ARTES

The Kisokaido route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travelers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaido journey. After producing 24 prints, Eisen was replaced by Utagawa Hiroshige, who completed the series of 70 prints in 1838.

The beauty and rich history of the four nations of the United Kingdom England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland had much to offer to the international tourist in 1900. More than 800 photochromes present an intimate view of the wild landscapes, manicured lawns, bustling cityscapes and bucolic charm of the British Isles before the First World War.Colour photochromes, 19th- and early 20th-century photographs, postcards, travel posters and luggage labels guide the reader through this historic ‘Kingdom by the Sea’, a welcoming land of extraordinary diversity and fascinating heritage, full of secrets and legends.

Nothing compares to the Alps” wrote the great French historian Jules Michelet in 1868. At the very heart of Europe, the gigantic Alpine mountain range includes some of the most grandiose natural sites in the world, such as Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, and their glaciers. Tourism began in the late 1800s and grew tremendously over the next centuries, especially with the rise of winter sports. This book offers a charming tour of a bygone era, when the first mountain trains and cog railways were carrying men in lederhosen and women in long dresses to the foot of the glacier, when local guides accompanied tourists riding on mules; a time when the first alpinists were considered mad, and skiers were a curiosity.

In this unprecedented new book, writer Zoë Lescaze and artist Walton Ford present the astonishing history of paleoart from 1830 to 1990. These are not cave paintings produced thousands of years ago, but modern visions of prehistory: stunning paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, and murals that mingle scientific fact with unbridled fantasy. The collection provides an in-depth look at this neglected niche of art history and shows how the artists charged with imagining extinct creatures often projected their own aesthetic whims onto prehistory, rendering the primordial past with dashes of Romanticism, Impressionism, Japonisme, Fauvism, and Art Nouveau, among other influences.

In the 1980, fashion wanted to make a statement and found in legendary British fashion photographer David Bailey its perfect chronicler. After Bailey shaped the style of the Swinging Sixties, fashion in the eighties posed a new challenge: brighter colours, higher glamour, statuesque models, extreme makeup, spandex, lycra, jumpsuits, power dressing, big hair, and as Grace Coddington puts it in her introduction, “jackets with padded shoulders over the shortest mini-skirts and dangerously high-heeled shoes.”

Early astronomers, drawn to Mars's fiery glow in the night sky, named the planet after their god of war. In the centuries since, Mars has captivated humankind as a source of endless speculation and a beacon of hope for its potential habitability. Through six decades of NASA’s pioneering research missions, the mysteries of the red planet have been gradually uncovered, revealing a world not so unlike our own that likely once supported life.

In 1965, Steve Schapiro started documenting Andy Warhol for LIFE magazine: Warhol was cementing a reputation as an important Pop artist who drew his inspiration from popular culture and commercial objects. With his sunglasses, blond wig, and bland public utterances, Warhol was enigmatic, charismatic, intensely ambitious, and aware that to become a star, you needed the presence of people to document your ascent. Schapiro, also ambitious and hardworking, who in his own words “kept quiet and smiled a lot,” was an ideal witness to Warhol’s relentless rise from cult New York artist to 20th-century icon. Ironically, LIFE never published the story, so many of these images are seen here for the first time, scanned from negatives found deep in Schapiro’s archive.

The Golden Age of Travel neatly overlaps with the reign of the Emperor Meiji, which began in 1868 with the overthrow of a feudal order that had kept Japan secluded from the outside world for more than 200 years. In the ensuing four-and-a-half decades, Japan became a less remote and more attractive destination for the international traveler and a popular subject for photographers, both Japanese and foreign.

Los críticos musicales de la época describieron la voz de la soprano noruega Kirsten Flagstad como la luz del sol que incide sobre la cúspide de una montaña coronada por un glaciar. Jessye Norman la asemejó al oro líquido sobre terciopelo negro, mientras que Elisabeth Schwarzkopf percibió que tenía la dimensión de una madre cósmica que abraza el universo.

Todos actores y personajes así como las personas en general tenemos una persona pública con la que nos presentamos ante los demás, una necesidad insatisfecha encubierta bajo esa máscara y cometemos un error trágico cuando reaccionamos ante un choque entre lo queremos que se piense de nosotros y lo que realmente somos. Sobre estos tres elementos clave Susan Batson ha desarrollado un proceso de técnica actoral que han seguido estrellas de la talla de Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Bradley Cooper o Juliette Binoche. En Verdad, un clásico desde su publicación en 2007, expone didácticamente ante un círculo de alumnos imaginarios (pero en los que no cuesta reconocer actitudes y personalidades frecuentes en el mundo de la interpretación), los múltiples recursos que un actor o actriz debe explorar y aprovechar «para que un personaje esté vivo».