Author: Tom Wolfe
File Type: epub
Americas nerviest journalist (*Newsweek) trains his satirical eye on Modern Art in this masterpiece (The Washington Post*) hrWolfes style has never been more dazzling, his wit never more keen. He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. The Painted Word is Tom Wolfe at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent (San Francisco Chronicle).**Amazon.com ReviewIn 1975, after having put radical chic and 60s counterculture to the satirical torch, Tom Wolfe turned his attention to the contemporary art world. The patron saint (and resident imp) of New Journalism couldnt have asked for a better subject. Here was a hotbed of pretension, nitwit theorizing, social climbing, and money, money, money--all Wolfe had to do was sharpen his tools and get to work. He did! Much of The Painted Word is a superb burlesque on that modern mating ritual whereby artists get to despise their middle-class audience and accommodate it at the same time. The painter, Wolfe writes, had to dedicate himself to the quirky god Avant-Garde. He had to keep one devout eye peeled for the new edge on the blade of the wedge of the head on the latest pick thrust of the newest exploratory probe of this falls avant-garde Breakthrough of the Century.... At the same time he had to keep his other eye cocked to see if anyone in le monde was watching.The other bone Wolfe has to pick is with the proliferation of art theory, particularly the sort purveyed by postwar colossi like Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, and Leo Steinberg. Decades after the heyday of abstract expressionism, these guys make pretty easy targets. What could be more absurd, after all, than endless Jesuitical disputes about the flatness of the picture plane? So most of them get a highly comical spanking from the author. Its worth pointing out, of course, that Wolfe paints with a broad (as it were) brush. If hes skewering the entire army of artistic pretenders in a single go, theres no room to admit that Jasper Johns or Willem DeKooning might actually have some talent. But as he would no doubt admit, The Painted Word isnt about the history of art. Its about the history of taste and middlebrow acquisition--and nobody has chronicled these two topics as hilariously or accurately as Tom Wolfe. --James MarcusReviewIf you have ever stared uncomprehendingly at an abstract painting that admired critics have said you ought to dig, take heart. Tom Wolfe . . . is on your side. The Painted Word may enrage you. It may confirm your darkest suspicions about Modern Art. In any case, it will amuse you. New York Sunday NewsTom Wolfe is a journalist who always manages to combine an encyclopedic store of inside knowledge with the obstinate detachment of a visitor from Mars, not to mention a brilliant style and incisive wit. San Francsico ChronicleThe Painted Word may well be Tom Wolfes most successful piece of social criticism to date. The New York TimesThe Painted Word is a masterpiece. No one in the art world . . . could fail to recognize its essential truth. I read it four times, each of them with mounting envy for Wolfes eye, ear, and surgical skill. The Washington Post His eye and ear for detailed observations are incomparable and observation is to the satirist what bullets are to a gun. The Boston Sunday Globe
Author: Richard Sorabji
File Type: pdf
This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence uncovered in some of the chapters of this book that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers.
