J. Paul Getty Museum – serie

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was an intrepid artist and scientist who defied the conventions of her time to pursue her passion for documenting the natural world in all its glorious, and sometimes ferocious, detail.Between 1699-1701, she travelled to the Dutch colony of Suriname in South America to study the area's unique flora and fauna. Many of the drawings and painting she produced on this trip were published as hand-coloured counter proofs in her Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (1705)."Insects and Flowers" is a delightfully illustrated volume that reproduces vivid colour details of sixteen plates from that volume, as well as presenting an insect and plant identification guide, and an engaging essay on Merian's life and work.

This is a stunning collection of photographs - many never before published - celebrating the remarkable talent of Herb Ritts. "Herb Ritts" traces the life and career of the iconic photographer through a compelling selection of both renowned and previously unpublished, photographs and two insightful essays. Herb Ritts (1952-2002) was a Los Angeles-based photographer who established an international reputation for distinctive images of fashion models, nudes, and celebrity portraits. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ritts was sought out by leading fashion designers such as Armani, Gianfranco Ferre, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Valentino, and Versace, as well as magazine editors from "GQ", "Rolling Stone", and "Vanity Fair", among others, to lend glamour to their products and layouts. Largely self-taught, Ritts developed his own style, one that often made use of the California light and landscape and helped to separate his work from his New York-based peers.From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, Ritts' ability to create photographs that successfully bridged the gap between art and commerce was not only a testament to the power of his imagination and technical skill, but also marked the synergistic union between art, popular culture, and business that followed in the wake of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Camille Claudel (1864–1943) was among the most daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Although much attention has been paid to her tumultuous life—her affair with her mentor, Auguste Rodin; the premature end to her career; her thirty-year institutionalization in an asylum—her art remains little known outside of France. Memorably praised by critic Octave Mirbeau in 1895 as “a revolt of nature: a woman of genius,” Claudel was celebrated for her brilliance during a time when female woman sculptors were rare.Featuring more than two hundred photographs along with contributions from leading experts, this publication accompanies the first comprehensive survey of Claudel’s oeuvre in nearly forty years. With essays exploring the many facets of her life, work, and reception; a biography; commentary by American sculptor Kiki Smith; and a fascinating appendix of documents written by Claudel and her contemporaries, this volume reevaluates the artist’s work on its own merits and repositions her legacy within a more complex genealogy of modernism.

Through the manipulation of materials, such as gold, crystal, and glass, medieval artists created dazzling light-filled environments, evoking, in the everyday world, the layered realms of the divine. While contemporary society separates science and spirituality, the medieval world harnessed the science of light to better perceive and understand the sacred. From 800 to 1600, the study of astronomy, geometry, and optics emerged as a framework that was utilized by theologians and artists to comprehend both the sacred realm and the natural world. Through essays written by contributors from the fields of art history, the history of science, and neuroscience, and with more than two hundred illustrations, including glimmering golden reliquaries, illuminated manuscripts, rock crystal vessels, astronomical instruments, and more, Lumen cuts across religious, political, and geographic boundaries to reveal the ways medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic artists, theologians, and thinkers studied light. To convey the sense of wonder created by moving light on precious materials, a number of contemporary artworks are placed in dialogue with historic objects.EXHIBITIONJ. Paul Getty Museum, Getty CenterSeptember 10-December 8, 2024"Among the most labile of media in medieval art, light served as a vehicle as well as a subject of representation. In works of architecture and stained glass to gleaming metalwork and gilded manuscript miniatures, medieval artists manipulated light effects not only to illuminate but also to mystify. Bringing together a dazzling array of objects and a kaleidoscope of scholarly perspectives, Lumen sheds light on medieval art and culture and shows that the Middle Ages were anything but dark." - Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Harvard University Well written and lavishly illustrated, Lumen: The Art and Science of Light, 800-1600 is a brilliant inquiry into the nature of light and human sight. It elucidates the cultural histories involving light in its religious-sacred, scholarly-scientific, and artistic-aesthetic settings and clarifies how light was translated into tangible form. This book reveals how, despite light's invisible structure, and with the help of geometry, it set the ground for the invention of linear perspective, and how, with its law of refraction, it embodied the whole spectrum of colors and even influenced our perception of natural phenomena such as shade and darkness. This is a must-read book for any medievalist, early modern scholar, or anyone who wants to engage with the varied aesthetic, scientific, and cultural facets of light and its meaningful visible forms. -Avinoam Shalem, Riggio Professor of Art History, Arts of Islam, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia UniversityInterdisciplinary and methodologically and theoretically diverse,as well as beautifully illustrated, this book contributes to exciting recentinvestigations into the ephemeral facets of medieval objects and spaces,focusing attention on the meanings of light in Jewish, Muslim, and Christianreligious and secular contexts. It examines how natural, artificial, depicted,and perceived light were used and understood in the long Middle Ages(800–1600), considering the legacy of ancient and medieval scientific texts andinstruments, the dynamics of vision and perception, and the role of light insacred spaces and rituals. From ancient and medieval texts, images, and objectsto contemporary artworks and ideas, the effects and wonder of light shine inthe radiant pages of this book.  — Alice Sullivan, Assistant Professor ofMedieval Art and Architecture, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of theHistory of Art and Architecture, Tufts University

Why dopeople wear jewelry? What meaning does it hold for the wearer? And what doesthe wearer hope it will convey to those they encounter-or to someone viewingtheir image decades, even centuries, later? Artistic renderings of the human figure-in portraiture, sculpture, andother media-in a range of allegorical, historical, and religious images oftenshowcase jewelry. The ornaments depicted in such designs offer an abundanceof information that not only heightens our understanding of the subject butalso provides insights into the imagination of the artist. Jewelry enhancesour enjoyment of works of art because it is visually compelling, sensuous,and laden with an array of associations and symbolic meanings. Bringing together spectacular and significant art objects depicting figureswearing sumptuous personal adornments that define who they are within thespecific milieus in which they lived, this richly illustrated and accessiblevolume represents a novel, interdisciplinary approach to the ways in whichjewelry can be studied and understood.Beyond Adornment takes the reader on a captivating journeythrough time and across cultures worldwide, reflecting on the fundamental humandesire to wear jewelry. A wide array of fascinating jewels from the ordinary tothe extraordinary give insight into the personal lives and public faces ofindividual wearers, revealing how jewelry has accompanied us from the cradle tothe grave. A stunning selection of sculptures and portraits bring the subjectto life, showing how jewelry is more than simply adornment.-BeatrizChadour-Sampson, jewelry historian, author, curator and lecturer