This outstandingly illustrated volume presents an unsurpassed collection of the most original and new characters from designers all around the world. A visual celebration of design, process, and imagination, this book is organized into three main sections: a showcase of characters grouped by color identifying the particular technique used to create them, interviews with the designers, and the design processes involved in the development of each character.

Children love to be fooled — and artists are some of the greatest tricksters around. This collection features artworks that incorporate a variety of methods for tricking our eyes: including trompe-l'oeil, clever uses of colour and perspective, surrealism and photorealism. Arranged thematically, each work is presented in a two-page spread. Lively texts explain the methods the artist employed to shape an illusion. Reproduced in vibrant colour, these pieces of ripe fruit, blooming flowers, a half-opened curtain, flickering lines and impossible worlds come alive on the page, providing hours of absorbing fun as readers are drawn into the stories behind their creation. Playful, intriguing, and educational, these great illusions are a terrific way to introduce children to the world of art.

Whether it's Leonardo da Vinci's mysterious Mona Lisa, Vermeer's vibrant depictions of light, Van Gogh's mesmerizing brush strokes, or Matisse's playful cutouts, the art featured here is introduced in a format and style that will appeal to children. The book proceeds chronologically, accompanied by a timeline to offer helpful historical context. Each artist's entry includes a concise biography, beautiful reproductions of major works, and lively texts that speak directly to young readers. Games, quizzes and other activities help readers learn about the significant contributions of each artist in a way that is both fun and inspiring. Additional information about museums, suggestions for further reading, and online resources will satisfy the most curious minds.

This heavily illustrated book, featuring the world's greatest modern artists, is an excellent introduction for young readers to modern art. The featured artists — including Picasso, Chagall, Calder, Lichtenstein and Hockney — are introduced in a format and style that will appeal to children, and are arranged chronologically with an accompanying timeline. Each artist's entry includes a concise biography, beautiful reproductions of major works, and lively texts that speak directly to young readers. Games, quizzes and other activities help readers learn about the significant contributions of each artist in a way that is both fun and inspiring. Additional information about museums, suggestions for further reading, and online resources will satisfy the most curious minds.

It's never too early to introduce children to art. Featuring thirteen painters from a variety of historical periods and styles, this book demonstrates just how interesting and exciting art can be. From the fantastic images of Hieronymus Bosch to the romantic idealism of Titian, the gorgeous colours of Cezanne to Jean-Michel Basquiat's African — and street art-inspired figures — each painter is presented in chronologically arranged double-page spreads that feature beautiful reproductions, interesting facts, biographical information, and comparisons to other painters. Fun to read and informative, this latest addition to the 'Children Should Know' series offers young readers inspiration and encouragement to develop a further interest in all kinds of art.

People of all ages are fascinated by Mona Lisa's beguiling smile, Van Gogh's hypnotic night sky, and Frida Kahlo's depiction of herself with a monkey. These paints and ten others are featured in the book in large reproductions with accompanying details. The readable text offers biographical information about each artist and important facts about the painting's technical and historical aspects. Games, quizzes, and colouring exercises provide additional opportunities for young readers to interact with the artworks, while a timeline throughout the book allows for easy historical orientation. Readers will return again and again to these works, which provide continued opportunities for contemplation and discovery.

The Florentine painter Botticelli personifies the Golden Age of the early Renaissance. Best known for The Birth of Venus and Primavera, Botticelli painted with an expressive poeticism that eschewed formal realism. He used line and colour to gorgeous effect, creating some of the most beloved and familiar images of all time. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details-allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline and suggestions for further reading.

Budding shutterbugs will find much to learn and explore between the pages of this colourful and wide-ranging introduction to the world of photography. Illustrated throughout and written in a style that's informative and easy to understand, this book covers everything from the difference between digital and film cameras to mastering action shots and taking pictures of one's favourite pets. Sections introduce young readers to famous photographers and iconic images. Acclaimed writer George Sullivan also explains the principles of composition, lighting and visual story telling, and even the proper way to hold a camera. He offers valuable tips for creating whimsical, unusual shots, and for using free software to organize, share and edit photographs. Children will be entertained and challenged in discovering how to make exciting, high quality photographs they can share with their family and friends.

