The Royal Art of Poison


Book Description

The story of poison is the story of power... For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with lead. Men rubbed feces on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.




Royal Art of Benin


Book Description

Tantalizing trivia. this Hitler, spoiling everything?"




The Book on the Royal Art


Book Description

In this beautiful and atmospheric book, Bô Yin Râ sets the tone for concepts he develops in all his future works. Rich in allegory, metaphor, and poetic language, The Book on the Royal Art invites readers to enter the path of the inner journey towards an awakening of their timeless, true self. The path is simple, straightforward, and quiet. At the core of Bô Yin Râ's teaching is the importance of cultivating an inner silence so that one's eternal self can slowly emerge. It is the work of a lifetime, and transcends death. Bô Yin Râ stresses that there is no need to look outside for masters, to renounce the world or engage in unusual practices: We can develop ourselves in our everyday, familiar surroundings. All experiences in life can be of use. Even the most painful grief and sufferings of life can be used to strengthen us and bring us into greater aliveness and joy. The royal art refers to the preparation received by the Luminaries, beings who live among us, almost always in obscurity, who act as mediators of eternal light. The Luminaries form a bridge helping us to receive, in a gradual and gentle way, spiritual light that would otherwise be too powerful to absorb. They function as inner protectors, buoying us up with strength and insights that speak to us in silence and from within. Bô Yin Râ disabuses us of the temptation to think of Luminaries as godlike, emphasizing that they are ordinary people who have been chosen, often to their horror, to bear the burdens and risks of their compassionate task. "Know that on your quest for light," Bô Yin Râ tells us, "your path will be protected by the spirit's luminaries..." The Book on the Royal Art is the first volume of the 32-volume cycle The Gated Garden, in which Bô Yin Râ further develops different aspects of the path towards consciousness of one's eternal self. E.W.S., Publisher The Kober Press's translations of the books of Bô Yin Râ are the only English translations authorized by the Kober Verlag, Switzerland. The Kober Verlag publishes the books of Bô Yin Râ in the original German and has protected their integrity since Bô Yin Râ's lifetime. Contents: PART ONE: The Light from Himavat and the Words of the Masters The Luminary's Self-Disclosure to the Seeking Soul. The Harvest. The One whose Being is Infinity. Know Thyself. On the Masters of the Spirit's World. Pitfalls of Vanity. PART TWO: From the Lands of the Luminaries The Threshold. The King's Question. The Pillar in the Mountains. The Night of Easter. Communion. PART THREE: The Will to Joy To All who Strive Toward Timeless Light. The Teachings on Joy. Epilogue.




The Royal Academy of Arts


Book Description

Published in association with the Royal Academy of Arts, London Animated by an unprecedented study of its collections, this book tells the story of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and illuminates the history of art in Britain over the past two and a half centuries. Thousands of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and engravings, as well as silver, furniture, medals, and historic photographs, make up this monumental collection, featured here in stunning illustrations, and including an array of little-studied works of art and other objects of the highest quality. The works of art complement an archive of 600,000 documents and the first library in Britain dedicated to the fine arts. This fresh history reveals the central role of the Royal Academy in British national life, especially during the 19th century. It also explores periods of turmoil in the 20th century, when the Academy sought either to defy or to come to terms with modernism, challenging linear histories and frequently held notions of progress and innovation. Published in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Royal Academy of Arts, London




Alchemy


Book Description




Art, Passion & Power


Book Description

"Hall’s consummate history is not just the story of the evolution of one of the world’s great collections... The book is also a through-the-keyhole insight into the shifting tastes, good or bad, of 1,000 years of monarchs." - The Times The Royal Collection is the last great collection formed by the European monarchies to have survived into the twenty-first century. Containing over a million artworks and objects, it covers all aspects of the fine and decorative arts, from paintings by Rembrandt and Michelangelo to grand sculpture, Fabergé eggs and some of the most exquisite furniture ever made. The Royal Collection also offers a revealing insight into the history of the British monarchy from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth II, recording the tastes and obsessions of kings and queens over the past 500 years. With unprecedented access to the royal residences of St James' Palace, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, Art, Passion & Power traces the history of this national institution from the Middle Ages to the present day, exploring how royalty used the arts to strengthen their position as rulers by divine right and celebrating treasures from the Crown Jewels to the "Abraham" tapestries in Hampton Court Palace. Author Michael Hall examines the monarchy's response to changing attitudes to the arts and sciences during the Enlightenment and celebrates the British monarchy's role in the democratisation of art in the modern world. Packed with glimpses of rarely seen artworks, Art, Passion & Power is a visual treat for all art enthusiasts. Accompanying the BBC television series and a major exhibition at the Royal Academy, Art, Passion & Power is the definitive statement on the British monarchy's treasures of the art world.




