Expressionism: A Revolution in German Art
by Dietmar Elger
Overview
German Expressionists were uneasy and angry. Emerging at the dawn of the 20th century, they railed against Christian and bourgeois values as much as rampant urban industrialization. Anti-imperialist, they were dispersed, shattered, and depleted by the horrors of the First World War, and rallied their efforts only to be officially erased by the Nazi “Degenerate Art” exhibition of 1937.
In this comprehensive TASCHEN collection, Head of the Gerhard Richter Archive Dietmar Elger gathers the many artists and elements of this urgent, scattered, complex movement into one authoritative overview of its protagonists, principles, and essential role in 20th-century modernism. Finding a critical calm amid the frenzy of color and distortion, the book distills Expressionism’s leading collectives, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, as well as its regional characteristics across its Berlin and Munich hubs, and its North German, Rheinland, and Viennese variants.
Along the way, we compare and contrast themes and stylistic choices as this dispersed group of artists wrestled with their modern industrial reality. We find luminous streaks from Wassily Kandinsky, and the sickly hues of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the futurist facets of Franz Marc, and a partial Impressionist throwback in the gaudy dabs of Emil Nolde. We walk into seedy bars with bloated old men, and then enter a claustrophobic yellow room occupied by an awkwardly posed nude. We are crushed in a cacophony of city sound and smoke, and then left alone with woods, a lake, and silence.
Spanning this richness and range in Expressionist output, Elger features such well-known figures as Beckmann, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Nolde, Schiele, while taking care to present inadequately studied artists such as Conrad Felixmüller, Ludwig Meidner, and Marianne von Werefkin. The result is an expansive, inclusive, dependable digest of a vivid, often violent mode of expression, and the yearning and unease behind its frenzied paintwork.
The author
Dietmar Elger studied art history, history, and literature at the University of Hamburg. In 1984/85, he was secretary of Gerhard Richter’s studio and between 1989 and 2006 curator for painting and sculpture at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover. He has organized numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and has directed the Gerhard Richter Archive at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden since 2006. For TASCHEN he has authored the volumes Expressionism, Dadaism, and Abstract Art.
Dalí: The PaintingsOverview
At the age of six, Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) wanted to be a cook. At the age of seven, he wanted to be Napoleon. “Since then,” he later said, “my ambition has steadily grown, and my megalomania with it. Now I want only to be Salvador Dalí, I have no greater wish.” Throughout his life, Dalí was out to become Dalí: that is, one of the most significant artists and eccentrics of the 20th century.
This weighty volume is the most complete study of Dalí’s painted works ever published. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret located painted works by the master that had been inaccessible for years—so many, in fact, that almost half the featured illustrations appear in public for the first time in this book.
More than a catalogue raisonné, this book contextualizes Dalí’s oeuvre and its meanings by examining contemporary documents, from writings and drawings to material from other facets of his work, including ballet, cinema, fashion, advertising, and objets d’art. Without these crutches to support analysis, the paintings would simply be a series of many images.
The study is divided into two parts: the first examines Dalí’s beginnings as an unknown artist. We witness how the young Dalí deployed all the isms—Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Fauvism, Purism and Futurism—with playful mastery, and how he would borrow from prevailing trends before ridiculing and abandoning them. The second part unveils the conclusions of Dalí’s lifelong inquiries, as well as the great legacy he left in works such as Tuna Fishing (1966/67) or Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970). It includes previously unpublished homages to Velázquez or Michelangelo, painted to the same end as the variations on past masters done by his contemporary, Picasso.
We discover how, motivated by the desire to tease out the secrets of great works and become a Velázquez of the mid-20th century, Dalí became Dalí.
The authors
Robert Descharnes (1926–2014), a photographer and writer, published studies of major artists, among them Antoni Gaudí, Auguste Rodin, and Salvador Dalí. He documented and catalogued Dalí’s paintings and writings and was considered the leading expert on the artist.
Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L’Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.
