Ruskin is one of the most influential and exhilarating writers in English. Art critic, architectural visionary, social reformer, climate warner and incomparable teacher; Ruskin’s words not only transformed Victorian England but speak to us with increasing urgency today. This, the first general introduction to Ruskin for many years, places him in the social, economic and aesthetic world of Victorian Britain that he transformed – and shows how this transformation has much to teach us today. The extensive illustrations range from private notes and lecture diagrams to presentation drawings, including some of the most beautiful images of the 19th century and many never before published. Published in association with the Ruskin Foundation.
City kids and visiting families alike know there’s no better place for children than the Big Apple, and 111 Places for Kids in New York shows you where to take a big bite. From ultra-hip hangouts for the most urbane toddlers to natural wonders hiding in the middle of the concrete jungle, the five boroughs of New York offer children the richness and diversity of the world with the beloved traditions of home. In New York, you can explore the globe, from a Sri Lankan courtyard to a gritty parkour park to a quaint New England town — all with a swipe of a Metrocard.
With this guide, you will be inspired to explore new neighbourhoods, treat the kids in your life to unbelievable experiences, and make the city your own. You’ll discover places and spaces you never knew existed, and rediscover familiar ones in new ways. Read up on helpful tips by been-there-done-that parents (psst — do you know where exhausted parents can bliss out on AC while their toddlers get friendly with baboons?). And learn insider secrets for ways to make the most of your visit to the parks, museums, restaurants, and adventures that make this metropolis so special and so inviting.
To many the words Hill Station are evocative of an exotic and exciting vision when the subjects of the British Colonial Government gloried in the Hill Stations of India and Burma. Beautifully constructed holiday towns built at 3,000 feet or more where people flocked to escape the heats of the plains. High up the Shan hills of east Burma stood Maymyo. This book tells the stories of the people for whom Maymyo really was a heaven ‘lost on the clouds’.
Authors Dave Doroghy and Graeme Menzies take you to find the cool, the quirky, and the unusual places hidden in Victoria amidst the unique architecture and glorious outdoor scenery.
Visit the place where author Rudyard Kipling slept. Explore Canada’s largest ant farm. Answer the call of nature in a pub’s haunted loo. Or take a date to a secluded, waterfront fish-and-chips shop. See the world’s tallest freestanding totem pole.
If it’s history you’re after, consider that James Cook was the first non-indigenous person to set foot near here in 1778. Later, the Hudson’s Bay Company established the spot as a trading post, naming it Fort Victoria after the reigning British queen. Vestiges of the old British Empire can still be spotted in the majestic colonial buildings in the inner harbour, the red double decker buses on its busy streets and the occasional old fashioned British telephone booths. God Save the King!
The Wallace Collection is perhaps the greatest single art collection ever gifted to a nation. That this came about is due to Sir Richard Wallace. Born in 1818, Wallace was a philanthropist during a period renowned for its strong philanthropic ethos. He was already an acknowledged connoisseur when, in 1870, he unexpectedly inherited the celebrated art collection of Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, together with great wealth. This remarkable windfall enabled him to indulge his twin passions: collecting, and enriching public education through art. Although he died in 1890 without having bequeathed his collection at Hertford House in London to the nation, his French widow, Lady Wallace, was undoubtedly fulfilling his wishes in doing so on her death in 1897.
This is the first book exclusively dedicated to Sir Richard Wallace. Lavishly illustrated with more than 490 pictures, it includes much new information about his mysterious origins and his fascinating life in England, Ireland and France.
Text in French.
In 1851 John Ruskin came to the defence of the young artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by writing two letters to The Times, refuting widespread criticism of their paintings. Soon afterwards he published a pamphlet entitled Pre-Raphaelitism, beginning almost a decade of public support for the work of William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and their associates.
Already established as one of the leading writers on art, he took a personal risk in defending the Pre- Raphaelite cause, but saw a parallel in the hostile reaction to the paintings of his artistic idol J. M. W. Turner. In Millais especially, Ruskin hoped to nurture a worthy successor in landscape painting, arguing that the Pre-Raphaelites’ attention to truth and detail offered the opportunity to establish a “new and noble school” of British art.