Art of the Royal Court


Book Description

"In the royal and princely courts of Europe, artworks made of multicolored semiprecious stones were passionately coveted objects. Known as pietre dure, or hardstones, this type of artistic expression includes?paintings in stone,? which were composed of intricately cut separate pieces that were made into magnificent tabetops, cabinets, and wall decorations. Other works included vessels and ornaments carved with virtuosic skill from a single piece of rare and brilliant lapis lazuli, chalcedony, jasper, or similarly prized substance; exquisite objects such as boxes, clocks, and jewelry; and portraits of nobles sculpted in variously colored stones. Derived from ancient Roman decorative stonework, the art of pietre dure was developed in Renaissance Florence, where the manufacture of such objects was enthusiastically sponsored by Medici princes. Ideally suited for ostentatious display, the works sent an unmistakable message of wealth and political might that was understood in centers of power everywhere. From Italy the medium spread across Europeto Prague, Madrid, Naples, Paris, and later Saint Petersburg. Precious and fragile, pietre dure objects are rarely brought together in large numbers. This richly illustrated catalogue contains more than 150 masterworks from across Europe, dating from five centuries, including almost every artistic use of semiprecious stone during this time as well as some of the finest examples of the medium. Eight essays by European and American experts discuss the individualized development of pietre dure in every European region, the latest developments in scholarship, the interrelationships between art and dynastic politics and between cultures, and a variety of techniques used to produce these luxurious masterworks."--Metropolitan Museum of Art website.




Russia


Book Description

The histories of the British and Russian royal families have been entwined for centuries. In the first publication to examine the relationship between Britain and Russia using artworks drawn exclusively from the Royal Collection, 'Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs' interweaves the familial, political, diplomatic, and artistic stories of these two nations over more than four hundred years.0From initial contacts in the mid-sixteenth century, through alliances, marriages, and two World Wars, up to the current reign, this richly illustrated book gives readers a glimpse into the public and personal dealings of these two fascinating dynasties. With new research on previously unpublished works, including Imperial porcelain, arms, costume, insignia, and photographs, together with paintings by both Russian artists and British artists working in Russia, this will be the first time that the uniquely interlinked narrative of the art connecting the two royal families has been presented in such stunning, lavishly illustrated detail. Exhibition: The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, UK (09.11.2018 - 28.04.2019).




The Royal Arts of Africa


Book Description

For use in an undergraduate or graduate course in African Art; also suitable as a supplementary reading for art history surveys. Lavishly illustrated, this historically grounded text draws together key traditions from West, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa to present an informative and captivating survey of the most important royal arts in the great sub-Saharan African kingdoms. Exploring the diverse ways that African rulers employed art and architecture to define individual and state identity, it provides an overview of the major themes in royal African art and discusses what these arts reveal about the nature of kingship.




Art on the Line


Book Description

On 1 May 1780, England's Royal Academy of Arts opened its twelfth annual exhibition, the first to be held in the magnificent rooms of William Chambers's newly built Somerset House. For the next fifty-seven years, the Great Room of Somerset House effectively defined the centre of the London art world - the place where viewers had to see and be seen, and where artists fiercely vied for the attention of potential buyers. Such great exhibition performers as Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and David Wilkie sharpened their skills during these stimulating decades. In this extensively illustrated book, seventeen renowned experts revisit and assess the Somerset House years, a period of great achievement and central importance in the history of British art. The book's contributors view the Somerset House phenomenon from a broad range of perspectives. They deal with the physical nature of the exhibitions, the audience, the role of the press, the Royal Academy's place within the larger world of urban entertainments, and how the conditions of display shaped and even transformed patterns of art production. In addition, they explore such topics as the tactics of exhibitors in different genres of painting, the exhibition histories of works in other media and the impact on foreign artists and observers of an increasingly self-confident national school of British art.