Renoir. Painter of Happinessby Gilles Néret
Overview
“Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.” —Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. TASCHEN’s Renoir: Painter of Happiness, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work yet published, examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir (1841–1919) found his true affinity once he started painting portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood and criticized, Renoir remains one of history’s most well-loved painters—undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good cheer.
In an incisive text tracing the artist’s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret shows how Renoir reinvented the female form in painting, with his everyday goddesses and their plump forms, rounded hips and breasts. This last phase in Renoir’s work, in which he returned to the simple pleasure of painting the female nude in his baigneuses series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential, and an inspiration to both Matisse and Picasso.
With a complete chronology, bibliography, index of works, and 600 sumptuous large-format color reproductions, as well as photos and sketches illustrating Renoir’s life and work, this is the essential work of reference on this enduring master artist.
The author
Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L’Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.
Manetby Gilles Néret
Overview
Lampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painter Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Manet’s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city’s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Déjeuner sur l’herbe with its juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman, while the steady gaze and unabashed pose of the prostitute Olympia, a very modern reworking of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, caused a society scandal.
This richly illustrated book introduces Manet’s work and his uniquely influential combination of Realism, Impressionism, and reworked Old Masters that would become paradigms of a brave new world for generations of modernists to come.
The author
Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L’Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.
Modern Art: A History from Impressionism to Today
by Hans Werner Holzwarth
Overview
Most art historians agree that the modern art adventure first developed in the 1860s in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, loose brushwork. They turned to everyday street life for subjects, instead of overblown heroic scenes, and they escaped the power of the Salon by organizing their own independent exhibitions.
After this first assault on the artistic establishment, there was no holding back. In a constant desire to challenge, innovate, and inspire, one modernist style supplanted the next: Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, abstract art, renewed Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimal and conceptual practice.
This indispensable overview traces the restless energy of modern art with a year-by-year succession of the groundbreaking artworks that shook standards and broke down barriers. Introductory essays outline the most significant and influential movements alongside explanatory texts for each major work and its artist.
The editor
Hans Werner Holzwarth is a book designer and editor specializing in contemporary art and photography. His TASCHEN publications include Collector’s Editions like Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool, Albert Oehlen, Ai Weiwei, and the David Hockney SUMO A Bigger Book, as well as monographs like the XXL-sized Jean-Michel Basquiat and survey books such as Modern Art and Art Now! Vols 3 and 4.
Basic Art Series: TEN in ONE. Impressionismfeaturing: Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh
Overview
“These seductive books have slick production values, excellent illustrations, and smart texts. Each one is a fast-food, high-energy fix on the topic at hand.” – The New York Times Book Review
With blockbuster exhibitions, record-breaking auction prices, and packed museums, Impressionism remains close contender for the world’s favorite period of painting. Its favorite subjects— from dappled harbor scenes and summer days to vibrant Parisian salons and gardens—brim with optimism and joie de vivre. The works once dismissed as unfinished or imprecise are now beloved for their atmospheric evocation of time and place, as well as the stylistic flair of rapid brushstrokes upon canvas.
The lives and oeuvres of Impressionist pillars Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh are each explored in-depth in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series. Now, this volume combines all 10 monographs into one for the price of three.
What we take for granted today—the relativity of perception depending on the viewer, lighting mood, or location to the object—was then the inspiration for some of the finest paintings in art history. Consider Monet’s 30+ variations of the Rouen Cathedral, Cézanne’s dazzling experimentation with color, Gauguin’s primitivist innovations, or Manet’s scandalous nudes: rarely has a single genre produced so many brilliant artists in such a short time.
Since 1985, TASCHEN’s Basic Art series has published some 200 individual volumes, making it the world’s most successful art-book series. Each title contains an extensive text on the artist’s life and work, a detailed biography, and some 100 high-quality color illustrations with explanatory captions. With Ten in One, TASCHEN now presents ten Basic Art monographs in one volume. A must for every art lover!
