When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that yields masterpieces early in their lives? By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity. Using a wide range of evidence, David Galenson demonstrates that there are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and that each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over a lifetime. Experimental innovators work by trial and error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. In contrast, conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas, usually at an early age. Galenson shows why such artists as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters, and why Vermeer, van Gogh, Picasso, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses. He also explains how this changes our understanding of art and its past. Experimental innovators seek, and conceptual innovators find. By illuminating the differences between them, this pioneering book provides vivid new insights into the mysterious processes of human creativity.

Serious visual artists can now easily understand and apply the secret geometry that masters used to create remarkable art. Superior mathematical skills aren’t required because there are hundreds of excellent step-by-step diagrams to explain everything with simplicity. Learn how the ancient and modern masters used dynamic symmetry to promote unity, movement, rhythm, and strength. These qualities, along with many others, allowed their art to have visual clarity, impact, and stand the test of time. This is an essential book for painters, photographers, sculptors, and cinematographers that hold composition and design with a high priority. For far too long, artists have been stuck with the basic tools of artistic composition, like the rule of thirds and leading lines. Unfortunately, we’re incapable of reaching the master level if all we know are the basics. Powerful tools like dynamic symmetry and other composition techniques have been kept a secret from all of us. It’s time to learn of them, push past any plateau that stands in our way, and finally unlock our true potential!

"The famous proclamation that Cezanne “is the father of us all” has been attributed to both Matisse and Picasso, and his influence has extended to a great diversity of artists thereafter. In this monumental book, a team of distinguished scholars offers the most comprehensive view to date on Cezanne’s vital role in shaping European and American art throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. More than forty paintings and ten works on paper by Cezanne—many of his best-known and most admired—are juxtaposed throughout the catalogue with approximately 120 works by a range of modern and contemporary artists who found in Cezanne a central inspiration. They include Max Beckmann, Georges Braque, Charles Demuth, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Fernand Leger, Brice Marden, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi, Liubov Popova, and Jeff Wall, as well as Picasso, Matisse, Johns, and Kelly. The essays offer insights into the “conversation” between Cezanne and each of these other artists, who stand on a par with his greatness. Among its many features, this book contains conceptual overviews by Richard Shiff and Robert Storr as well as an illustrated chronology." -- Publisher description.

Hailed by both Matisse and Picasso as "the father of us all," Paul Cézanne bridged 19th-century Impressionism and the radically different world of 20th-century art. These excellent illustrations allow colorists to "paint" Cézanne's most famous creations, including Leda and the Swan, Still Life with Apples and Peaches, Boy in a Red Waistcoat, Mont Sainte-Victoire, and many others.

A wildly entertaining and surprisingly educational dive into art history as you've never seen it before, from the host of the beloved ArtCurious podcast We're all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dorm-room posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh's suicide, you may not be aware that there's pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn't die by his own hand but was accidentally killed--or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol's most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy's moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? ArtCurious is a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories behind the world's great artists and masterpieces. Through these and other incredible, weird, and wonderful tales, ArtCurious presents an engaging look at why art history is, and continues to be, a riveting and relevant world to explore.

An inspiring picture book biography of the artist Paul Cezanne, the painter who laid the groundwork for modern art and whom Pablo Picasso declared "the father of us all." All Cezanne wants is to be a great painter like his friends Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir. But when he shows his works, the professors, the critics, and the collectors all dismiss him: "Too flat!" "Too much paint!" "These are rough and unfinished!" Even his own pet parrot, Bisou, can't be brought to say, "Cezanne is a great painter!" And who can blame them? Cezanne doesn't care about tradition, and he doesn't follow the rules. He's painting in a way no one else has done before, creating something completely new--and he's destined to change the world of art forever. Cezanne's Parrot is a spirited celebration of creativity, determination, and perseverance--and the artist who would become known as the father of modern art.