“Elegant and quietly important…Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity’s interdependence.”—Seattle Times A painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. I n another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer’s images captivate us with their beauty and mystery: What stories lie behind these stunningly rendered moments? As T imothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. Moving outward from Vermeer’s studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe. Vermeer’s Hat shows how the urge to acquire foreign goods was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood.

In Volume Four, readers are exposed to the cornerstones of the early modern world, from the age of the Baroque to the art, music, and culture of the eighteenth century. As in previous volumes, the author presents lively discussion accompanied by literary excerpts and examples to illuminate a variety of topics, including Catholicism's global reach, the birth of modern philosophy, the political theories of Hobbes and Locke, the Enlightenment, and the music of Hayden and Mozart, to name a few.

AFRICAN CAMP FIRESITHE OPEN DOORTHERE are many interesting hotels scatteredabout the world, with a few of which laInacquainted and with a great n1any of which I anlnot. Of course all hotels are interesting, froIn onepoint of view or another. In fact the surest way tofix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero,or to display your opening chorus in the lobby oralong the fa~ade of a hotel. The life, the movementand colour, the shifting individualities, the pretence)the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence,the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the veryfact that of those before your eyes seven out often are drawn from distant and scattered places,are sufficient in themselves to invest the smaJlcsthostelry with glamour. It is not of this generalinterest that I would now speak. Nor is it myintention ~t prescnt to glance at the hotels whereinTable of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS; PART I -To THE ISLAND OF VAR; ClLU'TEII PACE; I The Open Door 3 n The Farewell II; III Port Said 16; IV Suez 25; V The Red Sea 31; VI Aden 42; VII The Indian Ocean 49; VIII Mombasa 59; PART II - THE SHIMBA HILLS; IX A Tropical Jungle 77; X The Sable 89; XI A March Along the Coast 96; XII The Fire 104; PART III - NAIROBI; XIII Up from the Coast tI3; XIV A Fiat Town 119; v; TABLE OF CONTENTS; CllAPTEa; XV People; XVI Recruiting; PART IV-A L10N HUNT O~ KAPITI; FAG¥:; 125; 134; XVII An Ostrich Farm at Machakos 143; XVIII The First Lioness; XIX Thc Dogs ; L"'C Bondoni; XXI Riding the Plains; XXII The Second Lioness ; L"XIII The Big Lion; XXIV The Fifteen Lions; PART V - THE 1'SAVO RIVER; XXV Voi; XXVI The Fringe-Eared Oryx; XXVII Across

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries. The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist

Sculptor, architect, painter, playwright, and scenographer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was the last of the great universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy, placed by both contemporaries and posterity in the same exalted company as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. And his artistic vision remains palpably present today, through the countless statues, fountains, and buildings that transformed Rome into the Baroque theater that continues to enthrall tourists.            It is perhaps not surprising that this artist who defined the Baroque should have a personal life that itself was, well, baroque. As Franco Mormando’s dazzling biography reveals, Bernini was a man driven by many passions, possessed of an explosive temper and a hearty sex drive, and he lived a life as dramatic as any of his creations. Drawing on archival sources, letters, diaries, and—with a suitable skepticism—a hagiographic account written by Bernini’s son (who portrays his father as a paragon of virtue and piety), Mormando leads us through Bernini’s many feuds and love affairs, scandals and sins. He sets Bernini’s raucous life against a vivid backdrop of Baroque Rome, bustling and wealthy, and peopled by churchmen and bureaucrats, popes and politicians, schemes and secrets.The result is a seductively readable biography, stuffed with stories and teeming with life—as wild and unforgettable as Bernini’s art. No one who has been bewitched by the Baroque should miss it.

Written by a leading scholar, this new survey of seventeenth-century art survey text focuses on the major artists and architects of the period such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens, Van Dyck, Velazquez, and Rembrandt. Unique in its focus on just the seventeenth century, this title moves through the century chronologically and discusses key works in great depth.

Flamboyent. Ornamental. Unconventional.An unprecedented exploration into Rococo style.Rococo: The Continuing Curve, which accompanies a major exhibition opening March 2008 at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, is a groundbreaking work exploring the sensuous and organic rococo style and its many revivals (such as art nouveau) from the early eighteenth century up to the present day in multiple fields, including furniture, decorative arts, prints, drawings, and textiles. More than 300 lavish full-color illustrations and more than a dozen original essays chart the progress of style as it radiated from master craftsmen in Paris throughout France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and other European countries, and later crossed the Atlantic to the United States.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was the most influential sculptor of his age. Inventive and skilled, he virtually created the Baroque style. In his religious sculptures he excelled at capturing movement and extreme emotion, uniting figures with their setting to create a single conception of overwhelming intensity that expressed the fervour of Counter-Reformation Rome. Intensity and drama also characterize his portraits and world-famous Roman fountains. This monograph provides an authoritative introduction to all aspects of Bernini's sculpture, while the full catalogue gives detailed information on his complete oeuvre.

.cs162A16FE{} .csB5B1D445{width:709pt;padding:0.75pt 0.75pt 0pt 0.75pt;border-top:none;border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none} .cs2654AE3A{text-align:left;text-indent:0pt;margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0pt} .cs2CAA79F6{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Arial; font-size:10pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } .cs566403DE{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } Features some seventy-five paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings by thirty-five French women artists from between 1750-1848.   

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries. The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The EconomistFrom the Hardcover edition.