Books about Beaux arts from Amazon.com

Editor's introduction
Michelangelo Buonarroti achieved such renown in his lifetime that he was widely known and celebrated as Il Divino, or the Divine One. In 500 years, his fame has scarcely diminished. Michelangelo is generally recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time, a universal genius in all fields of visual creativity-sculpture, painting, and architecture-as well as a widely admired poet.

Accessible to readers-useful to specialistsMuch has been written on Michelangelo. By 1970, the number of scholarly books and articles exceeded 4,000, approximately a tenth in English. In the past 25 years, the literature has grown exponentially, with a notable increase in English-language publications. This five-volume series reproduces some 100 articles in English, selected from a broad range of books and journals. The collection is both accessible to the general reader and useful to the specialist, offering a representative sample of old and new commentary on the artist and his work.

Close to 100 photographs in each volumeThis collection also presents the artwork which illustrated the books and articles from which it is drawn-some 500 black-and-white photographs in all.

Offer scholarship and creative thinkingThese volumes introduce the reader to a wide range of scholarship and some of the best minds in the discipline, including Johannes Wilde, Erwin Panofsky, Charles de Tolnay, Rudolf Wittkower, Edgar Wind, and James Ackerman. The volumes offer easy access to an immense and widely scattered literature, much of it difficult to locate. The collection will be especially useful to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. As journals become prohibitively expensive, and as materials are increasingly moved to storage facilities, this collection will prove a welcome addition to general and specialized art libraries.

The career of a geniusArticles are arranged chronologically with separate volumes covering the artist's early life and works, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, commissions associated with San Lorenzo, the tomb of Julius II and other Roman projects, and a final volume devoted to drawings, poetry, and miscellaneous studies. Spanning his entire 89-year life, the articles explore Michelangelo's prodigious creativity as an artist, thinker, and poet. The sheer quantity of what has been written on Michelangelo can be intimidating; most students have little sense of how to approach or effectively utilize the vast literature. By presenting a varied introduction to a great artist, this collection is a handy reference tool for a wide array of topics, problems, and literature. Individual volumes available:

Vol. 1 Life and Early Works
544 pages, ISBN 0-8153-1823-5

Vol. 2 The Sistine Chapel
616 pages, ISBN 0-8153-1825-1

Vol. 3 San Lorenzo
496 pages, ISBN0-8153-1826-X

Vol. 4 Tomb of Julius II and Other Works in Rome
488 pages, ISBN 0-8153-1827-8

Vol. 5 Drawings, Poetry, and Miscellaneous Studies472 pages, ISBN 0-8153-1826-8.
Price: $37.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“Miss Beaux is not only the greatest woman painter, but the best that has ever lived.”
―William Merritt Chase, 1899
Author Alice A. Carter expertly traces Cecilia Beaux’s fascinating and unconventional life, from her privileged Philadelphia childhood to her successful penetration into the male-dominated inner circle of the art world of Paris, Philadelphia, and New York. Carter reveals how Beaux’s passion for her work and her headstrong spirit enabled her to achieve professional success unrivaled by any other female artist―and the personal price she paid for it.
Born in Philadelphia in 1855, Cecilia Beaux pursued an artistic career with the same zeal as her male peers, and by the turn of the century she had established an international reputation and exhibited regularly. She worked with eminent artists of her day, including Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent, and in 1895 she became the first full-time female faculty member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
This is the first illustrated biography of Beaux’s work, showcasing more than 150 paintings and drawings, including her best known high-style portrait commissions of such notable figures as Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and Georges Clemenceau, as well as later landscapes and still-life compositions. Much of this work has rarely been seen..
Price: $30.81 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At the turn of the twentieth century, the celebrated American artist William Merritt Chase named Cecilia Beaux "not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived." While Beaux--unlike her contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt--has not fared well in modernist-driven art history, her work has become the subject of renewed interest on the part of art historians, collectors, and general viewers on both sides of the Atlantic, and her forty-year career represents a compelling and under-examined chapter in the history of American art. Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter is the most comprehensive appraisal of Beaux's talent in more than three decades. This handsomely illustrated book presents a range of the artist's strongest work and offers a fresh understanding of her career by examining critical questions of gender, class, and the importance of place. It features substantive essays which examine Beaux's participation in the international portrait market of the 1890s, explore the artist's professional identity and changing fortunes through a close reading of key images, investigate Beaux's sensitivity to the framing and display of her work. An illustrated chronology of Beaux's life and work, compiled by Alison Bechtel Wexler, completes the study.
Copub: High Museum.
Price: $27.38 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Through words and stunning images, the Emerald Isle is brought to life in Spectacular Ireland, a magnificent collection of 140 color photographs by some of Ireland’s best landscape photographers and elegant text by Peter Harbison, one of Ireland’s most distinguished voices and renowned archaeologists. This handsome volume celebrates Ireland, a small island country of extraordinary beauty, fascinating history, and evocative myths, where old and new thrive together. From ancient standing stones and breathtaking pastoral scenes to energetic cities of architectural sophistication, we take a photographic tour reflecting the soul of this spectacular island. A brief history of Ireland puts the images into historical context: from ancient Celtic dolmens to abbeys and castles, from lush pastures, fields of heather, and seaside cliffs to formal gardens, and from ancient villages to the rush of contemporary Dublin. But Ireland is much more than beautiful landscape. Much of the magic of the country lies in the people themselves; these are a people who cherish their land. It is a rich heritage—of history, magic, and mystery—that makes Ireland a favorite destination for tourists and armchair travelers alike..
Price: $25.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Richly illustrated, this book describes the grandeur and richness of the numerous civilizations predating the Incas, including the Paracas, Nazca, Recuay, Sicán-Lambayeque, Moche-Sipán, and Chimú cultures, as well as the great Inca civilization. Included in the book are the important sites and landscapes representative of the three major ecological levels of Peru, as well as a general view and a historical perspective of the pre-Columbian cultures of Peru. Luis Guillermo Lumbreras examines the historical and archaeological context while Fernando de Szyslo presents the viewpoint of a contemporary Peruvian artist. Informative text written by Peruvian specialists in the field introduce each chapter dedicated to each of the pre-Columbian cultures. Two hundred stunning objects—pottery, textiles, and jewelry—illustrate the varied artistic achievements of each ancient culture..
Price: $38.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The first study of a bold, prolific, controversial, early twentieth-century architectural firm.