This book gathers ten Basic Art monographs into one volume featuring:
- Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh
- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of each artist, covering their cultural and historical importance
- approximately 1,000 illustrations with explanatory captions
Van Gogh: The Complete Paintingsby Ingo F. Walther, Rainer Metzger
Overview
Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In paintings such as Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the representation of texture and mood, light and place.
Yet in his lifetime, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would eventually claim his life, when, in 1890, he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday.
This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh offers a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work of a master who continues to tower over art to this day.
The authors
Ingo F. Walther (1940–2007) was born in Berlin and studied medieval studies, literature, and art history in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. He published numerous books on the art of the Middle Ages and of the 19th and 20th centuries. Walther’s many titles for TASCHEN include Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Art of the 20th Century, and Codices illustres.
Rainer Metzger studied art history, history, and German literature in Munich and Augsburg. In 1994, he earned his Ph.D. on the subject of Dan Graham, and subsequently worked as a fine arts journalist for the Viennese newspaper Der Standard. He has written numerous books on art, including volumes on van Gogh and Chagall. Since 2004, he has worked as Professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.
Impressionismby Ingo F. Walther
Overview
Despite its popularity and a whole host of publications—the majority of them about the most famous names—many areas of Impressionism are still under-researched. Many “second-rank” Impressionists have remained unknown or have sunk into oblivion. This monograph fills the gap, as it explores French Impressionism alongside related art movements that flourished simultaneously in the rest of Europe and in North America.
Part 1 deals with Impressionism in France, including Post- and Neo-Impressionism. As well as discussing the most renowned artists, its aim is to introduce others who are still little-known today. Among them are the long underrated Gustave Caillebotte, represented by 17 paintings, and artists such as Frédéric Bazille, Marie Bracquemond, Henri-Edmond Cross, Jean-Louis Forain, Eva Gonzalès, Armand Guillaumin, Albert Lebourg, Stanislas Lépine, Maximilien Luce, Berthe Morisot, Lucien Pissarro, Jean-François Raffaëlli, Henri Rouart, and Victor Vignon.
The eight chapters of part 2 focus on paintings inspired by French Impressionism and produced in parallel in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, the USA and Canada. Rarely did painters in these countries slavishly copy the ideas emerging from France. Instead, most non-French artists found astonishingly original ways of translating them into the artistic language of their native lands.
The editor
Ingo F. Walther (1940–2007) was born in Berlin and studied medieval studies, literature, and art history in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. He published numerous books on the art of the Middle Ages and of the 19th and 20th centuries. Walther’s many titles for TASCHEN include Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Art of the 20th Century, and Codices illustres.
Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909-1918by Tobias G. Natter
Overview
After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn’t prove to be too big a challenge.
His haggard, overstretched figures, drastic depiction of sexuality, and self-portraits in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt’s hymns of love, sexuality, and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele’s work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.
Although his works were later defamed as “degenerate” and for a time were almost forgotten altogether, they influenced generations of artists – from Günter Brus and Francis Bacon to Tracey Emin. Today, his then-misunderstood oeuvre continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market.
Presented in a voluminous format that captures all of the intensity and emotional truth of his work, Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909–1918 features 221 paintings and 146 drawings that retrace the fertile last decade of Schiele’s life. With many pieces newly photographed for this edition, these works are paired with excerpts from his countless writings and poems, as well as essays introducing his life and oeuvre, to situate the Austrian master in the context of European Expressionism and trace his extraordinary legacy.
The editor
Tobias G. Natter is an internationally acknowledged expert on art in “Vienna around 1900.” For many years he worked at the Austrian Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, latterly as head curator. He also worked as guest curator at the Tate Liverpool, the Neue Galerie New York, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Schirn in Frankfurt am Main, and the Jewish Museum in Vienna. From 2006 to 2011, he directed the Vorarlberg Museum in Bregenz, and from 2011 to 2013 was director of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. In 2014 he founded Natter Fine Arts, which specializes in assessing works of art and developing exhibition concepts. He is the author of TASCHEN’s Gustav Klimt. Complete Paintings, Art for All. The Colour Woodcut in Vienna around 1900 and Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909–1918.