This is the first compilation of all of Ruskin’s published writings relating to the Pre-Raphaelites, beginning with the celebrated passage in the first volume of Modern Painters (1843) exhorting young artists to “go to nature in all …. rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing,” later claimed by Hunt to have been an inspiration. As well as Pre- Raphaelitism (1851), rarely reprinted since, and the fourth of the 1853 Edinburgh lectures, it includes all the comments on paintings in the annual Academy Notes (1855-9) which pertain to Pre-Raphaelitism, underlining Ruskin’s significant contribution to the movement’s popular success and the widespread acceptance of its principles. From the period after 1860, when Ruskin was concentrating more on social issues, come the the little-known articles published in the Nineteenth Century magazine under the title The Three Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism (1878), and a number of lectures, including the last of his Slade Lectures, The Art of England (1883), delivered just a few years before his mental faculties failed.
Edited with a commentary and preface by Stephen Wildman, Director of the Ruskin Library and Research Centre, University of Lancaster, and with an introduction by Robert Hewison, one of Ruskin’s successors as Slade Professor of Art at the University of Oxford.
“Through superb photography, nostalgic ephemera and detailed descriptions by travel journalist, Ellie Seymour, we’re treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lavish worlds these historic establishments conceal.” — We Heart
In Grand Hotels of the World, travel journalist Ellie Seymour takes us on a nostalgic journey around the world to discover 40 legendary hotels that have welcomed guests in luxury and style for centuries. Through exquisite photography and detailed descriptions, we are given a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lavish worlds these historic establishments conceal. From fabulous Claridge’s in London’s Mayfair and the luxurious St Regis New York, to the chic Splendido in Portofino and the timeless Villa Serbelloni on the shores of Lake Como, this book tells the fascinating stories of some of the world’s finest architectural gems and the famous guests to have sashayed through their storied corridors.
At the age of 48, when she moved to the Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was given a camera by her daughter: “It might amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.” The gift was to begin Cameron’s short but prolific career as one of photography’s first great artists.
“From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour, and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.”
The modern interest in Cameron’s photography began with the pioneering 1926 book by her great-niece Virginia Woolf and art critic Roger Fry. Their essays and the original plates are reprinted here, together with Cameron’s own account of her life in photography, Annals of My Glass House, her only surviving poem, On a Portrait, and an introduction by Tristram Powell.
Thirty-nine plates and other illustrations have been added, including many of Cameron’s most famous images.
Welcome to Leeds; a great northern powerhouse of a city that has reinvented itself from an industrial centre of wool, textiles and coal to one of the country’s biggest financial and commercial cities outside of London. Leeds is famous for its beautiful Victorian arcades, its magnificent architectural landmarks, its eclectic mix of shops and bars and its sporting venues. But scrape its bare bones and you will find it is a city rich in history, heritage and culture with a plethora of hidden places and talents.
Can you really sit in Her Majesty’s seat, catch a Dutch water taxi, go otter spotting in the centre of town or get married on a tiny island in the city?
Leeds offers so much to locals and visitors alike and you can discover the answers to these questions and much, much more in this guide to 111 places in the great city of Leeds.
Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends is the first book to document the extraordinary activity at the LYC Museum & Art Gallery in Banks, Cumbria between 1972 and 1983. The LYC was the singleminded effort of the artist Li Yuan-chia, who moved to the rural North of England by way of London, Bologna, Taipei and Guangxi, China. At the LYC, Li organised exhibitions, published books, exhibited archealogical artefacts, arranged workshops and welcomed an array of visitors from local and international artists and art workers to nearby residents and travellers, many of whom became friends. In this book, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at Kettle’s Yard, the curators Hammad Nasar, Amy Tobin and Sarah Victoria Turner, establish Li’s work at the LYC as a form of worldmaking, connecting his cosmic conceptual art practice, to his interest in participation and friendship as well as his engagement with nature and the landscape. Nasar, Tobin and Turner’s account is accompanied by nine short texts – by Elizabeth Fisher, Ysanne Holt, Annie Jael Kwan, Lesley Ma, Gustavo Grandal Montero, Luke Roberts, Nick Sawyer & Harriet Aspin, Nicola Simpson and Diana Yeh – that trace the diverse threads and ramifications of Li’s practice historically and in the present. Richly illustrated, Making New Worlds offers a provocative new way of thinking the history of British art in the 20th century.
