BELLAS ARTES

With nearly one hundred seminal paintings, this publication celebrates the artist who paved the way for the Impressionist movement and the rise of modernism. Combining a radical technique with contemporary subjects, Manet’s groundbreaking works engage with modern Paris, depicting its new boulevards and fashionable parks and cafés along with a range of urban types, from ragpickers and prostitutes to barmaids and elegant Parisians. Included here are the artist’s iconic scenes of modern life such as Luncheon on the Grass, with its shocking juxtaposition of a female nude and a pair of fully dressed men, and Olympia, a modern reworking of Titian’s Renaissance masterpiece, Venus of Urbino, that scandalized Paris in the 1860s and established Manet as the leader of the avant-garde.

Gifted in 1949 by Georgia O’Keeffe to Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, the Alfred Stieglitz Collection includes 101 works from the estate of Alfred Stieglitz, O’Keeffe’s late husband. Part of his collection arriving at Fisk has long been a source of fascination in the field of American art, but this is the first publication to recount and analyze this complex and extraordinary history. The reverberations of the gift go far beyond O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, involving decades of students and faculty at Fisk, such as preeminent artists Aaron Douglas and David C. Driskell.

Early astronomers, drawn to Mars's fiery glow in the night sky, named the planet after their god of war. In the centuries since, Mars has captivated humankind as a source of endless speculation and a beacon of hope for its potential habitability. Through six decades of NASA’s pioneering research missions, the mysteries of the red planet have been gradually uncovered, revealing a world not so unlike our own that likely once supported life.

El 15 de diciembre de 1868, Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868), profesor de botánica en la Universidad de Múnich y director del Royal Botanic Garden, fue llevado a la tumba en un ataúd cubierto de hojas de palmera recién cortadas. Las frondas eran un guiño a Historia natural de las palmeras: una obra en tres volúmenes, una obra excepcional que publicó entre 1823 y 1853. Este tesoro enciclopédico formado por 240 ilustraciones cromolitográficas exquisitas se inspiró en las expediciones de Martius por Brasil y Perú. Entre 1817 y 1820 recorrió, junto al zoólogo Johann Baptist von Spix, más de 2.250 kilómetros por la cuenca amazónica para investigar la historia natural y las tribus nativas.

La leyenda de Marilyn Monroe nunca deja de fascinar. Hoy, tanto como ayer, es la estrella de cine que más admiración mundial ha suscitado a lo largo de la historia. Una seductora irresistible, pero también «la chica normal que conquista Hollywood», de estilo sexi, sugerente y provocador, y un cabello rubio platino. Se convirtió en el símbolo de toda una época y estuvo casada o se la vinculó con algunos de los hombres más famosos y poderosos del mundo, desde el campeón de béisbol Joe DiMaggio al dramaturgo Arthur Miller, o incluso John F. Kennedy. Pero su radiante sonrisa escondía el dolor de una infancia difícil y su desesperada necesidad de amor.

Fantasy art, that colorful blend of myth, muscle and sexy maidens, took off in 1923 with the launch of Weird Tales magazine, was reinvigorated in the 1960s with The Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian paperbacks with Frank Frazetta covers, and the late ’60s emergence of fantasy psychedelia. It went big in the ’70s with the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, the brilliant French magazine Métal Hurlant, and the first Star Wars film. The number of active artists peaked in that decade, but a new generation of fans discovered the genre through fantasy trading card games in the ’90s, leading to a massive interest in the art form today.