvre and influence in a new perspective. Including essays by leading experts from around the world, Van Eyck will prove to be an indispensable resource for Van Eyck fans and scholars alike.
Download or read book The Seven Last Words of Jesus written by Romanus Cessario and published by Magnificat USA LLC. This book was released on 2009-02-01 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profound and lively reflection on Christ's last words Addresses many everyday concerns: marriage, liturgy, suffering, vocations, etc The sacred mysteries of Christ crucified carefully explored through the lens of sacred art An invaluable companion a beautiful resource you will return to throughout the year Archbishop of New York An ideal gift for Catholics and for those who wish to understand the mystery of the Cross of Christ. Well suited for adult catechetical instruction and RCIA Foreword by His Eminence, Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York
Download or read book The Fate of the Masterpiece written by Noah Charney and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short e-book, adapted from Noah Charney's book Stealing the Mystic Lamb, tells the dramatic story of the rescue of The Ghent Altarpiece from Nazi pillagers. As the Nazis stormed across Europe during the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of artworks disappeared in their wake. A group of Allied officers set off on the trail of Europe's vanished art treasures -- they were known as the Monuments Men. The investigations of the Monuments Men combined old-fashioned detective work, personal bravery, ingenuity, and a dose of good fortune. This is perhaps best exemplified in the story of the race to save the 12,000 stolen masterpieces that were kept in a secret art warehouse hidden deep inside a converted salt mine in the Austrian Alps. There awaited the treasures destined for Hitler's planned "super museum," which would contain every important artwork in the world. The prize of the collection, and the painting most desired by the Nazis, was Jan van Eyck's 1432 masterwork, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also known as The Ghent Altarpiece. This massive masterpiece is considered the most influential painting ever made, and it is also the most-frequently stolen. This e-book single is adapted from Noah Charney's acclaimed book Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece. It contains all of the material from that book on the Monuments Men and Nazi art theft during the Second World War, as told through the story of two Monuments Men, Robert Posey and Lincoln Kirstein, as they raced to save the Mystic Lamb and the other works in the salt mine from an SS officer who was determined to destroy all 12,000 masterpieces.
Download or read book Jan Van Eyck written by Craig Harbison and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jan van Eyck's surviving work comprises a series of painstakingly detailed oil paintings of astonishing verisimilitude. In a fascinating recovery of the neglected human dimension that is clearly present in these works, Craig Harbison interrogates the personal histories of the worldly participants of such masterpieces as the Virgin and Child with George van der Paele, the Arnolfini Double Portrait and the Virgin and Child with Nicolas Rolin. With the aid of abundant visual evidence in color and in black and white, Harbison reveals how van Eyck presented his contemporaries with a more subtle and complex view of the value of appearances as a route to understanding the meaning of life. "I found this an enthralling study"--"The Sunday Telegraph "A fascinating investigation into the nature of the great pioneer's clients ... some fine photo details"--"Art Review Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Lamb at the Altar written by Deborah Hay and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The intention of my work is to dislodge assumptions about the fixity of the three-dimensional body."--Deborah Hay Her movements are uncharacteristic, her words subversive, her dances unlike anything done before--and this is the story of how it all works. A founding member of the famed Judson Dance Theater and a past performer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Deborah Hay is well known for choreographing works using large groups of trained and untrained dancers whose surprising combinations test the limits of the art. Lamb at the Altar is Hay's account of a four-month seminar on movement and performance held in Austin, Texas, in 1991. There, forty-four trained and untrained dancers became the human laboratory for Hay's creation of the dance Lamb, lamb, lamb . . . , a work that she later distilled into an evening-length solo piece, Lamb at the Altar. In her book, in part a reflection on her life as a dancer and choreographer, Hay tells how this dance came to be. She includes a movement libretto (a prose dance score) and numerous photographs by Phyllis Liedeker documenting the dance's four-month emergence. In an original style that has marked her teaching and writing, Hay describes her thoughts as the dance progresses, commenting on the process and on the work itself, and ultimately creating a remarkable document on the movements--precise and mysterious, mental and physical--that go into the making of a dance. Having replaced traditional movement technique with a form she calls a performance meditation practice, Hay describes how dance is enlivened, as is each living moment, by the perception of dying and then involves a freeing of this perception from emotional, psychological, clinical, and cultural attitudes into movement. Lamb at the Altar tells the story of this process as specifically practiced in the creation of a single piece.