For many flower lovers, the orchid is the epitome of luxury, grace and beauty. In the new book in the Floramour series Floramour: Orchids, author Anja Klaffenbach pays tribute to this queen of the flower world. She not only illuminates the filigree flower wonder with spectacular photographs and sketches, but also presents exciting background information, packed into and entertaining texts.
Orchid breeding has a long tradition and by now more than 28,000 species and more than 100,000 hybrids and varieties are known. And perhaps the diversity of these ornamental plants can also be explained from a historical perspective. In this colourful coffee-table book, Klaffenbach explores this question and paints a portrait of the orchid through the ages. The aesthetics of the flower were already highly valued in ancient China. It served as a symbol of purity and luxury. In Japan, it was the distinguishing mark of the noble warrior caste of the samurai and was found on the clothing and weapons of the fighters. In Hinduism, the lovely orchid is a representative of wealth and prosperity and a coveted offering at numerous religious festivals.
Europe has also become addicted to the tropical beauty. In Victorian England, there was a veritable run on the colourful flower. The flower was regarded as an unmistakable testimony to exquisite taste and classical elegance. The plants quickly advanced to become a high-class gift that expressed the high esteem of the bearer in perfect form.
Even today, the orchid enjoys a large fan community. For them, the coffee table book Floramour: Orchids is the perfect inspiring read to learn even more about their own favourite flower.
Text in English and German.
What does your body know? With this question the artist Yvonne Buchheim invited people into her studio for portraits attempting to capture body knowledge. What she did not know was the story that her own body would tell.
In this art book, Buchheim shares her story of healing from cancer. Her artworks are poetic reiterations between visual and written language, revealing the many effects that serious illness can have on the body and mind. The artwork is complemented by two essays that explore fragility and resilience in surviving illness. Kopfüberleben (Life Turned Upside Down) presents us with creative forms of storytelling that use drawing, photography, and stop-motion filmmaking not as documents but as a narrative of self-discovery.
Text in English and German.
Artists and designers have recorded places, people, and life in drawings and sketchbooks for centuries. Over the past 50 years, Laurie Olin, one of America’s most distinguished landscape architects, has recorded aspects of life and the environment in Italy: its cities and countryside, streets and cafes, ancient ruins, art, architecture, people, villas, and gardens — civic and domestic, humble to grand, things of interested to his designer’s eye— taking the time to see carefully. Rome in its seasons, agriculture in Umbria and Tuscany, trees, food, and fountains, all are noted over the years in watercolour or pen and ink. Originally made in the personal pleasure of merely being there as well as self-education, this selection from many sketchbooks and drawings is accompanied with introductory notes and remarks for different regions including Rome, Turin, Venice, Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, Campania, and Sicily.
October 21, 1982. Three singers stand on the steps of the High Court with large cheques and broken dreams. The women are Annie (Annabel Leventon, the book’s author), GB (Gaye Brown), and Di-Di (Diane Langton). Their dream was of a British three-woman rock band, unique and different from anything that had gone before. They called themselves Rock Bottom. They were raunchy, rude and hilarious – the contemporary media described them as ‘a cross between the female Rolling Stones and the female Marx Brothers’ – and they nearly made it.
Until Thames Television stole everything and made a major award-winning series called Rock Follies, about them, based on them, but without them. It made stars of the three lookalikes playing them. And they lost everything.
A common enough tale of showbiz betrayal. Except that they fought back. At the offset of the Court trial, the Head of Drama at Thames TV sarcastically quipped, ‘three little actresses against the might of EMI?’ Forget it, the three ladies were told. Move on. They didn’t. They took the case to the High Court and won. Breach of Confidence is now on the Statute Books and it has become one of the defining cases in Intellectual Property.
The Real Rock Follies is a real-life story of youthful trust betrayed, dreams of stardom dashed and cruel lessons learnt. The three girls, then in their late twenties, learned too late that in the harsh showbiz world you can hardly trust anyone, not even your friends. However, despite everything, they got the last laugh. Their promising career couldn’t be returned to them but they enjoyed the huge satisfaction (both emotional and financial) that the ruling confirmed that the creative concept behind Rock Follies was fully theirs.