At the turn of the twentieth century, when American architecture blossomed in the spirit of the City Beautiful movement, Beaux-Arts-trained Whitney Warren and lawyer Charles D. Wetmore put their stamp on New York City with Grand Central Terminal. Their mansions, clubs, hotels, apartment houses, and office buildings were powerful emblems of the era. 32 pages of color, 240 duotone photographs..
Price: $37.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Traditionally a critical component of the education of any architect was to draw the ruins of ancient Rome, reconstructing either from ancient sources or, more often, pure fantasy, what the original structures must have looked like. From this training emerged generations of architects imbued with the aesthetic ideals that would form the Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts building styles. In this magnificently printed volume are reproduced some of the most extraordinarily handsome drawings of the ruins of ancient Rome made by French "Prix de Rome" architects from 1775 through 1925. Accompanied by text that explains how the Prix de Rome was awarded and the significance of the prize in the history of architecture, as well as how the study of ancient models formed the basis for nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architectural styles, these drawings provide an invaluable understanding of how the modern imagination recorded and transformed ancient fragments into a modern architectural idiom..
Price: $43.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Oversize Coffee Table HardcoverWeights : 3 lbs.
Price: $6.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Architect of the United States Naval Academy, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Scribner Building, and model tenement houses, Ernest Flagg (1857-1947) advanced the cause of classicism while demonstrating a deep concern for architecture's social responsibility. This study of one of the most innovative practitioners of the Beaux-Arts movement in America covers Flagg's early training and Beaux-Arts works, his town and country houses, his commercial and utilitarian buildings, the Singer Tower (which established a new height record while setting a precedent for New York City skyscraper restrictions in scale and density), urban housing reform, and his small houses of modular design. Flagg, the author notes, combined French nineteenth century aesthetics and the principles of academic classicism with American structural technology to create significant buildings during the Progressive Era from 1890 to 1917. His contributions to zoning and height regulations were essential to New York's first laws governing this aspect of the city's architecture. A confirmed individualist, Flagg produced highly original writings and ingenious inventions for construction techniques in low-cost housing and railroad cars. Flagg's adaptation of classicism and his concern for urban contextualism make this study of his work particularly timely. His designs have immediate relevance for contemporary architects and preservationists, as well as those interested in the social and architectural history of New York City. Mardges Bacon is Associate Professor of Fine Arts and American Studies at Trinity College. Ernest Flagg: Beaux-Arts Architect and Urban Reformer is included in The Architectural History Foundation's American Monograph Series, edited by David G. De Long. An Architectural History Foundation Book..
Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]