The Whole World Company - France - Books

STORE SECTIONS

YOUR GUARANTEE

All products and services come with a 30-day return guarantee

Culture

Store > Browse by Country > Europe > France > Culture

	Cezanne Click picture to look inside Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) was the founding father of modern art, the grand master who pointed painting forward on its way from Impressionism to the 20th century. In Paris, but above all in Provence, Cézanne quested tirelessly for 'a harmony parallel to Nature' - discovering it in still lifes of apples, in bathers, or in the renowned landscapes of his beloved Montagne Sainte-Victoire. This book discusses this extraordinary artist's major works and his theories of painting and colour. Author: Ulrike Becks-Malorny Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822856428 Published: 2001 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Degas Click picture to look inside 'No art could be less spontaneous than mine. Inspiration, spontaneity, temperament are unknown to me. One has to do the same subject ten times, even a hundred times over. In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement' - Edgar Degas In terms of both theme and technique, the key to understanding the early work of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is classical painting. Although he was eventually associated with the Impressionists and even participated in their joint exhibitions, Degas never adopted a purely Impressionist approach. Degas' work, reflecting an extremely personal and psychological perspective, emphasizes the scenic or concentrates on the detail. Thus, Degas' painting is often discussed with reference to the rise of short-exposure photography. Thematically, nature proved less interesting to the artist than the life and inhabitants of the modern metropolis. Degas primarily sought his motifs in ballet salons, at the race track or circus, or in bedrooms - but dancers always remained his favorite theme. Author: Bernd Growe Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 382281136X Published: 2002 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Gauguin Click picture to look inside After starting a career as a bank broker, Paul Gauguin (born 1848) turned to painting only at age twenty-five. After initial successes within the Impressionist circle, he broke with Vincent van Gogh and subsequently, when private difficulties caused him to become restless, embarked on a peripatetic life, wandering first through Europe and finally, in the search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature, to Tahiti. The paintings created from this time to his death in 1903 brought him posthumous fame. Gauguin was able to convey the magical effect that both the landscapes and life of the people - their body language, charm and beauty - had on him. Wearying of his reputation as a South Sea painter, Gauguin finally determined to return to France, but died of syphilis on the Marquis Islands before his departure. Author: Ingo F. Walther Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822859869 Published: 2000 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Manet Violently criticized during his lifetime for his supposedly provocative paintings, French painter Edouard Manet (1832-1883) is now considered a master of inestimable importance in the history of painting. His Déjeuner sur l'herbe remains one of the most memorable images of the 19th century. Author: Gilles Néret Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822819492 Published: Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Matisse Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colours and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position. For Matisse, colour did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: 'Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital color harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition.' As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter, but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theatre designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs. Author: Volkmar Essers Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 382285977X Published: 2000 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Monet Click picture to look inside Claude Monet (1840-1926) was the most typical and the most individual Impressionist painter. His long life was dedicated to a pictorial exploration of the sensations that reality, and in particular landscape, offers the human eye. But while Monet the painter was faithful and persevering in the pursuit of his motifs, his personal life followed a more restless course. Parisian by birth, he discovered plein-air painting as a youth in the provinces, where one of his homes, Argenteuil, has come to represent the artistic flowering and official establishment of Impressionism as a movement, with Monet as its creative leader. In his endeavor to capture the ever-changing face of reality, Monet went beyond Impressionism and thereby beyond the confines of self-contained panel painting: in Giverny he painted the Poplars, Grain Stacks and Rouen Cathedral series in which he addressed one motif in constantly new variations. Here, too, Monet laid out the famous garden with its water lily pond which he was to paint on huge canvases well into the 1920s. He thereby sought to render not reality as objectively experienced, but rather that which takes place 'between the motif and the artist'. In their open, merely tenuously representational structure and impressive scale, Monet's water lily paintings - created long before the currents of the contemporary avant-garde - point the way to the developments of the future. Author: Christoph Heinrich Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822859729 Published: 2000 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Jean-Paul Sartre - Modern Times: Selected Non-Fiction Designed for a new generation of readers, this superb anthology includes Sartre's personal responses to New York and Naples, an essay on surrealism and on Brecht, a spoof psychoanalytical dialogue, an extended essay on sexual desire and shorter pieces on maternal love and masturbation. It explores Sartre's celebrated quarrel with Camus, his constant but clear-eyed fascination with communism and, in 'Portraits' of Gide, Genet, Tintoretto and Baudelaire, his revolutionary approach to biography. There could be no better introduction to one of the greatest witnesses to the twentieth century. Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0140189211 Published: 2000 Paperback: 416 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £12.99


	Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex Of all the writing that emerged from the existentialist movement, Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking study of women will probably have the most extensive and enduring impact. It is at once a work of anthropology and sociology, of biology and psychoanalysis, from the pen of a writer and novelist of penetrating imaginative power. The Second Sex stands as the first landmark in the modern feminist upsurge that has transformed perceptions of the social relationship of man and womankind in our time. Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 009974421X Published: 1997 Paperback: 768 pages Price: £9.99


	Christopher Hibbert - The French Revolution An account of the events that shook 18th-century Europe to its foundation. Christopher Hibbert charts the French Revolution from its beginnings as an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to 1795 and the coup d'etat that brought Napoleon to power. Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0140049452 Published: 1982 Paperback: 352 pages Price: £10.99


	Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America 'A new political science is needed for a totally new world.' In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's evolving politics and institutions. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even that they were the will of God. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority for anyone interested in the future of democracy. This volume includes the rarely translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an evocative account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois and Chippeway, and The Excursion to Lake Onéida. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140447601 Published: 2003 Paperback: 992 pages Price: £12.99


	René Descartes - Discourse on Method and Related Writings 'It is not enough to have a good mind; it is more important to use it well.' René Descartes was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. In his Discourse on Method he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the extent to which each one can achieve certainty. Drawing on his own work in geometry, optics, astronomy and physiology, Descartes developed the hypothetical method that characterizes modern science, and this soon came to replace the traditional techniques derived from Aristotle. Many of Descartes' most radical ideas - such as the disparity between our perceptions and the realities that cause them - have been highly influential in the development of modern philosophy. This edition sets the Discourse on Method in the wider context of Descartes' work, with the Rules for Guiding One's Intelligence in Searching for the Truth (1628), extracts from The World (1633) and selected letters from 1636-9. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140446990 Published: 1999 Paperback: 256 pages Price: £7.99


	François Truffaut From The 400 Blows to Jules and Jim to The Last Metro, François Truffaut (1932-1984) practically defined the French cinema of his era and was one of the founders of the New Wave which took the industry by storm in the late 1950s. His endlessly touching and romantic films - always tinged by a touch of reflective sadness - made him one of France's favourite and most successful directors. This book traces Truffaut's career and includes rare images drawn from his archives. Author: Robert Ingram Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822822604 Published: 2003 Flexicover: 196 x 245 mm, 192 pages Price: £9.99


	Paris Interiors Featuring a broad cross-section of interiors, this book documents a particularly energetic and fertile moment in one of the world's most beautiful cities. Paris Interiors brings together a selection of extraordinary apartments in the French capital, chosen purely for their individuality. These interiors are real homes where the taste and character of their owners shine through. Author: Lisa Lovatt-Smith Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822834416 Published: 2004 Flexicover: 196 x 258 mm, 320 pages Price: £9.99


	Provence Interiors People all over the world are fascinated by Provence. It is the untamed Roman provincia, stretching from the crags of Vaucluse and undulating fields of lavender to fishing villages on the Mediterranean. From the whitewashed buildings of the Camargue to the mighty castles of the troubadour trail, Provence is an authentic mirror of the Mediterranean spirit and joie de vivre. This study is the first to illustrate so many different Provençal interiors. They range from the private apartments of a duchess to a beekeeper's home, from an art collector's stud farm to the brightly-painted weekend retreat of a sculptor, from a jolly gypsy wagon to a monastery renovated in minimalist style. Prominent personalities such as Christine Picasso and Ewa Truffaut and the artist Arman opened their doors to make possible a book which provides an unmatched, intimate view of Provence, revealing a world behind otherwise closed doors. Author: Lisa Lovatt-Smith Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822834769 Published: 2004 Flexicover: 196 x 258 mm, 304 pages Price: £9.99


	Living in Provence Click picture to look inside Nestled in the south of France, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, is a magical region of the world renowned for its lavender fields, fine cuisine, golden sun and dreamy landscapes. We have searched high and low throughout this land known as Provence, seeking out the best examples of regional living to bring you this lovely and exceptional selection of enviable homes. 'This book is absolutely yummy...As much about architecture and design as travel - I defy you to say no' - The Bookseller, London Authors: Barbara and René Stoeltie Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822825271 Published: 2005 Hardcover: 260 x 302 mm, 200 pages Price: £14.99


	Riding High: Shadow Cycling the Tour de France - Paul Howard Club cyclist Paul Howard set out to complete the Tour de France in the year of its 100th anniversary on level terms with today's riders. With only three weeks to complete over 2,000 miles, was it possible to put a human face on a super-human undertaking? Riding High is Howard's diary of his experiences as he follows the route from start to finish. At each stage, he shares anecdotes and notes the historical highpoints that have made the Tour one of the most iconic sporting events in the world. Publisher: Mainstream ISBN: 1840188944 Published: 2004 Paperback: 240 pages Price: £7.99