"An extraordinary collection--hawk-eyed and understanding--from the Booker Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Sense of an Ending and Levels of Life. As Julian Barnes explains: "Flaubert believed that...great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting....But it is a rare picture that stuns, or argues, us into silence. And if one does, it is only...

A century and a half of masterpieces is covered in this chronologically arranged volume that captures the development of art in a new age. Starting with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and ending with Matthew Barney, nearly every prominent figure in Modern art is represented in double-page spreads that show how these artists continued to redefine norms and challenge tradition. Biographical and anecdotal information about each artist is provided alongside...

Much of how World War I is understood today is rooted in the artistic depictions of the brutal violence and considerable destruction that marked the conflict. Nothing but the Clouds Unchanged examines how the physical and psychological devastation of the war altered the course of twentieth-century artistic modernism. Following the lives and works of fourteen artists before, during, and after the war, this book demonstrates how the conflict and the...

A collection of thirty photographs by Irving Penn featuring actors, intellectuals, and other notable figures from his time.