Download or read book The Lamb s Supper written by Scott Hahn and published by Image. This book was released on 2002-06-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As seen on EWTN, bestselling author Scott Hahn unveils the mysteries of the Mass, offering readers a deeper appreciation of the most familiar of Catholic rituals. Of all things Catholic, there is nothing that is so familiar as the Mass. With its unchanging prayers, the Mass fits Catholics like their favorite clothes. Yet most Catholics sitting in the pews on Sundays fail to see the powerful supernatural drama that enfolds them. Pope John Paul II described the Mass as "Heaven on Earth," explaining that what "we celebrate on Earth is a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy." The Lamb’s Supper reveals a long-lost secret of the Church: The early Christians' key to understanding the mysteries of the Mass was the New Testament Book of Revelation. With its bizarre imagery, its mystic visions of heaven, and its end-of-time prophecies, Revelation mirrors the sacrifice and celebration of the Eucharist. Beautifully written, in clear direct language, bestselling Catholic author Scott Hahn's new book will help readers see the Mass with new eyes, pray the liturgy with a renewed heart, and enter into the Mass more fully, enthusiastically, intelligently, and powerfully than ever before.
Download or read book On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art written by James Elkins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-12-15 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? John Updike calls modern art "a religion assembled from the fragments of our daily life," but does that mean that contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief? On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art explores the curious disconnection between spirituality and current art. This book will enable you to walk into a museum and talk about the spirituality that is or is not visible in the art you see.
Download or read book The Seven Joys of Mary written by Romanus Cessario and published by Magnificat. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A profound and lively reflection on the seven joys of Mary: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Assumption"--P. [4] of cover.
Download or read book The Art Thief written by Noah Charney and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charney crafts an intellectual masterpiece--the mystery of three missing masterpieces that sends criminals and curators alike on a rollicking chase through the art galleries and auction houses of Europe.
Download or read book The Burgundians written by Bart Van Loo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterful history of the great dynasty of the Netherlands' Middle Ages. 'A sumptuous feast of a book' The Times, Books of the Year 'Thrillingly colourful and entertaining' Sunday Times 'A thrilling narrative of the brutal dazzlingly rich wildly ambitious duchy' Simon Sebag Montefiore 5 stars! Daily Telegraph 'A masterpiece' De Morgen 'A history book that reads like a thriller' Le Soir At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a compulsively readable narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury and madness. It is about the decline of knightly ideals and the awakening of individualism and of cities, the struggle for dominance in the heart of northern Europe, bloody military campaigns and fatally bad marriages. It is also a remarkable cultural history, of great art and architecture and music emerging despite the violence and the chaos of the tension between rival dynasties.
