Frank Carlson Library

Art Nouveau gives a name to the decorative and architectural style developed in the 1880's and 1890's in the West. Born in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and to the creative vacuum it left behind, Art Nouveau was at the heart of a "renaissance" in the decorative arts. The primary objective of the movement was the creation of a new aesthetic of nature through a return to the study of natural subjects. In order to achieve this, artists such as...

Dürer is the greatest of German artists and most representative of the German mind. He, like Leonardo, was a man of striking physical attractiveness, great charm of manner and conversation, and mental accomplishment, being well grounded in the sciences and mathematics of the day. His skill in draughtsmanship was extraordinary; Dürer is even more celebrated for his engravings on wood and copper than for his paintings. With both, the skill of his...

Mega Square Roses presents the large number of different species of this unique flower, which is charged with so many feelings and imbued with powerful cultural significance. Because of the rose's botanical as well as artistic value, this book features a popular subject for art lovers as well as for people who enjoy the beauty and versatility of flowers. Each of the colourful and detailed illustrations is completed with the aid of valuable scientific...

Throughout time, artists have maintained a close relationship with the animal world, which has proved to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration. First, they received inspiration directly from their environment. Next, animals were used in art for their status as domestic friends, symbols of an intimate and familial life, held in particularly high esteem during the Renaissance. Later, in Orientalism, animal art followed the discovery of exotic fauna...

The art of the Ukiyo-e reflected the artistic expression of an isolated civilisation, which, when it became accessible to the West, significantly influenced a number of European artists. The three masters of Ukiyo-e, Hokusai, Utamaro and Hiroshige, are united here for the first time to create a true reference on Japanese art. The three masters rank highly among the most famous Japanese artistic productions of all time. This new title of the Prestige...

Marc Chagall was born into a strict Jewish family for whom the ban on representations of the human figure had the weight of dogma. A failure in the entrance examination for the Stieglitz School did not stop Chagall from later joining that famous school founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and directed by Nicholas Roerich. Chagall moved to Paris in 1910. The city was his "second Vitebsk". At first, isolated in the little...

Since his death 100 years ago, Cézanne has become the most famous painter of the nineteenth century. He was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839 and the happiest period of his life was his early youth in Provence, in company with Emile Zolá, another Italian. Following Zolá's example, Cézanne went to Paris in his twenty-first year. During the Franco-Prussian war he deserted the military, dividing his time between open-air painting and the studio. He...