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Aubrey Beardsley: A Bridge Between Artistic Worlds
- CV/Visual Arts Research, Book 285
- Narrated by: Christopher Selbie
- Length: 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
Aubrey Beardsley: A Bridge Between Artistic Worlds by Edward Lucie-Smith.
A study of Aubrey Beardsley's work exhibited at Tate Britain until May 25, 2020. The author considers the darkly vigorous imagery of the short lived genius, his graphic work for the notorious Yellow Book, and sublimely erotic illustrations for Lysistrata by Aristophane and Salome by Oscar Wilde, which frank imagery even shocked the author.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton's highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock's days as a student under Benton. Pollock's first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I suggest you READ, not listen...
- By Grace O'Malley on 07-01-16
By: Henry Adams
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Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
- By: Andrew S. Curran
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
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Shakespeare's Library
- Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature
- By: Stuart Kells
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Dismissed Mary Sidney Herbert without explanation
- By Lisa on 07-30-19
By: Stuart Kells
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Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 38
The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
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What Are You Looking At?
- The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art
- By: Will Gompertz
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
What is modern art? Who started it? Why do we either love it or loathe it? And why is it such big money? Join BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz on a dazzling tour that will change the way you look at modern art forever. From Monet's water lilies to Van Gogh's sunflowers, from Warhol's soup cans to Hirst's pickled shark, hear the stories behind the masterpieces, meet the artists as they really were, and discover the real point of modern art.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding History of Modern Art
- By Earth Lover on 07-24-20
By: Will Gompertz
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Twelve Caesars
- Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern (Bollingen Series)
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book - against a background of today’s “sculpture wars” - Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the Western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the “Twelve Caesars”, from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This foray into art history is a disappointment.
- By Stephen J Chiulli on 11-10-21
By: Mary Beard
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Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging, interesting, nice format
- By George on 07-04-22
By: Laura Tunbridge
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Germany: Memories of a Nation
- By: Neil MacGregor
- Narrated by: Neil MacGregor
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago, a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany, both geography and history have always been unstable.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good "listen"
- By astasteel on 07-29-22
By: Neil MacGregor
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Confronting the Classics
- Traditions, Adventures and Innovations
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Lynne Jenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
One of the world's leading historians provides a revolutionary tour of the Ancient World, dusting off the classics for the twenty-first century. Mary Beard, drawing on thirty years of teaching and writing about Greek and Roman history, provides a panoramic portrait of the classical world, a book in which we encounter not only Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Hannibal, but also the common people - the millions of inhabitants of the Roman Empire, the slaves, soldiers, and women.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Annoying narrator
- By Chris E on 02-27-15
By: Mary Beard
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The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 221
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 216
What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A whirlwind tour of Western art
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-18-12
By: Peter Whitfield
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Wagnerism
- Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
- By: Alex Ross
- Narrated by: Alex Ross
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international best seller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics - an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not Just for Wagner Experts!
- By Rupert Pupkin on 09-26-20
By: Alex Ross
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The Image, 50th Anniversary Edition
- A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
- By: Daniel J. Boorstin, Douglas Rushkoff - afterword
- Narrated by: Timothy Danko
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of "pseudo-events" - events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported - and the contemporary definition of celebrity as "a person who is known for his well-knownness". Since then Daniel J. Boorstin's prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any listeners who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Boorstin’s deep Conservative mindset reaches through every example in this book.
- By Christine on 10-12-20
By: Daniel J. Boorstin, and others
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Da Vinci's Ghost
- Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image
- By: Toby Lester
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Haunting Expierience
- By Paul on 02-10-12
By: Toby Lester
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Art Is Life
- Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.
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1 out of 5 stars
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WRONG for audio program
- By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22
By: Jerry Saltz
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The Map of Knowledge
- A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found
- By: Violet Moller
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
The foundations of modern knowledge - philosophy, math, astronomy, geography - were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean....
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3 out of 5 stars
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Terrible narration.
- By nathan535 on 11-05-19
By: Violet Moller