AVAILABLE JUNE 2012
96 pages, 260 x 216 mm, paperback, 50 colour illus.
PRICE: £16.99
ISBN: 978 1 9007372 37 7
Accompanying a major exhibition at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, this book examines the innate human desire to transcend the limitations of physiology and gravity – and to fly. Through an intriguing combination of paintings, sculpture, photographs, drawings, prints and video, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, José Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Paul Nash, Peter Lanyon and Hiraki Sawa, the reader will be provided with a unique overview of artists' creative responses to flight, from the earliest imaginings to an era in which space travel has allowed us to glimpse other worlds.
For centuries before the modern era people imagined how to go beyond the boundaries imposed by physiology and gravity and take to the air. Myths in every culture have described the overcoming of these physical restrictions as supernatural events because the upper air was the realm of the gods. For the same reason, humans who attempted to trespass on that domain were cast down; only those chosen by the divine will would stay aloft. Flying was thus associated with the sublime because it transcended the limitations of earthly existence.
In the modern era, however, flying has become an everyday occurrence and the sense of mystery has been largely forgotten. But once humans finally got airborne, and before flying became a routine phenomenon of mass transit, there was a time when the development of aviation and the experience of flight had a significant impact on artistic practice. Arguably, the same tropes of triumph and disaster that animated the ancient myths of human flight inform the creative responses to the conquest of the air, celebrating pioneers from Bleriot to Gargarin whose exploits conquered gravity and similarly mourning those who dared but died in the attempt.
Beyond the artistic response to aviation history lies the artist's use of flight as a creative resource. Probably the most profound aspect of this was the recalibration of space in painting, with the ground plane, the horizon and perspective itself all thrown into doubt when representing the aerial world. Likewise, the familiar terrains that had been the stock in trade of landscape for hundreds of years were reconstituted to offer entirely new vistas when seen from above.
Sam Smiles is Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Plymouth and Tate Research Fellow 2009–12.
Accompanies the exhibition Flight and the Artistic Imagination at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 29 June – 30 September 2012
Born in 1926, Peter Coker was elected RA in 1972; his substantial output of acknowledged work was recently commemorated in a catalogue raisonné. Since a stroke in 1990 his work has been severely impaired, but the chance discovery of some earlier drawings sparked this ‘explosion of creativity’, consisting of mixed media works, large oil paintings, lithographs and a series of etchings, The Parisian Suite. More
Remembering Forward presents works by nine of the most prominent Australian Aboriginal artists: Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Queenie McKenzie, Dorothy Napangardi, Rover Thomas, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. More
Best known for a dramatic, layered and visionary urban imagery, Richard Walker (born 1954) is a painter, printmaker and photographer. This unique book is both a kind of autobiography – compiled and written by himself – and a selective catalogue of his work, past and present. More
Art in the Age of Terrorism tackles one of the most difficult topics imaginable - a war that is quintessentially postmodern in its decentred identity, globalized character and confused conflict of cultures. In this book both artists and arts theorists explore in a series of essays the various ways in which art can help articulate the zone of grey that lies behind the black and white term 'terrorism'. More
n the Grand Canyon and on the icy flanks of Mount Everest, deep in rainforests and deserts, under water and at the mouths of live volcanoes – Tony Foster paints his expansive watercolours at the edges of the world. Presented here with personal accounts of his journeys, they are an exultant testament to the power of art and the richness and fragility of our planet. More
Greg Tricker is a stone carver and painter. His profound and simple style of painting is deeply rooted in a mystical tradition of art. Qualities of myth, an innocence of spirit akin to the folk art tradition and a powerfully theatrical element feature in his work. This inspiring collection of over 50 of his paintings and stone carvings portrays the suffering, joy and innocence of St Bernadette, a poor shepherdess who had miraculous visitations from the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in 1858. More
Makoure Scott is a young New Zealand artist who is rapidly establishing an international reputation. This, his first book, presents a selection of his work today, featuring in particular his Synapse series, in which primary geometric forms 'synapse' in various crossroads, intersections and parallels mirroring the tension and fusion of nature and spirit. Via strong geometric forms Arohanui attempts to capture the principles of the Maori spiritual term arohanui, its intersection with colonial beliefs and the resulting tension. Dream Waka presents a series of textural winter northland landscapes, attempting to capture the various cultura parallels of Maori and Pekeha influences. More
Accompanying a unique exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, of the work of Nicolas Poussin and Cy Twombly, who sadly died on 5 July this year, this book is "so unusual and its theme so enduringly relevant, especially now, that it truly should not be missed" (The Spectator). More