One of the world's most beautiful cities is pictured here through the eyes of one of the world's best-loved artists. J.M.W. Turner's translucent, atmospheric paintings and watercolors of Venice have long been celebrated as among the most extraordinary creations of this popular artist's later career. Few other artists have responded with such imaginative inventiveness to the magical combination of water, light, and architecture that is Venice. This beautifully produced book, which accompanies a traveling exhibition that comes to the Kimbell Art Museum this spring, features the largest selection of Turner's paintings and watercolors of Venice ever published, some reproduced for the first time. The texts include contributions by travel writer Jan Morris and historian David Laven, who bring their perspective to the city as it was when visited by Britain's greatest painter.

Join Turner (1775-1851) as he progresses through the city, beginning at St. Mark's Basilica with the campanile towering above and the coral-colored exterior of the Doge's Palace. Drift onward toward the Bridge of Sighs and take a detour past the Hotel Europa, where Turner preferred to stay. Travel onward past the Giardini Reali, the Punta della Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute on your way to San Giorgio Maggiore and the Accademia. Drift away from the bustling markets around the Rialto on the Grand Canal heading toward the Frari and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, taking in the inspirations for Venetian masters such as Tintoretto and Veronese.

JMW Turner is one of the greatest artists Britain has ever produced. His watercolours, with their extraordinary effects of shifting light and dramatic skyscapes, are especially highly regarded. For the first time, the secrets of Turner's technique are revealed, allowing present-day watercolourists to learn from his achievements.This book combines unrivalled knowledge of Turner's working methods from Tate curators and conservators with practical advice from some of the world's most respected watercolour experts. Twenty-two thematic exercises are illustrated with Turner's works. Expert contemporary watercolourists explain, step-by-step, how to paint a similar composition, learning from Turner's techniques. Packed with invaluable information, from the materials Turner used to achieve the masterpieces we know and love today, to the modern materials the twenty-first-century watercolour artist will need.Backed by the authority of Tate, the world centre for Turner scholarship, with a glossary of technical terms, this is an invaluable resource both for lovers of Turner's art and of watercolour painting.

In these brilliantly realized, linked tales, the real Venice is revealed – not the iconic tourist destination the city has become, but the mysterious society that resides behind its elegant doors and shuttered windows. With a sly and affectionate delicacy, Jane Turner Rylands, an American expatriate who has lived in Venice for thirty years, portrays a dozen Venetians– a construction foreman, a countess, a gondolier, a postman, an architect, a Baronessa, an English lord – as they pursue their respective interests. And in turn, through the perspective of those who live and work in this most alluring of cities, Venetian Stories illuminates canals and palazzos, churches and gondolas, large concerns and small rituals, with an uncommon intimacy.

Extraordinarily inventive and enduringly influential, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) produced his most important and famous pictures after the age of sixty, in the last fifteen years of his life. Demonstrating ongoing radicalism of technique and ever-original subject matter, these works show Turner constantly challenging his contemporaries while remaining keenly aware of the market for his art. Bringing together over sixty key oil paintings and watercolors, this major international loan exhibition is the first to focus on the unfettered creativity of Turner's final years.

A trio of short pieces on two cities of eternal magic, Venice and Rome. Iconic French novelist, playwright, and essayist Jean-Paul Sartre is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his work has remained relevant and thought-provoking through the decades. The Seagull Sartre Library now presents some of his most incisive philosophical, cultural, and literary critical essays in twelve newly designed and affordable editions. "Venice speaks to us; this false witness's voice, shrill at times, whispering at others, broken by silences, is its voice." In these three moving short pieces, we discover Sartre as a master stylist, lyrically describing his time in two bewitching eternal cities--Venice and Rome. "Antiquity," Sartre writes, "is alive in Rome, with a hate-filled, magical life."