If you can't imagine your life without painting, architecture, and sculpture, you'll need this collection
MICHEL PASTOREAU, "RED. HISTORY OF COLOR"
The book by the famous French historian-medievalist Michel Pastoreau, whose works have been translated into dozens of languages, is not in the full sense of the word "a book on art". As the author likes to repeat, "the history of flowers does not duplicate the history of art, it is something else, something much larger. Yet it is foolish to deny that color for culture - and especially for the visual arts - is of great importance: it is precisely for this reason that its study may be of interest to a wide range of people. Michelle Pastoreau, in his own fascinating manner, tells us about the way in which attitudes towards red and its application in various forms of art have been shaped in a given society. In the intellectual journey, which the author goes to, the most important thing - not to fall behind the idea of a historian-medievalist, which can sometimes require some effort on the part of the reader. However, the time spent will be justified with more than enough - fans of quality intellectual literature book will definitely like it.
VITTORIO ZGARBI, "TREASURES OF ITALY. FROM CARAVAGGIO TO TIEPOLO"
The name of the writer and historian Vittorio Zgarbi is well known to everyone who loves art and especially Italian artists. The author of many articles and books on Italy, this time invites us on another tour of the Apennine peninsula, telling about the Baroque and its key representatives. In many Italian cities, he will stop to tell about the artists who have glorified this or that area or metropolis - Rome, Venice, Florence ... Zgarbi knows how to carry the reader with his art history research, doing it so unobtrusively and deftly that it seems as if you read not a nonfiction, but a great fiction.
ARKADIY IPPOLITOV, "JUST ROME. IMAGES OF ITALY XXI"
Every connoisseur of art knows very well that cities that are equal to Rome in importance for world culture simply do not exist on the planet. In the Eternal City, you can find traces of many historical eras. Statues and sculptures, palaces and libraries, built in different times, form a unique urban environment that has always attracted tourists and, of course, celebrities: writers, artists, athletes, politicians, actors - many of them have also become part of Rome, dedicating to it their own works, such as films, as was done by Federico Fellini or Paolo Sorrentino. Arkadiy Ippolitov, the curator of the Italian engraving cabinet at the State Hermitage Museum, tells about all these intertwined times and people, the bizarre roads of culture and art in the 21st century.
ANASTASIA POSTRIGAY, "TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ART. FROM REMBRANDT TO ANDY WARHOL"
It happens that you want to start a close acquaintance with art, but you can't do it: art historians' books are full of special terms that you can't understand without training, but it's somehow indecent to take up a textbook on the MCC. Just for such a case, Anastasia Postrigay, a professional blogger who writes about culture, has published her book. With 10 years of experience as an art dealer, she knows the material she writes about, and her experience in organizing training courses has helped her to better understand the wide audience and find the language of communication with them. The book "Fall in love with art", which is quite consistent with its title, is similar to a guide to the most important representatives of world cultural life - it is written in a lively language that everyone understands. In addition, Postrigay competently intertwines in the story about the artistic methods of one or another of the author's interesting biographical information. Finally, it was a great idea to supplement the text with various references to films and books, which will help to better immerse yourself in the era under study.
JEAN WENET, "REMBRANDT"
In Russia, one can rarely see the books of Jean Genet - one of the key representatives of French literature of 1940-1960s. A provocateur, writer, and politician, he is the author of the cult novel "The Miracle of the Rose" and such famous plays as "Maids" and "High Supervision". Jeanne Jeunet was a keen connoisseur of art and dreamed of writing a book about Rembrandt, but this was not destined to come true: from the large-scale idea remained only a few texts dedicated to the artist. They were included in the book published by Ad Marginem Press. Jean Genet's brilliant essays are interesting not only for unexpected and sometimes paradoxical judgments about Rembrandt but also for the author's own parallel reflexion. Reflecting on the artist's work, the Wife also thinks about herself - and this self-analysis is literally fascinating. After all, the French writer and Rembrandt have a lot in common. At the beginning of the book, he notices that the Dutch author "since his youth wrote blue and poor - and often wearing them in a chic rags - and yet, it seems, he lived in a dream of luxury, although the emotional location attracted him to the meekness of faces.