The Piranesi Effect (16pt Large Print Edition)


Book Description

The work of Italian printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778) has captivated artists, architects and designers for centuries. Although contemporary Australia is a long way from eighteenth - century Rome, it is home to substantial collections of his works, the largest being at the State Library of Victoria and the University of Melbourne. The Piranesi Effect is a collection of exquisitely illustrated essays on the impact of Piranesi's work throughout the years. The book brings together Australian and international experts who investigate Piranesi's world and its connections to the study of art and the practice of artists today. From curators and art historians, to contemporary artists like Bill Henson and Ron McBurnie, the contributors each bring their own passion and insight into the work of Piranesi, illuminating what it is about his work that still inspires such wonder.




The City Rehearsed


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Iceland


Book Description

So begins Sabine Baring-Gould's account of his journey on horseback around Iceland in 1862. Aged twenty-eight, the young writer and teacher was fascinated by the tradition of the Icelandic sagas, and this was the catalyst for his adventure and the book that emerged from it. His voyage took him from the then tiny settlement of Reykjavik through remote and hostile terrain, passing through the empty expanse of Iceland's countryside. He observed mountains and glaciers, volcanoes and geysers, wondering at the wild beauty of the landscape. He also recorded the rich flora and fauna that he saw-and, to his chagrin, that his companions shot.




Rome in the Age of Enlightenment


Book Description

This is the only scholarly work in the English language on the city of Rome in the Age of the Enlightenment, and the only book in any language to treat this fascinating city in all its multifarious aspects. Professor Gross combines extensive archival research with the latest findings of other scholars to produce a uniquely rounded portrait of the papal capital, elegantly illustrated with contemporary engravings by Piranesi and others. The book is divided into two sections, in the first of which Professor Gross discusses the material and institutional structures of the city, including its demography, economy, food supply, and judicial systems. The second section considers aspects of intellectual, cultural, and artistic life. Professor Gross contends not only that ancien-regime Rome witnessed a decline in Counter-Reformation fervour, but that this decay resulted in a marked dissonance in the political, social, and cultural life of the city.




The Solotype Catalog of 4,147 Display Typefaces


Book Description

The author of many books on typography, Dan X. Solo was also the proprietor of his own typography shop in Oakland, California — an establishment dedicated to unusual typography and special effects. This comprehensive catalog offers graphic designers a dazzling selection of over 4,000 typefaces and optical effects available from Solotype Typographers. Here, in Solo's words, is "a great cast of characters" — the alphabet — abetted by a cornucopia of typographical ideas and an endless resource of letters, words, phrases, slogans, logos, humorous comments, headlines, and graphic symbols. Individual sections of the book display a rich variety of typefaces in categories such as Condensed, Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Rustic, Thick-and-tin, Calligraphic, Uncials, Latins, and Blackletter. Samples are imaginatively presented. "Stagecoach," for example, is printed in Fargo typeface, evoking dusty trails, rawhide, and ten-gallon hats, while "Sizzling summer savings" appears appropriately in the flamboyant Firebug typeface. All typefaces are indexed for quick and easy reference. As entertaining as it is practical and useful, this impressive treasury of versatile typefaces and optical effects will be indispensable to busy commercial artists as an inexhaustible source of typographic ideas and a "swipe file" of words, phrases, and letters for use in graphic art projects.




Dictionary of Literary Utopias


Book Description

Partant du présupposé méthodologique que l'utopie est un genre littéraire, V. Fortunati et R. Trousson ont couvert une très large période, de 1516, date de la première édition de ¤¤L'utopie¤¤ de Thomas More, jusqu'à 1989, date symbolique qui marque la chute du Mur de Berlin. Les 97 contributions de l'ouvrage analysent des textes relevant de sphères culturelles et linguistiques très diverses.




The Art of Lettering


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Thinking Utopia


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After the breakdown of socialist and communist systems in the East, it had become fashionable to declare the so-called "end of utopia" ("end of history," "end of narratives"). The authors of this volume do not share this view but think that it is time to rehabilitate utopian thought. The political concept of Utopia that has given its name to these transcendental projections onto the world has been too narrow to describe and analyze the moving forces of the mind perceiving human existence beyond reality. By broadening the perspectives of utopian studies, these essays enable the reader to reconstruct scholarly paradigms and strategies of utopian, complex and holistic thinking in modern cosmology, philosophy, sociology, in literary, historical and political sciences, and to compare traditions and ways of Western utopian thought to the practice in the East.




Type, Sign, Symbol


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Plato: 'The Republic'


Book Description

First published in 2000, this translation of one of the great works of Western political thought is based on the assumption that when Plato chose the dialogue form for his writing, he intended these dialogues to sound like conversations - although conversations of a philosophical sort. In addition to a vivid, dignified and accurate rendition of Plato's text, the student and general reader will find many aids to comprehension in this volume: an introduction that assesses the cultural background to the Republic, its place within political philosophy, and its general argument; succinct notes in the body of the text; an analytical summary of the work's content; a full glossary of proper names; a chronology of important events; and a guide to further reading. The result is an accomplished and accessible edition of this seminal work, suitable for philosophers and classicists as well as historians of political thought at all levels.