The centuries-old art of tattooing has become one of the modern world's most exciting modes of self-expression. Fascinated by the ways body art reflects an individual's personality, MacNaughton set out to find people whose ornate tattoos tell a story. The result is a wonderfully dynamic collection of portraits that uniquely celebrates the art of tattooing. Each individual is introduced through a full-body, full-page photograph, showcasing the fashion and style which complement the body art. MacNaughton presents gorgeously detailed images of the tattoos themselves, accompanied by personal reflections on the subjects' choice of tattoos, the stories behind them, and the tattoo artists they admire most. The result is a beautiful, sensitive, and exciting exploration of the world of body art, from one of the most successful photographers of urban life.

Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms and with plenty of space to colour outside the lines.

Eight-year-old Mayken is a peasant girl who works in her mother's guesthouse. One wintry day she goes ice-skating with some friends and finds an injured bird. Bright watercolours help narrate Mayken's story, which concludes with a stunning reproduction of Breugel's masterpiece. Young readers will learn about Breugel and his art as they cheer Mayken on and enter a world of snow, trees, and the simple beauty of a winter's day.

This book offers the first detailed look at Braque's experiments with still lives and interiors during this significant time in his career. One of the leading founders of Cubism, Braque employed the genre of the still life to conduct a lifelong investigation into the nature of perception through the tactile and transitory world of everyday objects. Examining a transitional time between Braque's early Cubist works and his late grand series, this catalog considers his paintings within the cultural and political context of Europe during World War II. Reproduced in vivid color, Braque's paintings are accompanied by scholarly essays that explore the rise of Braque's popularity in the US, including his first major retrospective in America and the reception of his work of the early 1930s and 1940s by German and French critics. This volume also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the materials and process employed by the artist as illuminated by an intensive conservation study of select important works.

What did Spain look like when Picasso was born? What kind of community did he grow up in? What was his studio like? Who were the people who had the most influence on his art? The answers to these and other questions help bring into focus the Spanish artist's brilliant career and his influence on twentieth-century art. Color reproductions of his masterpieces are interspersed with photographs of Picasso's personal life, and are presented in a dynamic layout that reflects the artist's creative vision and boundless energy. Picasso's anti-war stance, his tumultuous love affairs, and his outspokenness are all examined with journalistic verve. This book not only provides a solid background on Picasso's monumental body of work, but also offers anecdotes, historical context, and a fresh perspective on an enigmatic and endlessly compelling figure.

An eighteenth century printmaker and architect, Giovanni Battista Piranesi was a lifelong champion of Rome, publishing more than a thousand etchings of The Eternal City and its ancient monuments. Piranesi's English contemporary, Sir John Soane, was also an architect specializing in the Neo-Classical style. When these two artists met, they formed a profound and complex artistic and intellectual relationship that nurtured Soane's later career. One of Soane's greatest legacies is the museum that bears his name and some of its most important holdings are a number of preparatory drawings Piranesi developed for a publication on the Greek temples at Paestum. These drawings are accomplished examples of Piranesi's topographical observation and great works of art in their own right. This book offers exquisite reproductions of the drawings as well as 30 additional images from Piranesi's oeuvre. Together they offer a unique understanding of early Greek classical architecture seen through the work of an eighteenth century master.

For centuries artists have been pushing the limits of society's norms, whether in the form of a new technique, subject matter, or message. In the fifteenth century a fresco by Masaccio shocked audiences by playing with perspective to depict Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Five hundred years later, Diego Rivera's mural, Man at the Crossroads, commissioned by John D. Rockefeller Jr. for the lobby of the soon-to-be-completed Rockefeller Center in New York City, featured Lenin and was destroyed because it was deemed too radical to display. This fascinating volume presents dozens of paintings, prints, photographs and installations that horrified audiences when they were created. Each example is presented in generous two-page spreads, with large colour reproductions and insightful texts that explore the artists' intentions and the pieces' historical context. Most of these works no longer have the power to shock us, but a number of them still do. Together they offer a thought-provoking exploration of the artist's duty to instigate, inspire and move their audience toward new ways of thinking.

Founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Magnum Photos is the iconic international photographic cooperative whose members have captured the major historical events of their times, as well as private and intimate moments. A year's worth of these images is offered in this visually stunning book that features full page reproductions organized to reflect what Cartier-Bresson himself declared a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually. Nearly 70 photographers are represented with five to six images each, and the current Magnum members have selected the photographs that they consider to best represent their own output. Published in a brilliant new compact format, running more than 700 pages, this book includes images that make history both individual and universal.

Critically praised for his finely modeled and classically composed photographs, Robert Mapplethorpe remains intensely controversial and enormously popular. This book brings together almost three hundred images from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation's archive and private collections, to provide a critical view of Mapplethorpe's formative years as an artist. These works reveal the themes that would inspire Mapplethorpe throughout his career. Included is a selection of his color Polaroids and objects incorporating his early instant photography. Some images convey a disarming tenderness and vulnerability, others a toughness and immediacy that would give way in later years to more classical form. The author traces the development of Mapplethorpe's use of instant photography during a period of five years, from 1970 to 1975, when the artist worked mainly in this medium. The images include self-portraits, figure studies, still lifes, portraits of lovers and friends such as Patti Smith, Sam Wagstaff and Marianne Faithful and observations of everyday objects. Marked by a spontaneity and creative curiosity, these fragile images offer an illuminating contrast to the glossy perfection of the work for which Mapplethorpe is best known, allowing us a more personal glimpse of his artistry.

For decades Gottfried Salzmann has been taking the art of watercolor painting to exciting and original levels. In his countless urban landscapes of New York, San Francisco and Paris, Salzmann combines watercolors with acrylic and pencil or pen, or incorporates photography and printmaking into the finished piece. This retrospective volume offers an overview of Salzmann's oeuvre. Although he works in other media, Salzmann considers himself a watercolorist first, preferring to champion the medium's flexibility, transgress the narrow notions of its application, and build bridges to the domains of other visual arts. As a result his collage-like paintings offer a window into the urban life that inspires his work.

Three hundred years after his birth, Allan Ramsay's accomplished canvases and refined drawings offer us some of the defining portraits of the Enlightenment. Ramsay, a Scot by birth, was as well equipped to offer a deep sense of engagement with his Enlightenment sitters through his intellectual and cultural upbringing as he was trained to create elegantly constructed paintings through his extended education as a painter in Italy. Establishing himself in London and Edinburgh, Ramsay was admired for his understanding of contemporary political, cultural, and intellectual issues, as well as for his portraits of key protagonists in these debates. This beautiful volume brings together Ramsay's most celebrated sitters, such as Rousseau, Hume, and William Hunter, along with numerous drawings and prints to consider Ramsay's critical role in the British Enlightenment. Many of the artist's rarely seen portraits of women, equal participants in these debates, are included. In addition to exquisite reproductions, the volume draws on fascinating new research exploring the unique sensitivity of Ramsay's painting, the development of his technique, and familial influences on his work. Important new biographical and art historical information has suggested the need for new analysis of Ramsay's career and this book fills that niche.

Everyone has a favorite place to read, study, work, and dream — but there's something special about an English room. In this handsome volume filled with elegant photographs of architectural interiors and formal portraits of their occupants, some of England's most renowned sons and daughters share their sacred spaces and their personal musings about Englishness and English rooms. Benedict Cumberbatch reveals his favorite place to read a script; Jeannette Winterson shares why she treasures the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris; P.D. James divulges the inspiration for her novel, The Black Tower; and fashion designer Paul Smith contemplates the joys of his book-lined study. Gilbert & George invite you in to their Queen Anne-style home, while Alan Bennett contemplates his rumpled existence in Primrose Hill. Derry Moore's refined eye captures the essence of the English room, be it in country cottages, storied estates, medieval chapels, or artists' studios at home or abroad. All those with a passion for English culture, society, design, and fashion will relish this unique invitation to peek through the keyhole into the private lives of some of England's most public figures.