Each tarot card is an invitation to explore a new world, and perspective. In this deck the reader not only explores 78 Rider Waite Smith tarot cards, but also the evocative landscapes they each inhabit. Dream and fantasy surround every Arcanum with more parallels to our everyday life than we can imagine. The RWS deck is complemented by a comprehensive manual providing guidance for tarot readers, old and new, as well as instructions for how to read the Tarot Landscapes.
Honjok is the revolutionary philosophy that teaches us to appreciate our moments of solitude and help us transform our self-isolation into a new lifestyle. This book describes Honjok in all of its facets, among which honbap – eating alone, honsul – drinking alone and honnol – playing and spending time alone. The book is structured in short chapters where text, graphics and illustrations work as complementary narrative elements. Each chapter, identifiable by a specific colour, is self-contained and requires no cross-referencing. Readers are free to approach the book in whichever order they prefer with illustrations and infographics that allow them to interact with the book.
A Year in the Vineyard is a tribute to the cycle of the vine. From winter pruning to vine leaves capturing the energy of the late autumn sun, the narrative is spun through vignettes about activities in vineyards around the globe, accompanied by photographs and background paintings. The book honours seasonal rhythms and rituals without glossing over potential risks, such as hail piercing acres of nascent chardonnay in Champagne or wildfires in the Napa Valley. The hope is that each spread captures a gesture, a step in a dance with the natural world, thus providing an experiential understanding of the axiom ‘wine is made in the vineyard’ and of the notion that fine wines are achieved in tandem with nature, not through triumph over the elements. It also shows wine growers as operating on the front line of the climate crisis, posing questions and offering potential remedies in response to the earth’s changing ecology.
Often referred to as Canada’s ‘Evergreen Playground’ Vancouver is a unique and breathtakingly beautiful city nestled between the ocean, mountains and forests. Its pristine fresh surroundings and mild laid back climate has always attracted artists, writers, thinkers and tinkers, and dreamers of every variety; over time they have left their indelible creative mark on this relatively young city. The outcome is a treasure trove of hidden sculptures, secret tree forts, quirky coffee shops, undiscovered galleries, eclectic stores, totem poles and bike lanes that wind around floatplanes and houseboats. From the glistening new glass and chrome towers of Downtown, to the worn cobblestone streets of Gastown, and the red pagodas of Chinatown, each neighbourhood in the city contributes to a rich cultural mosaic. Diversity is not only celebrated in Vancouver, but it’s as widespread as the city’s frequent rain showers. Just as the seawall, which winds its way around Vancouver’s iconic Stanley Park presents a new and fresh attraction around every corner, 111 Places Vancouver puts you on a path to discover new insights and perspectives on Canada’s beloved west coast gem.
“It is difficult to leaf through this book without saying ‘wow’ over and over, which means this is definitely top of the Christmas reading list.” – Embroidery Magazine
“For anyone involved with textile arts, fashion, design, or art—from makers to collectors, from students to museum curators—this book is an absolute must-have. A feast for the eyes, a source of inspiration, and a reminder of how art, craft, and imagination are intertwined.” — NL Magazine
Stephen Ellcock’s Book of Textiles is a unique collaboration between bestselling author Stephen Ellcock and textile expert Karun Thakar. Together, they share an inspiring vision of the world through the medium of textiles, leading the reader on a journey into the splendours of nature and the infinite complexities of the human condition.
A social-media sensation, Ellcock is widely known for his online curation of artworks, while Thakar owns one of the world’s most important and varied textile collections. Through a spellbinding selection of more than 200 of the most significant, extraordinary and distinctive pieces in Thakar’s collection, these pages cover everything from fashion, costume and adornment to pattern and design, rituals and magic, pure abstraction and the sublime.
Combining Ellcock’s singular vision with Thakar’s expert eye, Stephen Ellcock’s Book of Textiles is a ground-breaking compendium of wonders and a must-read for anybody with an interest in art and visual culture, as well as textile devotees, experts and enthusiasts.
In 1872 the most famous cultural critic in Britain moved into a dilapidated cottage in the heart of England’s Lake District and swapped his pen for a billhook. John Ruskin’s arrival in a landscape already steeped in agricultural history began an evolution that led to the extraordinary gardens at Brantwood today.
