This volume looks at the techniques and materials that artists have utilized since the Renaissance to create spectacular light effects in drawings.

The treatment of light and shadow is one of the building blocks of drawing. From techniques such as highlights and reserves, to material selection and the creation of translucent tracing paper, to the use of light as a medium for viewing artworks, artists for hundreds of years have found innovative and dazzling ways to create light on a sheet of paper.

This publication examines the central relationship between paper and light in the world of drawings in western European art from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Focusing on drawings from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, as well as works from the British Museum, Musée du Louvre, and others, and featuring masterful works by such artists as Parmigianino, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin, Odilon Redon, Edgar Degas, and Georges Seurat, Paper and Light will entice readers to look longer and more closely at drawings, deriving an even deeper appreciation for the skill and labor that went into them.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from October 15, 2024, to January 19, 2025.

A cutting-edge analysis of 2,500 years of Persian visual, architectural, and material cultures of power and their role in connecting the world.

With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), Persian institutions of kingship became the model for legitimacy, authority, and prestige across three continents. Despite enormous upheavals, Iranian visual and political cultures connected an ever-wider swath of Afro-Eurasia over the next two millennia, exerting influence at key historical junctures. This book provides the first critical exploration of the role Persian cultures played in articulating the myriad ways power was expressed across Afro-Eurasia between the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century CE.

Exploring topics such as royal cosmologies, fashion, banqueting, manuscript cultures, sacred landscapes, and inscriptions, the volume’s essays analyze the intellectual and political exchanges of art, architecture, ritual, and luxury material within and beyond the Persian world. They show how Perso-Iranian cultures offered neighbors and competitors raw material with which to formulate their own imperial aspirations. Unique among studies of Persia and Iran, this volume explores issues of change, renovation, and interconnectivity in these cultures over the longue durée.

This young adult graphic biography follows the life of one of Mexico’s greatest living photographers, Graciela Iturbide, as she makes her way from Mexico City to the Sonoran Desert, Los Angeles, India, and beyond. The kaleidoscopic narrative offers deep insight into the path of a young photographer from an early tragedy to great fame.

Renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942, the oldest of thirteen children. When tragedy strikes Graciela as a young mother, she turns to photography for solace and understanding.

From then on Graciela embarks on a photographic journey that takes her throughout her native Mexico, from the Sonora Desert to Juchitán to Frida Kahlo’s bathroom, and then to the United States, India, and beyond.

Photographic is a symbolic, poetic, and deeply personal graphic biography of this iconic photographer. Graciela’s journey will excite young adults and budding photographers, who will be inspired by her resolve, talent, and curiosity.

Ages twelve and up

This abundantly illustrated volume is the first to explore the painted pottery of the ancient Greek, Moche, and Maya cultures side by side.

Satyrs and sphinxes, violent legumes, and a dancing maize deity figure in the stories painted on the pottery produced by the ancient Greek, Moche, and Maya cultures, respectively. Picture Worlds is the first book to examine the elaborately decorated terracotta vessels of these three distinct civilizations. Although the cultures were separated by space and time, they all employed pottery as a way to tell stories, explain the world, and illustrate core myths and beliefs. Each of these painted pots is a picture world. But why did these communities reach for pottery as a primary method of visual communication? How were the vessels produced and used? In this book, experts offer introductions to the civilizations, exploring these foundational questions and examining the painted imagery. Readers will be rewarded with a better understanding of each of these ancient societies, fascinating insights into their cultural commonalities and differences, and fresh perspectives on image making and storytelling, practices that remain vibrant to this day.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa from April 10 to July 29, 2024, and at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University from September 14 to December 15, 2024.

A practical, comprehensive resource on the complex behaviors of plastics written expressly for conservation and cultural heritage professionals.
 
Almost every museum in the world is confronted with plastics in their collections. Research initiatives and knowledge concerning the conservation of heritage objects made of plastics have proliferated over the last twenty-five years, necessitating this up-to-date, comprehensive resource. Intended as a highly practical guide for the conservation community, this authoritative book offers information essential to understanding plastics, polymers, and rubber/elastomers and their behaviors in the cultural heritage context. Numerous graphs, diagrams, and illustrations allow readers to compare the mechanical, physical, thermal, and optical properties of these substances during conservation. Aimed at the hands-on museum practitioner, this book will assist professionals in choosing the appropriate methods and materials for preserving and treating plastic objects.
 
Complementing the main chapters, fifty-six illustrated “fact sheets” summarize, at a glance, the properties of those plastics most commonly found in museum collections. Six informative case studies present real-world examples of current conservation approaches to works of art and design made of plastics and rubber/elastomers. Under the expert authorship of Thea B. van Oosten, conservation scientist, educator, and internationally regarded authority on the behavior and properties of plastics, this instructive volume is destined to become an invaluable resource for the field.

Presenting new scholarship, this publication is an innovative technical study of the Concrete art movement in Latin America.

Purity Is a Myth presents new scholarship on Concrete art in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay from the 1940s to the 1960s. Originally coined by the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg in 1930, the term concrete denotes abstract painting with no reference to external reality. Van Doesburg argued that there was nothing more real than a line, color, or plane. Artists such as Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Waldemar Cordeiro, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, Judith Lauand, Raúl Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Hélio Oiticica, and Rhod Rothfuss would reinvent this concept in postwar Latin America.

Drawing on research conducted by Getty and international partners, the essays in this volume address a variety of topics, including the general history, emergence, and reception of Concrete art; processes and color; scientific analysis of works; illustrated chronologies of the paint industry in Brazil and Argentina; and Concrete design on paper. An innovative technical study of the Concrete art movement in Latin America, this volume will be indispensable to scholars, practitioners, and students of Latin American art.