Vanity Fair's Hollywood

"Co-authored by: David Friend

For as long as there have been moving pictures, there have been movie junkies: those of us sitting spellbound in theaters, basking in the glow of the big screen. An equally fascinating pastime for many has been watching the ""real"" lives of actors and actresses play out like scripts before our eyes, with all the drama and glamour of their latest box-office project. There is no better place to indulge these habits than between the pages of Vanity Fair's Hollywood, a lavish new collection of photographs, illustrations, and essays culled from legendary Vanity Fair magazine.

The list of celebrities, past and present, that grace the pages of Vanity Fair's Hollywood is extraordinary - to even begin to name them would take up pages (but if you must know, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Joan Crawford, Charlie Chaplin, Robert De Niro, Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise, and Madonna are just a few). However, even more stunning than this lineup of stars is the quality of the images presented in the book. Priceless moments are captured by renowned photographers such as Edward Steichen, Herb Ritts, and Annie Leibovitz. Gorgeous illustrations are rendered by art luminaries such as Miguel Covarrubias, Robert Risko, and David Cowles.

Vanity Fair's Hollywood, according to Graydon Carter's introduction, was five years in the making. Clearly a labor of love, it pays magnificent homage to the movies, the people who make them, and the glorious world they inhabit. And above all, it achieves the same end as the best movies do, offering its audience a breathless, heady look inside a world that is as fleeting as a dream.

'This is the ultimate Hollywood picture history, convincing us that stars had faces then and, glory be, still do,'Richard Corliss, Time

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Van Gogh

"Van Gogh, the painter whose work was one of the major inspirations for 20th century art, is given a fresh and thorough appraisal in this comprehensive new study. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Melissa McQuillan looks at the influences on his life and work and discuesses his paintings in depth. Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo and other artiests, particularly Gauguin, are also examined. The author argues that Van Gogh's works were products of his deliberate engagement with contemporary artistic questions and of his exeperience as an art dealer. His subsequent reputation, the mythology that grew up after his death, the debates between naturalism and modernity and the social implications of Van Gogh's imagery - all are studied in full in this lucid account of an artist who sold only one painting during his lifetime but whose works now command the highest prices in the world."

The Art of Tantra

"In this comprehensive study of Tantric art, Philip Rawson invites us to join a meditative and visual exploration of the self and the universe.

Originating in India in 600 AD and increasingly linked with recent trends of Western art, Tantra is a metaphysical fusion of eroticism, mathematics, and magic, a diffuse worldview in which the cult of ecstasy reigns. It is through the astonishing collection of illustrations in the book - sixteenth century engravings of the process of Creative Generation, reliefs of Hindu goddesses made for worship, a Tibetan magician's costume made of human bone - that Rawson makes accessible the mystical and fundamentally undefinable world of Tantra.

""A book to have for beauty and interest, which may well be a guide to an understanding of life."" Arts Review

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Surrealist Art

A study of the surrealist movement which traces its development and examines the work and thoughts of its major artists.

Romanticism and Art

"In the age of revolutions, at the end of the eighteenth century, the mental and spiritual life of North America and Europe began to undergo a historic and irreversible change. The ideas of spontaneity, direct expression and natural feeling transformed the arts, encouraging artists to explore the extremes in human nature, from heroism to insanity and despair. Widely praised on its previous appearance as Romantic Art and now revised, William Vaughan's classic study analyzes the achievement of the leading artists of the age - masters such as Goya, Blake, Gericault, Turner and Delacroix - and sets in context a host of fascinating figures in painting, sculpture and architecture: Palmer, Runge, Soane, Gros, Overbeck, Schinkel, Flaxman, Pugin, Bingham and many more. The result is an invaluable account of a dramatic and contradictory artistic epoch.

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Rodin

"Rodin's sculpture was in defiance of academic conventions but in later life he became a famous and widely respected figure. This work reappraises his achievement, analyzes his significance as an innovator, and gives an account of his personality and life.

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Rembrandt

"A biography of Rembrandt examines his most important drawings and paintings, describes his personal life, and assesses his contribution to art.

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Pop Art

"Pop Art embodied the spirit of the 1960's. Despite its carnival aspects, its orgiastic colour and giant scale, it was based on a tough, no-nonsense, no-refinement standard appropriate to its time. Here several critics, each involved in Pop Art, but with different backgrounds, vividly bring the movement to life."

Picasso