Drawing on Freudian theories of sexuality and Kant's conception of the beautiful, French art historian Hubert Damisch considers artists as diverse as Raphael, Picasso, Watteau, and Manet to demonstrate that beauty has always been connected to ideas of sexual difference and pleasure. Damisch's tale begins with the judgment of Paris, in which Paris awards Venus the golden apple and thus forever links beauty with desire. The casting of this decision as a mistake—in which desire is rewarded over wisdom and strength—is then linked to theories of the unconscious and psychological drives. In his quest for an exposition of the beautiful in its relation to visual pleasure, Damisch employs what he terms “analytic iconology,” following the revisions and repetitions of the motif of the judgment through art history, philosophy, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis. This translation brings an important figure of the French art historical tradition to Anglo-American audiences.

The Judgement of Paris - the tale of the shepherd-prince who gave Venus the prize in a beaty competition - was variously treated by classical writers and became a favourite theme for artists. No painter seems to have responded to the ancient story with more intelligence and enthusiasm than Peter Paul Rubens, who devoted at least eight pictures to it. A Judgement of Paris marks every stage in Rubens' career, so that the present survey, which includes familiar and unfamiliar works, allows an insight into his entire artistic development. Since his illustrations of the subject were intended for a variety of contexts, this study also adresses many aspects of Rubens's practice and production, as well as touching on his later reputation. Rubens's response to the theme is also seen in relation to earlier literary and pictorial tradition. Paris's decision had set a problem for moralists - for his choice had led, indirectly, to the onset of the Trojan War. Some commentators held that the young man, who had two other goddesses to choose from, should have preferred Minerva, patron of learning, or at least had opted sensibly for wealth, in the person of Juno. Allegorical readings has some influence on the depiction and interpretation of the theme in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is shown how Rubens came to favour the Venetian artistic convention which focussed on the moment prior to Paris's decision, thus effectively rejecting the interpretation of the Judgement as a moral condemnation. Rubens came to see the myth as a universal image of the problem of choice. But also, more specifically, he seems to have associated Paris with the artist as arbiter of beauty - the final theme explored in this illuminating book.

CHILDREN ARE NOT TOYS. Robert knows this now but he didn't when his aunt played with him. He's an intelligent and successful man now . . . but something is missing, and he needs to know what and why. As a boy, he felt like an outsider. It was cold outside, lonely and hard to find someone who understood a boy who said: "When I grow up I want to be a woman." But he found someone. She was his best friend when she died, so it was cold outside again. Robert now has more money than he knows what to do with, and enough time to look for the answer to his prayers. Only, she needed a Dragon Slayer, so it was time to become a new man, whether he liked it or not. Time to go, Robert. You can always wear your shining armour over your tutu.

A fascinating exploration of the early work of the great Flemish master Rubens

This companion text to the author's Learning to Look at Paintings addresses some of the questions most commonly asked about modern art, covering key movements of the modern and postmodern periods in a richly illustrated and engaging volume.

Two allegorical ancient Greek stories about a young hero’s career- defining choice are shown in this book to have later been appropriated to radically differing effects. E.g. a male’s choice between female personifications can morph into a female’s choice between the same, or between various male personifications. Never before have so many instances of this process from art, literature, music, even landscape gardening, been culled. Illustrations, mainly colour, many brought into this context for the first time, are conveniently incorporated into the text, thus mimetically mirroring a central theme of the book, the process of ‘visualising the verbal, verbalising the visual.’

The six glorious scenes that make up the Triumph of the Eucharist series by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) are highlights of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s superb collection of Flemish paintings. Completed in 1626, these brilliantly detailed sketches were painted at the behest of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in preparation for a series of monumental tapestries that are now considered among the finest made in Europe in the seventeenth century. Unfortunately, additions to the wooden supports, introduced after the paintings were created, made the panels considerably larger than Rubens intended and over time caused serious damage to the original sections. With the aid of the Getty Foundation’s Panel Paintings Initiative, the panels have been restored and returned to their original dimensions by the Prado, and the magnificent oil sketches can once again be placed on public view. This lushly illustrated and illuminating volume provides new insight into the history of the Eucharist series of paintings and tapestries and attests to Rubens’s exhilarating art. Spectacular Rubens is published on the occasion of an exhibition of the paintings, on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado from March 25 through June 29, 2014, and at the J. Paul Getty Museum from October 14, 2014, through January 4, 2015.