Download or read book The Effluents of Deity written by Carl A. P. Ruck and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prime doctrine of alchemy was that what was above mirrored what was below. From this it follows that manipulating what was below could exert a profound influence upon the realm above. Alchemy was a dual process in which physical and chemical or metallurgical changes had a parallel spiritual aspect, both personal and cosmic, so that the transformations occurred also within the retort of the body of the practitioners of the art, who sought to transmute leaden consciousness to celestial transcendence and perhaps even manage to move the stars. What flowed from the body of the deity, as an alchemical vessel, was a magical sacrament offering mystical communion with its divine source. The main focus of this study is van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece known as the 'Mystic Lamb.' It was intended as a complex talisman to influence the ascendancy of Burgundy and the coronation of its Duke, Philip the Good, as the Pope's choice to rule over the New Jerusalem of John's Apocalyptic Revelation. Its completion coincided with the Duke's inauguration of the elite chivalric Order of the Golden Fleece. The river of the alchemical aqua vitae that flows from the throne of God and the Lamb in the Altarpiece encodes the secret of their psychoactive initiatory Eucharist. The context for van Eyck's masterpiece includes the visionary scholarship of the Jewish Cabbala and medieval Christian mystics, Chrétien de Troyes' Conte du Graal, and such other artistic masterpieces as St. Berward's Michaeliskirke, Filippo Lippi's series of Adorations painted for his Medici patron's, and Petrus Christus' paintings for the Order of the Dry Tree, as well as other works of van Eyck and his contemporaries that were intended to serve as aids for mystical meditation. A final chapter examines the nature of the Eucharist at the time John's Revelation. A DVD is included in the book.
Download or read book The Ghent Altarpiece written by Bart Fransen and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2020 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The outer panels of the Ghent Altarpiece had been overpainted to a considerable extent. The virtuosity of the Eyckian technique and aesthetics remained hardly visible. And yet, this had never been observed before the start of the conservation treatment. By removing the overpaint, the tonal richness and the coherent rendering of light and space once again came to the fore. Especially the suggestion of volumes and the spaciousness of the ensemble gained strength because of the virtuoso play of deep shadows and bright light accents, and not in the least because of the surprising trompe-l'oeil effect of the frames conceived as a stone framework. Or to put it in the words of the comments of one of the experts, dr. Maryan Ainsworth: The paintings live and breathe again in the time of the Van Eyck brothers. The sharp observation skills, the quick, accurate execution, the knowledge, curiosity and ingenuity about all the things that are depicted, are now unveiled after centuries. The profit for the knowledge of and further research into the essence of Eyckian aesthetics is considerable. And finally there is the discovery that the much-discussed quatrain was applied simultaneously with the polychromy of the frames: a real 'coup de foudre' in the discourse of the current art-historical research! The subtleties of the Eyckian technique could also be mapped out in more detail. How the Van Eycks managed to keep the final result and the desired effect in mind during every phase of the execution, from imprimatura to finishing touch. The artists made a statement about the art of painting, giving 'technique' as such a new prominence. The Ghent Altarpiece may be understood at some point as a major showpiece for a highly sophisticated pictorial technique.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Van Eyck Studies written by Christina Currie and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Paul Coreman's ground-breaking 'L'Agneau mystique au laboratoire' in 1953, the 'Ghent Altarpiece', masterwork of the Van Eyck brothers, has been a major focus of research at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels). Some sixty years later, in the wake of a new conservation campaign in which KIK-IRPA is again playing the leading role, the art of Hubert and Jan van Eyck took centre stage at the Symposium XVIII for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting (Brussels, 19-21 September 2012). The event was organised by the KIK-IRPA and the Centre for the Study of the Flemish Primitives in collaboration with the Laboratoire d'étude des œuvres d'art par des méthodes scientifiques (Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve), and Illuminare - Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). This book captures the variety of thirty-seven papers presented at the symposium and provides state-of-the-art knowledge on one of the most significant painters of all time. It should be read in conjunction with the widely acclaimed website "Closer to Van Eyck", which offers the scientific imagery of the 'Ghent Altarpiece' in glorious high resolution.
Download or read book A Light from the East written by Tony El Khoury and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Poem of the Man God written by Maria Valtorta and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 23 April 1943, Good Friday, Maria Valtorta reported hearing the voice of Jesus. From then until 1951 she produced over 15,000 handwritten pages in 122 notebooks, mostly detailing the life of Jesus as an extension of the gospels. Her handwritten notebooks containing close to 700 reputed episodes in the life of Jesus were typed on separate pages by her priest and reassembled, given that they had no temporal order, and became the basis of her 5,000-page book The Poem of the Man God.
