Frank Milner Boeken

Matisse, the bard of colour, and Picasso, the breaker of moulds: together, these two giants shaped the world of modern art. They were, as Picasso once said, "North Pole, South Pole." The work of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is a sensous hymn to colour, that wild yet subtle colour which he tamed, mastered and managed, and which expressed his feelings towards women and the world. Colour was the tool with which he controlled line, arabesque, volume, light transparency, reflection and space, and though he did not shrink from pushing his creativity to the verge of abstraction, he never succumbed to it entirely. It was an approach well noted by America's Abstract Expressionists. This new and carefully conceived freedom marked not only the extraordinary significance of the painter and sculptor Matisse in the history of modern art, but also his influence, which was no less decisive than that of his main rival, Pablo Picasso. In fact, Matisse's stylistic liberation actually goes one step further in the pursuit of his own personal goal - the perfect synthesis of line and colour - by which he sought revolutionary approaches to the great tradition of French painting by drawing upon its classical aspects.

With prints ranging from the 1860s through the 1920s, Claude Manes nearly seventy years of productivity are fully represented to confirm his artistic eminence as one of the founders of Impressionism. A total of sixty works from each stage of his career ore seen in striking prints. A fascinating introduction reveals the Parisian life and Monet's influences, including the Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige which led to the design of his own famous garden.

Art historian, Frank Milner introduces 60 of Van Gogh's most characteristic works in this stunningly illustrated volume.

Frida Kahlo, with over 80 large-scale full-color plates, illustrates the full range of this vibrant artist's work, from the extraordinary series of self-portraits which she painted over more than 20 years, to those more disturbing and cerebral works which were hailed by her contemporaries as Surrealist. Art historian Frank Milner traces the potent mixture of personal history, cultural inheritance, political commitment and sheer self-conscious myth-making that permeates Kahlo's work, and argues that any attempt to subsume her painting within a particular tradition is doomed to a unique artistic phenomenon.