The art of pleasure: An erotic history of humanity From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age--whether the Egyptian, Greek, or Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas, or Picasso--have succumbed to their fantasies, obsessions, and libido, and produced erotic works that the censors have taken good care to keep from the public. For Erotica Universalis, we surface from the subterranean realms of the museums to enter those of our national and private libraries. Here we discover that not only most of our famous writers,...

Gold, flowers, and female beauty: The work of the decadent Austrian symbolist The unfading popularity ofGustav Klimt (1862 1918)attests not only to the particular appeal of his luxuriant painting but also to the universal themes with which he worked: love, feminine beauty, aging, anddeath.The son of a goldsmith, Klimt created surfaces of ornate and jewel-like luminosity which show influence of both Egyptian and Japanese art. Through paintings, murals, and friezes, his work is defined byradiant color, fluid lines, floral elements, and mosaic-like patterning.With a number of subjects dealing...

Lobsters and lunacy: The zaniest Surrealist of them all Painter, sculptor, writer, film maker, and all-round showmanSalvador Dali (1904 1989)was one of thetwentieth century s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights ofFreudian psychoanalysisto art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as themelting clockorlobster telephonenow hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general.Dali frequently described his paintings as hand painted dream photographs. Their tantalizing tension and interest...

A fresh look: Pivotal paintings of modernityLampooned during his lifetime for his style as much as his subject matter, French painterEdouard Manet (1832 1883) is now considered a crucial figure in the history of art, bridging the transition from Realism to Impressionism.Manet s work combined a painterly technique with strikingly modern images of contemporary life, centered on the urban Paris experience. He recorded the city s parks, bars, and cabarets, often delighting in the frisson of underground or provocative content. The Paris salon rejected his Dejeuner sur l herbe with its...

Renaissance man in extremis
Michelangelo, in pursuit of the beautiful and sublime

Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply Il...

Painting with scissors
How Matisse bowed out in a riot of colorful shapes and patterns

Henri Matisse (1869 1954) was a fighting spirit. Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941, increasing frailty and the confines of a wheelchair, the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art. With what he called une seconde vie, a second life, he embarked on a remarkable collage period, cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into gouaches decoupees of birds, plants, flowers, and the female form.

Painting with scissors
How Matisse bowed out in a riot of colorful shapes and patterns

Henri Matisse

A painter of dramatic battles as much as erotic mythologies, Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a key figure in the 16th-century art world and a flag bearer for Baroque color, motion, and sensuality. His prolific oeuvre includes altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, historical paintings, as well as his famous, bountiful nudes.