BELLAS ARTES

A stunning visual story of a place of wonder and mystique for every American, this book features what is legendary and beloved about Alaska, a land of magnificent wilderness and beauty, virtually untouched by human ambition. It also focuses on the key point of interest in the state today: endangered Bristol Bay, which faces potential mining of the world's greatest deposits of copper and gold. Its pristine waters are the worlds' biggest salmon spawning grounds. If the gold is mined, the ecosystem is destroyed -but the impoverished locals have work for the next half-century. After that, the salmon and the mines are gone. Melford, paired with noted environmental storyteller David Atcheson, addresses the dilemma by bowling us over with the beauty and importance of the place for all time. Underwritten by the Renewable Resources Coalition, the book will be distributed among its more than 5,000 members.

Hilma af Klint painted as though she was channeling the universe. Fascinated from childhood by botany and mathematics, she began her career painting landscapes and portraits, but other preoccupations stirred within her: questions of spirit, unseen energies, patterns too vast for the eye alone. Her art was inseparable from her spiritual practice. With a circle of female artists called The Five, she held séances, heard voices from "High Masters," and was inspired by the Theosophical Society and Rudolf Steiner’s theories. Working tirelessly to map life’s hidden dimensions, she would paint to the point of physical collapse. By 1906, her canvases featured radiant geometries of spirals and orbs, impregnated with symbols, letters, and words, anticipating the later embrace of abstraction by Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, and others. Her vast painted cycles―like her works for the Temple and The Ten Largest―often depicted dualities: inside and out, the earthly and the esoteric, man and woman, good and evil. Living as a vegetarian, questioning the fixity of gender, af Klint was clearly before her time, yet very much of it too, and pretty much uncelebrated in her day. Her prodigious output lay unseen for decades, locked away by her own instruction. Only in the 1980s did the world begin to recognize her as a true pioneer of abstract art.

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. Both Eisen and Hiroshige were master print practitioners. In The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaido, we find the artists’ distinct styles as much as their shared expertise. From the busy starting post of Nihonbashi to the castle town of Iwamurata, Eisen opts for a more muted palette but excels in figuration, particularly of glamorous women, and relishes snapshots of activity along the route, from shoeing a horse to winnowing rice. Hiroshige demonstrates his mastery of landscape with grandiose and evocative scenes, whether it’s the peaceful banks of the Ota River, the forbidding Wada Pass, or a moonlit ascent between Yawata and Mochizuki.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and came to characterize the Western world’s visual idea of Japan. In many ways images of hedonism, ukiyo-e scenes often represented the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo): beautiful women, actors and wrestlers, city life, and spectacular landscapes. Though he captured a variety of subjects, Hiroshige was most famous for landscapes, with a final masterpiece series known as “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” (1856–1858), which depicted various scenes of the city through the seasons, from bustling shopping streets to splendid cherry orchards. This reprint is made from one of the finest complete original sets of woodblock prints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo. It pairs each of the 120 illustrations with a description, allowing readers to immerse themselves in these beautiful, vibrant vistas that became paradigms of Japonisme and inspired Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau artists alike, from Vincent van Gogh to James McNeill Whistler.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular woodblock print genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries. Subjects ranged from the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), to spectacular natural landscapes. In the West, Hiroshige’s prints became exemplary of the Japonisme that swept through Europe and defined the Western world’s visual idea of Japan. Because they could be mass produced, ukiyo-e works were often used as designs for fans, greeting cards, and book illustrations. The style influenced Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Art Nouveau artists alike, with Vincent van Gogh and James Abbott McNeill Whistler both particularly inspired by Hiroshige’s landscapes.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) fue uno de los últimos grandes artistas de la tradición japonesa del ukiyo-e. La palabra significa literalmente «pinturas del mundo flotante» y designa un género artístico que floreció entre los siglos xvii y xix y simbolizó la imagen de Japón en el mundo occidental. Las escenas del ukiyo-e, que en muchos aspectos eran de tipo hedonista, representaban a menudo la brillante luminosidad y las atracciones de Edo: mujeres hermosas, actores y luchadores de sumo, la vida urbana y panorámicas espectaculares. Pese a abarcar una gran variedad de temas, Hiroshige se hizo famoso sobre todo por sus paisajes. De hecho, su obra maestra fue una serie de grabados conocida como Cien famosas vistas de Edo (1856-1858), que reproduce varias escenas de la ciudad en el curso de las estaciones, desde las animadas calles comerciales hasta las espléndidas huertas de cerezos.