Maria: 6239 books

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (1869 – 1939) was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from 1888 to 1897. While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Léon Bakst....

"To tell the truth, the peasant subjects suit my temperament best; for I must confess, even if you think me a socialist, that the human side of art is what touches me most." Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of...

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is best known as a chronicler of the nightlife of late 19th century Paris. He used to frequent the nightclubs and cafés of Montmartre, befriending the dancers and prostitutes, making countless sketches as they comb their hair or just lie in bed. Toulouse-Lautrec did not...

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. In just over a decade he produced over 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, the majority created in the last two years of his life. They include portraits, self-portraits,...

Giovanni Boldini was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting. His paintings and drawings showed his subject in soft-focus, elongated, in movement, alive, and sophisticated. He painted mostly portraits and also landscapes in the naturalistic style of his day,...

Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the movements of Realism and Naturalism. Millet portrayed the gravity, hardship, and dignity of common agricultural...

Paul Cézanne was the leading figure in the revolution toward abstraction in modern painting. His influence on the course of modern art, particularly on the development of cubism, is enormous and deep. In his early career, he was strongly influenced by Delacroix and Courbet. Through Pissarro, Cezanne...

Dada is often celebrated for its strategies of shock and opposition, but in Dada Presentism, Maria Stavrinaki provides a new picture of Dada art and writings as a lucid reflection on history and the role of art within it. The original (Berlin-based) Dadaists' acute historical consciousness and their...

"Rilke's observations are wonderfully astute. For readers interested in either [sculpture or poetry], this volume is a treat." — The Christian Science Monitor During the early 1900s, the great German poet lived and worked in Paris with Auguste Rodin. In a work as revealing of its author...

Sculptor Auguste Rodin was fortunate to have his secretary Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most sensitive poets of our time. These two pieces discussing Rodin's work and development as an artist are as revealing of Rilke as they are of his subject. Written in 1902 and 1907, these essays mark the entry...

Jacques Tissot was born to a middle class family. He initially studied art at Beaux-Arts in Paris. He decided to move to London in 1871. Here Tissot started to paint highly finished pictures of London society. The main criticisms were that the pictures were really only painted photographs, and they...

America's most famous business reporter gives her unique perspective on the white-knuckle weekend that brought the financial world to its knees. During a single historic weekend (September 12-14, 2008) the fate of Lehman Brothers was sealed, Merrill Lynch barely survived, and AIG became a ward...

The realities of the modern-day workplace can include stress, pressure and apathy, but with a thoughtful approach and an openness to change, anyone can transform their work experience. In ‘Mindfulness at Work’, expert mediator and counsellor Maria Arpa shares her professional and personal insights...

Retirement ROCKS is an insightful case study of the Golden Age that offers both great new opportunities and deep, heartbreaking challenges. Since June 2007, the author and her gringo have embarked in this stage with enthusiasm and zest: they moved to a small retirement home and experimented with activities...