Las ideas artísticas de Ayn Rand que completan su sistema filosóficoEn su filosofía moral, Ayn Rand ensalza la virtud del egoísmo, y en su concepción del arte no es menos radical. Este libro contiene su original y audaz teoría estética, que estipula los principios indispensables para juzgar una obra de arte de manera objetiva. Rand sostiene que esos estándares objetivos son posibles porque el arte es una necesidad fundamental de la vida y tiene una función esencial como expresión condensada de la mente racional del ser humano. Las manifestaciones artísticas materializan los conceptos abstractos a través de recreaciones estilizadas de la …

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is widely regarded as one of the most significant artists of the Northern Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Dürer became renowned for his mastery of various mediums, including painting, printmaking, and wood-cutting. Throughout his life, Dürer produced a vast array of works that demonstrated his technical skill and innovative vision. His art often incorporated religious and classical themes, and his use of perspective and realism helped to establish new standards in European art. Beyond his artistic achievements, Dürer was also a prolific writer and thinker. His treatises on geometry, human proportion, and the theory of perspective remain …

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) punctuates the eighteenth century with a burst of fireworks, closing the arc opened by Watteau with his enchanting poems of love and melancholy. While Watteau was ethereal and profound, Fragonard was delightfully light. He captivates us even as he amuses himself, his emotional distance ever apparent. Specialising in “fêtes galantes” executed in the Rococo style, Fragonard was a pupil of François Boucher and also studied under Chardin. Heeding Boucher’s advice, he portrayed romantic gardens replete with fountains, grottos, temples, and terraces—settings that also reveal the influence of Tiepolo. With King Louis XV as his patron, Fragonard shifted …

Documents discovered recently in the hidden backrooms of St Petersburg’s Ethnological Museum have proved to be of sensational importance. The contents are published for the very first time in this work. Representing photos and descriptions of art and sculpture, of everyday utensils and everyday activities, all dating from the beginning of the twentieth century, these are the archives of ethnic groups in Siberia who for the most part have fougth tenaciously to maintain their historical traditions. The authors brilliantly convey their enthusiastic admiration for the peoples who have so successfully and for so long contended against both hostile environment and …

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) Bonheur was the oldest of four artistic children born to the French landscape painter Raymond Bonheur. Rosa began sketching and sculpting animals at an early age and used her interest in animals to help her learn to read and write. She would sketch an animal for each letter of the alphabet and perfected her form by visiting butcher shops and cattle markets in Paris to achieve anatomically correct likenesses. Her 1853 masterpiece, The Horse Fair, brought her worldwide recognition, and she was the first female artist to be awarded the cross of the Legion of Honour in …

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) epitomises the grace, intelligence, and poetry of the eighteenth century, a period when French tastes reigned supreme throughout Europe. He is renowned as a pivotal figure in Rococo art. Watteau excels in depicting scenes of daily life and theatrical costumes. His work, while highly stylised, reveals an undercurrent of melancholy beneath its apparent frivolity. It captures profound emotions, hinting at love that transcends mere physical attraction and showcasing the enigmatic ambience present in his landscapes and the wistful gaze in lovers’ eyes. Watteau’s exceptional sense of colour imparts feelings of softness and mystery, akin to a pervasive …

Canaletto began his career as a theatrical scene painter, like his father, in the Baroque tradition. Influenced by Giovanni Panini, he is specialised in vedute (views) of Venice, his birth place. Strong contrast between light and shadow is typical of this artist. Furthermore, if some of those views are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial subjects. He also published, thanks to John Smith, his agent, a series of etchings of Cappricci. His main purchasers were British aristocracy because his views reminded them of their Grand Tour. In his paintings geometrical perspective and colours are structuring. Canaletto spent ten years …

Degas was closest to Renoir in the impressionist’s circle, for both favoured the animated Parisian life of their day as a motif in their paintings. Degas did not attend Gleyre’s studio; most likely he first met the future impressionists at the Café Guerbois. He started his apprenticeship in 1853 at the studio of Louis-Ernest Barrias and, beginning in 1854, studied under Louis Lamothe, who revered Ingres above all others, and transmitted his adoration for this master to Edgar Degas. Starting in 1854 Degas travelled frequently to Italy: first to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of his numerous cousins, and …