Portraits Nudes Flowers is a collection of photographs by Lima-born Mariano Vivanco (born 1975), one of the world's leading editorial and advertising photographers. It includes portraits of some of the world's most fashionable faces, including Cindy Crawford, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Naomi Campbell, Ricky Martin, Antonio Banderas, Emma Watson and Sam Smith, among many others. Nudes have been a component of Vivanco's photography since his early studies in Melbourne, Australia, most notably his Candice Swanepoel and David Gandy nudes, both of which are featured here. Flowers have also been a longstanding subject of Vivanco's photographic explorations, and this volume includes a never-before-seen series of Vivanco's flowers. With a fresh and unexpected take on these highly popular subjects, Vivanco unifies his collection of portraits, nudes and flowers in a contemporary fashion.

This English painter was a complete master of water-colour, this volume gathers together his finest male nude studies interspersed with gentle flower paintings.

One hundred of the world's foremost photographers and celebrities use flowers to express their fantasies, visions, and dreams in this extraordinarily beautiful collection of images. Author Walter Hubert, one of the foremost floral designers in Los Angeles, is the owner of Silver Birches. 100 color and b&w photos.

A gloriously illustrated examination of the origins and development of the nude as an artistic subject in Renaissance Europe Reflecting an era when Europe looked to both the classical past and a global future, this volume explores the emergence and acceptance of the nude as an artistic subject. It engages with the numerous and complex connotations of the human body in more than 250 artworks by the greatest masters of the Renaissance. Paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, and book illustrations reveal private, sometimes shocking, preoccupations as well as surprising public beliefs—the Age of Humanism from an entirely new perspective. This book presents works by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and Martin Schongauer in the north and Donatello, Raphael, and Giorgione in the south; it also introduces names that deserve to be known better. A publication this rich in scholarship could only be produced by a variety of expert scholars; the sixteen contributors are preeminent in their fields and wide-ranging in their knowledge and curiosity. The structure of the volume—essays alternating with shorter texts on individual artworks—permits studies both broad and granular. From the religious to the magical and the poetic to the erotic, encompassing male and female, infancy, youth, and old age, The Renaissance Nude examines in a profound way what it is to be human.

As intimate and meticulous as his revered portraits, Lucian Freud's magnificent paintings and drawings of plant life are gathered for the first time in book form. Lucian Freud's portraits are known for their spectacular detail and unflinching gaze. Although Freud brought the same qualities to his paintings and drawings of plants, flowers, and landscapes, these are largely unknown. This elegant book shows how working with plants emboldened Freud to experiment with style and composition. Reproduced in sumptuous plates that allow readers to indulge in exquisite detail, seventy-five works--including Two Plants, Bananas, Cyclamen, The Painter's Garden, and Interior at Paddington--reveal Freud's singular approach to plant life. Readers unfamiliar with this aspect of Freud's work will find many similarities to his portraits--earthy palettes, unconventional rawness, and assiduous attention to detail. From the delicate realism of the cyclamens' petals to the bold brushstrokes that immortalize his overgrown garden, readers will appreciate Freud's ability to portray plants in new and personal ways. Comparative illustrations from throughout art history accompany essays on the history of plants in art and an appreciation of Freud's oeuvre. This monograph is a tremendous contribution to Freud's legacy, one that will enrich his admirers' discernment while also introducing his thoroughly original depictions of plants to a new audience.

A book of photographs about contemporary Belarus by Andrew Miksys. Andrew Miksys began traveling regularly to Belarus in 2009 to photograph Victory Day, a holiday celebrating the Soviet victory over fascism and Nazi Germany. During the celebrations, tractors, military equipment, and factory workers parade through the streets. A vintage USSR flag flies on a radio tower over Minsk. At a military-themed park named Stalin Line, there is a new statue of Stalin, and World War II battles are reenacted by men dressed in Soviet and Nazi uniforms. Red tulips, a symbol of spring and rejuvenation in the USSR, fill the streets and are given to war veterans as a way of thanking them for their service. It can be disorienting. You might even feel like you are traveling back in time.The photographer soon discovered that other Soviet-style holidays, like October Revolution Day and Day of the Fatherland's Defenders, are also observed in Belarus. He returned year after year to photograph them. The holidays, though, were more of a backdrop to his project, a way of following the path of national culture while looking for something more personal. He often wandered off the official trail in an effort to seek more intimacy and understanding of a world that should be part of the past but is stubbornly resilient in the present.