Absurd Ambition

Absurd Ambition
Author: E. H. McCormick
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1775580156

Eric McCormick was, from about 1940 until his death in 1995, one of New Zealand's most distinguished writers and scholars. He pioneered the appreciation and study of the painter Francis Hodgkins, and he wrote several biographies. The autobiographical fragments collected here have been edited to make a coherent volume, tracing his origins in Taihape, to school and university in Wellington, to schoolteaching in Nelson, to Cambridge and through his wartime experiences and role as editor of Centennial Publications. It includes his shrewd observations of social behaviour, recorded with a dry wit.

Gandhi

Gandhi
Author: Jad Adams
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1681770105

“Provocative. Adams strips away Gandhi’s saintly aura and explores the duality of India’s most famous leader.” —Financial Times Jad Adams traces the course of Gandhi’s multi-faceted life and the development of his religious, political, and social thinking over seven tumultuous decades: from his comfortable upbringing in a princely state in Gujarat; his early civil rights campaigns; his leadership through civil disobedience in the 1920s and 1930s that made him a world icon; and finally to his assassination by a Hindu extremist in 1948, only months after the birth of an independent India. An elegant and masterly account of one of the seminal figures of twentieth-century history, Adams presents for the first time the true story behind the man whose life may truly be said to have changed the world.

Scholar's Path, A: An Anthology Of Classical Chinese Poems And Prose Of Chen Qing Shan - A Pioneer Writer Of Malayan-singapore Literature

Scholar's Path, A: An Anthology Of Classical Chinese Poems And Prose Of Chen Qing Shan - A Pioneer Writer Of Malayan-singapore Literature
Author: Peter Min-liang Chen
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 635
Release: 2010-06-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9814464392

English translation and appreciation by Peter Chen and Michael Tan Reviewed by Chan Chiu MingAn original English translation from the Chinese text:A companion edition of the book in Chinese is available — the original classical text translated into modern Chinese and profusely annotated by Associate Professor Dr Chan Chiu Ming of National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Ogata Kōrin

Ogata Kōrin
Author: Frank Feltens
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300256914

A lush portrait introducing one of the most important Japanese artists of the Edo period Best known for his paintings Irises and Red and White Plum Blossoms, Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716) was a highly successful artist who worked in many genres and media--including hanging scrolls, screen paintings, fan paintings, lacquer, textiles, and ceramics. Combining archival research, social history, and visual analysis, Frank Feltens situates Kōrin within the broader art culture of early modern Japan. He shows how financial pressures, client preferences, and the impulse toward personal branding in a competitive field shaped Kōrin's approach to art-making throughout his career. Feltens also offers a keen visual reading of the artist's work, highlighting the ways Kōrin's artistic innovations succeeded across media, such as his introduction of painterly techniques into lacquer design and his creation of ceramics that mimicked the appearance of ink paintings. This book, the first major study of Kōrin in English, provides an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of one of Japan's most significant artists.