Presents an interactive history of the human imagination, separated by the seven stages of alchemical process, encouraging readers to question their understanding of life and the way in which imagination is quantified.

Open this book & step into an alternative world full of compelling images, historical tidbits, & challenges to common myths. Peruse these seven halls: Calcinatio, The Hall of Technology; Solutio, the Hall of Aquaria; Coagulatio, the Zoological Garden; Sublimatio, The Observatory; Mortificatio, The Mausoleum of History; Separatio, The Laboratory of Science & Faith; & Conjunctio, The Gallery to the Arts. Hoke blends his knowledge of science & art with his studies of 14th-cent. alchemy & the origins of philosophy & scientific theory, creating exhibits in his ¿museum: that dazzle the imagination. These magnificent illustrations return us to an era where the physician was also the magician, & the astronomer the astrologer. Includes seven paper do-it-yourself models.

True tales of lost art, built around case studies of famous works, their creators, and stories of disappearance and recovery From the bestselling author of The Art of Forgery comes this dynamic narrative that tells the fascinating stories of artworks stolen, looted, or destroyed in war, accidentally demolished or discarded, lost at sea or in natural disasters, or attacked by iconoclasts or vandals; works that were intentionally temporal, knowingly destroyed by the artists themselves or their patrons, covered over with paint or plaster, or recycled for their materials. An exciting read that spans the centuries and the continents.

"Twelve-year-old Will Wilder is back to protect the town of Perilous Falls from another ancient evil--the fearsome demon, Amon"--

“In the fall, I went for walks and brought home bones. The best bones weren’t on trails—deer and moose don’t die conveniently—and soon I was wandering so far into the woods that I needed a map and compass to find my way home. When winter came and snow blew into the mountains, burying the bones, I continued to spend my days and often my nights in the woods. I vaguely understood that I was doing this because I could no longer think; I found relief in walking up hills. When the night temperatures dropped below zero, I felt visited by necessity, a baseline purpose, and I walked for miles, my only objective to remain upright, keep moving, preserve warmth. When I was lost, I told myself stories . . .” So Charles D’Ambrosio recounted his life in Philipsburg, Montana, the genesis of the brilliant stories collected here, six of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Each of these eight burnished, terrifying, masterfully crafted stories is set against a landscape that is both deeply American and unmistakably universal. A son confronts his father’s madness and his own hunger for connection on a misguided hike in the Pacific Northwest. A screenwriter fights for his sanity in the bleak corridors of a Manhattan psych ward while lusting after a ballerina who sets herself ablaze. A Thanksgiving hunting trip in Northern Michigan becomes the scene of a haunting reckoning with marital infidelity and desperation. And in the magnificent title story, carpenters building sets for a porn movie drift dreamily beneath a surface of sexual tension toward a racial violence they will never fully comprehend. Taking place in remote cabins, asylums, Indian reservations, the backloads of Iowa and the streets of Seattle, this collection of stories, as muscular and challenging as the best novels, is about people who have been orphaned, who have lost connection, and who have exhausted the ability to generate meaning in their lives. Yet in the midst of lacerating difficulty, the sensibility at work in these fictions boldly insists on the enduring power of love. D’Ambrosio conjures a world that is fearfully inhospitable, darkly humorous, and touched by glory; here are characters, tested by every kind of failure, who struggle to remain human, whose lives have been sharpened rather than numbed by adversity, whose apprehension of truth and beauty has been deepened rather than defeated by their troubles. Many writers speak of the abyss. Charles D’Ambrosio writes as if he is inside of it, gazing upward, and the gaze itself is redemptive, a great yearning ache, poignant and wondrous, equal parts grit and grace. A must read for everyone who cares about literary writing, The Dead Fish Museum belongs on the same shelf with the best American short fiction.

A visually stunning seek-and-find museum adventure for inquisitive kids. Seven-year-old Stevie is lost in the galleries! She needs to locate a series of artworks to find her way out and back to her family. Can you help her? Follow Stevie as she explores the most exciting and intriguing galleries and exhibitions inside The Met in this beautifully illustrated seek-and-find adventure! As Stevie moves through The Met's galleries of Greek and Roman art, Ancient Egypt, and Modern and Contemporary art, learn about the rarest and most beautiful objects found in the museum's prestigious galleries. Who can you find? What will you discover? © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Metaphor, which allows us to talk about things by comparing them to other things, is one of the most ubiquitous and adaptable features of language and thought. It allows us to clarify meaning, yet also evaluate and transform the ways we think, create and act. While we are alert to metaphor in spoken or written texts, it has, within the visual arts, been critically overlooked. Taking into consideration how metaphors are inventively embodied in the formal, technical, and stylistic aspects of visual artworks, Mark Staff Brandl shows how extensively artists rely on creative metaphor within their work. Exploring the work of a broad variety of artists – including Dawoud Bey, Dan Ramirez, Gaëlle Villedary, Raoul Deal, Sonya Clark, Titus Kaphar, Charles Boetschi, and more– he argues that metaphors are the foundation of visual thought, are chiefly determined by bodily and environmental experiences, and are embodied in artistic form. Visual artistic creation is philosophical thought. By grounding these arguments in the work of philosophers and cultural theorists, including Noël Carroll, Hans Georg Gadamer, and George Lakoff, Brandl shows how important metaphor is to understanding contemporary art. A Philosophy of Visual Metaphor in Contemporary Art takes a neglected feature of the visual arts and shows us what a vital role it plays within them. Bridging theory and practice, and drawing upon a capacious array of examples, this book is essential reading for art historians and practitioners, as well as analytic philosophers working in aesthetics and meaning.