Author: Jeremy Aynsley
File Type: pdf
German design and architecture reflects the countrys rich and fraught political history in its structure and aesthetic philosophy. Jeremy Aynsley now offers an in-depth study of this relationship between German history and design since 1870 and the complex principles underlying it. Designing Modern Germany reveals how German attitudes toward national identity, modernity and technology are crucial to understanding German design. Aynsley traces the historical development of German design, beginning in the 1870s with the first dedicated Arts and Crafts schools and stretching through to the famous institutions of the Bauhaus and the Ulm Hochschule fur Gestaltung. He analyses the works of leading figures such as Peter Behrens and Hannes Meyer, through to Ingo Maurer and Jil Sander, and many others in design specialties including graphics, industrial and furniture design, fashion and architecture. He also offers the first consideration of the contrasting design traditions of East and West Germany between 1949 and 1989. Whether examining the pre-First World War department store, the National Socialist fashion system or East Germanys official design culture, Designing Modern Germany reveals that German design significantly affected citizens daily lives. An essential read for designers and scholars of German design and history, Designing Modern Germany is a key text for understanding Germanys major contribution to twentieth-century design. **
Author: Arnaldur Inðridason
File Type: epub
Een groot hotel in het centrum van Reykjavik is vlak voor Kerstmis afgeladen met gasten uit de hele wereld. Dan wordt er plotseling een moord gemeld bij de politie. Een personeelslid van het hotel, een man van middelbare leeftijd, is namelijk dood aangetroffen, verkleed als kerstman en met zijn broek op zijn enkels. Om deze delicate en complexe zaak te ontrafelen moeten inspecteur Erlendur en zijn collegas diep graven in het trieste leven van het slachtoffer. Een verhaal over het menselijk lot, eenzaamheid en verlies in de breedste zin van het woord. (source Bol.com)
Author: Sonia Benson
File Type: pdf
Introduces the history of the United States from pre-Colonial America to the present day. Explores the timeline of America its founders, key historical figures, wars, events, political environment, economy, and culture.
Author: John Wortley
File Type: pdf
The Tales and Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum) are a key source of evidence for the practice and theory respectively of eremitic monasticism, a significant phenomenon within the early history of Christianity. The publication of this book finally ensures the availability of all three major collections which constitute the work, edited and translated into English. Richer in Tales than the Alphabetic collection to which this is an appendix (both to be dated c.AD 500), the Anonymous collection presented in this volume furnishes almost as much material for the study of the late antique world from which the monk sought to escape as it does for the monastic endeavour itself. More material continued to be added well into the seventh century and so the spread and gradual evolution of monasticism are illustrated here over a period of about two and a half centuries. **Review Wortley has served up not only a translation but, as he calls it, a select edition of the Anonymous Collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum for Cambridge University Press. It is a collection long awaited by scholars, and Wortley is certainly to be commended for, at last, making available both edition and translation of this important but heretofore understudied body of Greek monastic literature. Reviews in Religion and Theology Beautifully produced with a concise introduction, select bibliography, and index, this volume inspires hope for comparable, even matching, text and translation editions of the other collections ... Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. G. R. Thursby, Choice Book Description First full edition and English translation of the Anonymous collection of The Tales and Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The tales and sayings provide insights into the practice of early Christian monasticism, as the mainly anonymous elders endeavour to explain why they abandoned the world and what might be achieved in the desert.
Author: William Glenn Gray
File Type: pdf
Using newly available material from both sides of the Iron Curtain, William Glenn Gray explores West Germanys efforts to prevent international acceptance of East Germany as a legitimate state following World War II. Unwilling to accept the division of their country, West German leaders regarded the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as an illegitimate upstart--a puppet of the occupying Soviet forces. Together with France, Britain, and the United States, West Germany applied political and financial pressure around the globe to ensure that the GDR remain unrecognized by all countries outside the communist camp. Proclamations of ideological solidarity and narrowly targeted bursts of aid gave the GDR momentary leverage in such diverse countries as Egypt, Iraq, Ghana, and Indonesia yet West Germanys intimidation tactics, coupled with its vastly superior economic resources, blocked any decisive East German breakthrough. Gray argues that Bonns isolation campaign was dropped not for want of success, but as a result of changes in West German priorities as the struggle against East Germany came to hamper efforts at reconciliation with Israel, Poland, and Yugoslavia--all countries of special relevance to Germanys recent past. Interest in a morally grounded diplomacy, together with the growing conviction that the GDR could no longer be ignored, led to the abandonment of Bonns effective but outdated efforts to hinder worldwide recognition of the East German regime. **
