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In the brief span of his life and career, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) galvanized public attention in 1890s London with his exotic renderings of subjects, which often projected the sensual and the grotesque. This splendid volume brings together the best of Beardsley's work--a rich selection ranging from illustrations for Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Balzac's La Comédie Humaine to magazine cover designs, book plate silhouettes, title-page ornaments, and delightful mini-portraits of major composers. Also included are two photographs of the artist, consisting of private portrait studies by Frederick H. Evans.Over 180 beautifully reproduced black-and-white plates capture the uniqueness of Beardsley's vision and reveal the seductive power of his art. Among the illustrations are brilliantly conceived vignettes from Le Morte D'arthur, Venus and Tannhäuser, Salome, and Lucian's True History as well as enchanting creations for The Yellow Book (an influential British arts quarterly), and much more.Characterized by bold black masses, elongated shapes, and sensually provocative figures, these works are the product of a remarkable individual style that transformed the art of illustration. Reproduced here in an inexpensive high-quality format, they are certain to thrill not only Beardsley enthusiasts but anyone interested in the early years of modern graphic art.Dover (1990) original publication.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) ranks among history's most gifted and perceptive portrait painters. His objectivity, realism, and superb draftsmanship have influenced artists and commanded the admiration of the world for over four centuries.This handsome volume presents 44 of Holbein's finest portrait drawings, created while he worked as court painter to Henry VIII. This artist's record of one of the world's most brilliant and tempestuous courts, in drawings and finished portraits executed with inimitable sensitivity and impeccable draftsmanship, is unique in the annals of history and art. Here are revealing, detailed depictions of a gallery of powerful personalities: Sir Thomas More; Jane Seymour; Edward, Prince of Wales; Anne Boleyn; William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; Sir Thomas Wyatt; Nicholas Bourbon the Elder; and many others. Informative captions provide identification of the sitters, dates, dimensions of the drawings, and notes on the media.Today the original drawings can be seen only in the collection of the Royal Library at Windsor. This inexpensive Dover edition makes them widely available to all art lovers. Moreover, every effort has been made to retain the quality of the originals--subtleties of tone and shading, fine detail, and telling nuances of expression. The drawings comprise a priceless archive of important personalities in Henrician England, a record of great value to historians, scholars, costume and cultural historians--anyone interested in that turbulent era and the astounding painter who helped preserve it.Dover (1985) original publication.

The London of Dickens as seen by France's greatest illustrator. 180 line illus.

This book contains 101 of Hogarth's finest and most important engravings, including all the major series or progresses: The South Sea Scheme, A Harlot's Progress, A Midnight Modern Conversation, A Rake's Progress, Before and After, Marriage à la Mode, Industry and Idleness, The March to Finchley, The Four Stages of Cruelty, Time Smoking a Picture, Tailpiece, and many more, including ten study sketches and paintings that show how the final works evolved. Sean Shesgreen, a foremost authority on Hogarth, has consistently selected the best states of the plates to be used in this edition and has carefully introduced them, commenting upon the artist's milieu and the importance of plot, character, time, setting, and other dimensions. A most important aspect of this book, found in no other Hogarth edition, is the positioning of the editor's commentary on each plate on a facing page. With the incredible and sometimes overwhelming amount of detail and action going on in these engravings, this is a most helpful feature.Dover Original.

Original collection of outstanding wood engravings by a noted master ranges from the religious to the erotic with images inspired by The Song of Songs, The Canterbury Tales, and the Gospels.

These 66 drawings and 8 picture-stories represent the best of Steinlen's scattered, rare cat depictions, available nowhere else. Artists will learn cat dynamics from the spare, expressive lines.

His Don Quixote ... from its first to its last page [is] a marvel of imagination, poetry, sentiment, and sarcasm. . . . People still speak of it only as 'Doré's Don Quixote'.--Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré Doré himself had something of Quixote's chivalry and spent an arduous life drafting impossible dreams; he knew fame as well as pain, disillusionment, and failure. At age 30 he was ready for Quixote and prepared to realize his dream of illustrating the world's great books.Doré never became the painter he yearned to be, but he came very close to realizing his desired intimacy with the classics. His sympathy with Cervantes' satire was so close that, of the numerous Quixote interpretations by many outstanding artists, Doré's has become the standard. The French translation of Cervantes that Doré illustrated is forgotten; here is the memorable remnant of that work--all 120 full-page plates, plus a selection of 70 characteristic headpiece and tailpiece vignettes.As can be seen in the backgrounds, Doré was ready professionally as well as emotionally for Quixote. He had traveled through Spain preparing an earlier work, and his graphic memory was as strong and indelible as that of another great Quixote interpreter, Picasso. From Sancho's village through Spanish hills and dry plateaus, in the Pyrenees and by the sea, in rural castles and Barcelona luxury, Doré illuminated the seventeenth-century setting with a nineteenth-century acquaintance with the scene. Doré was also a careful student of Renaissance costume and architecture; his minutiae, so copious, are invariably correct.Captions written especially for this edition describe the action with reference to the original Spanish text, capturing high points of the story. But of course Doré conveys it all in a picture: the famous windmill charge, traversing the Sierra Morena, battling the Knight of the White Moon, visions of giants, dragons, flaming lakes, and damsels, the Dulcinea never found, all in full-page wood engravings. Doré's marvelous penchant for ghostly effects in panoramic landscapes and seascapes finds large scope here, carefully engraved by one of the best of his longtime studio engravers, H. Pisano.Doré's Man of la Mancha glows with the artist's own enchantment and humor. Artists and illustration aficionados will add this royalty-free volume to other Dover editions of Doré's works--art he created to stand with great literature that now stands alone. Doré's Quixote indeed stands alone, unique among the knights and graphic castles in Spain.Dover (1982) original publication of selections from L'ingenieux hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche par Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, published by L. Hachette et Cie, Paris, 1869.

This vibrant compilation features more than 100 hard-to-find examples of works by a noted Japanese woodblock artist including depictions of heavily armored samurai, battle scenes, and well-defended fortresses. Drawn from a series of volumes originally published in 1862, the dynamic images offer authentic views of warrior life during the Edo period.