Ruskin’s own gardens reflected his empathy with plants and the natural world, as well as his interests in Dante’s poetry and Renaissance painting. His Moorland Garden is one of the very first wilderness gardens, and his Zig-zaggy a surprising allegory of redemption.
Ruskin’s cousin and carer, Joan Severn, created some of the earliest gardens in the naturalistic style of William Robinson.
These fascinating and beautiful gardens were neglected for decades after Severn’s death but have been brought back to life by Sally Beamish.
In this beautifully illustrated and comprehensive guide, eminent plant scientist, botanist and horticulturist David Ingram traces the history of the gardens.
This book presents the richness, diversity and strength of the work of the most famous street art artist in the world… and yet nobody knows his identity. We are invited to follow the evolution of the artist from England to the United States, France, Israel and the Ukraine, and through more than a hundred emblematic works, all explained. This is the original Catalog Raisonné of the Banksy Museum, in which all these works are reproduced in their urban contexts, allowing the general public to discover them in a realistic way and to grasp their strength, including those that have been stolen or defaced and no longer exist.
The Bayeux Tapestry is impressive in its initial richness and, almost a thousand years after it was made, miraculously preserved. Entirely needle-embroidered in coloured woolen threads, it recounts the conquest of the Kingdom of England by Duke William of Normandy. The universal significance of this secular masterpiece from the eleventh century has earned it a place on UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” register. This beautiful book unfolds the whole work with accompanying detailed commentaries. It provides an update on current research, bringing together two erudite points of view from both sides of the Channel.
Once brewed throughout Asia, sake has come to be inextricably linked with Japanese culture, tradition and society. In Sake and the Wines of Japan, Anthony Rose argues that, after decades in the doldrums, sake is well on its way to becoming the next big thing. Neither a wine nor a spirit, sake’s purity, centuries-old brewing methods and umami taste have gained it fans among the sort of younger drinkers who sparked the revolution in craft beers and artisan spirits. A return to quality, plus the modern outlook of today’s generation of sake makers is opening up sake, particularly premium sake, to the world. Exports have increased and sake breweries, some artisan, some offshoots of big Japanese names, have sprung up in destinations as far flung as Oregon and Australia, not forgetting England.
To demonstrate how deeply woven into Japanese society this drink is, Rose first takes us through the history of sake production, from offerings to the gods made from rice chewed by priestesses, to the heyday of sake, when master craftsmen – tōjis – were instrumental in a brewery’s success or failure, to sake’s new wave, epitomized by Berlin techno DJ Richie Hawtin, founder of ENTER.Sake. Rose then details sake types, demystifies polishing ratios, explores the issues around ageing sake and discusses how best to enjoy sake. The four basic ingredients – rice, kōji (rice mould), yeast and water – are introduced ahead of a thorough explanation of the brewing process. Rose profiles a personal selection of sake producers and ends the sake section with a chapter on sake producers outside Japan.
Japan’s wine industry is small and young but improving rapidly; here some of the best exponents are profiled alongside a history of wine production in Japan and details of grape varieties used. Sake and the wines of Japan ends with a guide to Japan, making it an essential tool for all those seeking a way into this enigmatic and enticing culture.
Great Britain is a premium wine-producing region, with around 650 vineyards in England and Wales covering some 2,750 hectares and producing sparkling and still wines. English and Welsh wines have won many prestigious awards recently and Stephen Skelton is the leading authority on the wines of the UK.
The Wines of Great Britain is a comprehensive survey of the history of UK wines, as well as of the current state of the wine industry and its future prospects. After a short introduction showing where UK wine is in 2019 and where it might go in the future Skelton considers the history of winemaking in the UK from King Alfred in the fifth century, through the medieval period to recent developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Wines of Great Britain then takes us on a tour of contemporary viticulture and winemaking, examining trends in plantings and vineyard layout, varieties, rootstocks and clones, vineyard sizes, modern wineries and styles of wine. Skelton considers regional identities as well as the branding of UK sparkling wines and their market position.
A substantial part of this important book is the 21 detailed biographies of the most important, exciting and innovative producers and the wines they create. Wine businesses profiled in detail include Breaky Bottom, Chapel Down, Nyetimber, Oxney Organic Estate, Sixteen Ridges Vineyard and Yorkshire Heart Vineyard. Shorter entries on other significant or up and coming producers also feature.