Author: C. B. Schmitt
File Type: pdf
The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy offers a balanced and comprehensive account of philosophical thought from the middle of the fourteenth century to the emergence of modern philosophy at the turn of the seventeenth century. The Renaissance has attracted intense scholarly attention for over a century, but in the beginning the philosophy of the period was relatively neglected and this is the first volume in English to synthesize for a wider readership the substantial and sophisticated research now available. The volume is organized by branch of philosophy rather than by individual philosopher or by school. The intention has been to present the internal development of different aspects of the subject in their own terms and within their historical context. This structure also emphasizes naturally the broader connotations of philosophy in that intellectual world.ReviewIn selecting Charles Schmitt as general editor...Cambridge University Press guaranteed originality and innovation...On the basis of the soundness of the general editors overall plan and the strength of his main contributors the Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy is an outstanding success. Charles Webster, Times Higher Education SupplementThe appearance of the present volume will be warmly welcomed not only by historians of philosophy, but by all those engaged in any branch of Renaissance intellectual history, including the history of science and religion. Doubtless, it will serve as a standard work of reference for many years to come. It is a fitting monument to a fine and generous scholar. Nancy G. Siraisi, English Historical Review...one must gratefully acknowledge the massive achievement of the enterprise and of the editorial vision that has supplied us with an intricately detailed and capacious volume that in many signal ways goes well beyond the existing histories of Renaissance philosophy and will undoubtedly serve as a stimulus and a resource for years to come. M.J.B. Allen, Renaissance QuarterlyIt is clearly the most comprehensive survey in English of Renaissance philosophy and easily rivals the best surveys in other languages on this topic. It is a first-rate piece of historical and philosophical scholarship--philosophically insightful, biographically detailed and highly thought-provoking in its historical observations... Donald A. Cress, International Studies in PhilosophyA valuable reference-book, this volume includes the most up-to-date scholarship on Renaissance thought and a number of reappraisals of the intellectual features of this crucial period in the history of Western thinking. Adriana McCrea, Dalhousie Review The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy offers a balanced and comprehensive account of philosophical thought from the middle of the fourteenth century to the emergence of modern philosophy at the turn of the seventeenth century. The Renaissance has attracted intense scholarly attention for over a century, but in the beginning the philosophy of the period was relatively neglected and this is the first volume in English to synthesize for a wider readership the substantial and sophisticated research now available. The volume is organized by branch of philosophy rather than by individual philosopher or by school. The intention has been to present the internal development of different aspects of the subject in their own terms and within their historical context. This structure also emphasizes naturally the broader connotations of philosophy in that intellectual world.ReviewIn selecting Charles Schmitt as general editor...Cambridge University Press guaranteed originality and innovation...On the basis of the soundness of the general editors overall plan and the strength of his main contributors the Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy is an outstanding success. Charles Webster, Times Higher Education SupplementThe appearance of the present volume will be warmly welcomed not only by historians of philosophy, but by all those engaged in any branch of Renaissance intellectual history, including the history of science and religion. Doubtless, it will serve as a standard work of reference for many years to come. It is a fitting monument to a fine and generous scholar. Nancy G. Siraisi, English Historical Review...one must gratefully acknowledge the massive achievement of the enterprise and of the editorial vision that has supplied us with an intricately detailed and capacious volume that in many signal ways goes well beyond the existing histories of Renaissance philosophy and will undoubtedly serve as a stimulus and a resource for years to come. M.J.B. Allen, Renaissance QuarterlyIt is clearly the most comprehensive survey in English of Renaissance philosophy and easily rivals the best surveys in other languages on this topic. It is a first-rate piece of historical and philosophical scholarship--philosophically insightful, biographically detailed and highly thought-provoking in its historical observations... Donald A. Cress, International Studies in PhilosophyA valuable reference-book, this volume includes the most up-to-date scholarship on Renaissance thought and a number of reappraisals of the intellectual features of this crucial period in the history of Western thinking. Adriana McCrea, Dalhousie Review Book DescriptionA comprehensive account of philosophical thought from the middle of the fourteenth century to the emergence of modern philosophy at the turn of the seventeenth century.