Taschen Basic Art Series

Discover how scenes of daily life and delicate dabs of color shocked the art world establishment. In this TASCHEN Basic Art introduction to Impressionism, we explore the artists, subjects, and techniques that first brought the eas…

William Morris (1834-1896) was one of the greatest creative figures of the 19th century. As a visionary designer, as well as a manufacturer, writer, artist, and socialist activist, he pioneered the Arts and Crafts movement of the …

One of the leading lights of the Impressionist movement, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) remains a towering figure in art history with enduring public appeal. Sun-kissed, charming, and sensual, his work shows painting at its mos…

Most commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, …

From impossible staircases to tesselated birds, Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) crafted a unique graphic language of patterns, puzzles, and mathematics. Dense, complex, and structured by intricate principles, his work is at t…

While some architects have a signature style, Renzo Piano seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His buildings impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of scale, material, an…

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of the Italian Baroque, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial, violent in temper, precise in technique, a creativ…

There are over 1,000 catalogued works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the 16th-century flag bearer for Baroque drama, movement, and sensuality. This essential introduction takes in the most important works from this astonish…

A hairless, ghostly figure on a bridge. The sky orange-red above him. His hands raised to his ears, his mouth wide in a haunting wail. In painting The Scream, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) created Mona Lisa for our times. The shriek of…

From court portraits for the Spanish royals to horrific scenes of conflict and suffering, Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) made a mark as one of Spain's most revered and controversial artists. A master of form and li…

American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era. With his ground…

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was not cut out for finance. Nor did he last particularly long in the French Navy, or as a tarpaulin salesman in Copenhagen who did not speak Danish. He began painting in his spare time in 1873 and in 1876…

The creative duo Charles Eames (1907-1978) and Ray Kaiser Eames (1912-1988) transformed the visual character of America. Though best known for their furniture, the husband and wife team were also forerunners in architecture, texti…

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world," ukiyo-e was a particular woodblock print genre of art that flourished between the 17th a…

Filling notebook after notebook with sketches, inventions, and theories, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) not only stands as one of the most exceptional draftsmen of art history, but also as a mastermind and innovator who anticipated…

With a career spanning seven decades, Catalan-born Joan Miro (1893-1983) was a polymath giant of modern art, producing masterworks across painting, sculpture, art books, tapestry, and ceramics, and embracing ideologies as varied a…

Scottish architect, designer, and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was one of the earliest pioneers of modern architecture and design. While he did not receive much recognition in his hometown of Glasgow during his li…

An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag "SAMO," before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barel…

Religion, Renaissance, and Reformation-these three ideologies shaped the world of 16th-century portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543), a pivotal figure of the Northern Renaissance, whose skills took him to Switzerland…

Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and all-round showman Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the 20th century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis …

In our imaginings of Paris, painter and graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) has no small role to play. In his prints, posters, paintings, and drawings, the artist immortalized the city's Belle Epoque nightlife and…

From the towering Sagrada Familia to the shimmering, textured facade of Casa Batllo and the enchanting landscape of Park Guell, it's easy to see why Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) gained the epithet "God's architect." With fluid forms a…

The work of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) reflects an ongoing belief in the power of brilliant colors and simple forms. Though famed in particular for his paintings, Matisse also worked with drawing, sculpture, lithography, stained gl…

Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite winning critical acclaim. Some even said her audacious, futuristic designs were unbuildable. During the latter years of her life, Hadid's d…

Poets and intellectuals brushed shoulders in bustling coffeehouses, young avant-gardists heralded a new era in social and sexual liberalism, waltzes resounded through the Ringstrasse, the Vienna Secession preached: "To every age i…

The beauty of nature and man's loneliness are dominant themes in the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). The artist often places a small human figure in a broad landscape, as in his famous paintings Monk by the Sea and The…

From the Land of the Pharaohs. The finest treasures from Ancient Egypt. The art of ancient Egypt that has been handed down to us bears no names of its creators, and yet we value the creations of these unknown masters no less than …

Inspired by the development of Cubism, the Futurist movement was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, along with painters Giacomo Balla. Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, and Gino Severini. The school, which celebrated techn…

Diego Rivera (1886-1957) is a loud presence on the art historical stage. With devout political principles and a turbulent romantic history, he was at once husband and paladin of Frida Kahlo, advocate and adversary of Stalin's Sovi…

Surreptitious messages, concealed myths, and historical truths lie hidden in the great works of the Italian Renaissance, behind heavy gold leaf and religious symbology. Although often obscured by the archaic language of historical…