His paintbrush set everything in motion: the landscape of Provence, the colourful still lifes, his portraits and the picturesque coast of southern France. More than any other artist, Paul Cézanne, the “Father of Modernism”, captured the light and the play of colours of the South in his pictures and lent them through his new pictorial language a liveliness and dynamism which continue to fascinate viewers to this day.

The art and architecture of the Islamic world strongly influenced the development of Western modernism. Some 170 works from the mid-19th century to the present day illustrate this fascinating cultural exchange. Beguiling examples of fine and decorative art reflect the diversity of this lively transfer.

The turn of the 19th century was a golden age for Polish art. The publication features about 130 masterpieces of painting from this era between nineteenth-century decadence and a new beginning, and describes its roots in Polish history, culture and nature as well as the close connections with wider European art scenes.

In December 1846 Thomas Cole excitedly began work in his new studio, but his early death left his great ambitions unfinished. The studio and its deep impact on future artists is described by renowned Cole scholar, Franklin Kelly and further contributors, bringing new understanding to the critical last phase of Cole’s career.

Founded in 1948, Hirmer Publishers soon established a name for art books produced to the highest standards. Over the past decade they have become equally well-known in English-speaking countries, with a reputation as one of the most prestigious publishers in this field. This survey of English titles from 2010 to 2020 encompasses a wealth of subjects across the centuries, from antiquity to the modern age.  

Caspar David Friedrich and Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov are the most important artists of the Romantic era in their native countries of Germany and Russia. At the centre of this opulent book are night scenes and moonlit landscapes, views of Dresden and Italy that are full of yearning, and portraits and lovingly depicted interiors by both master painters and their contemporaries.

In 1921/22 Édouard Vuillard created a cycle of six paintings for the entrance hall of the Villa Bauer in Basel. Four large-format pictures show exhibition rooms in the Louvre from Antiquity to French Rococo painting. Two sopraporte provide an intimate insight into the artist’s art collection.

"Landscapes of Extraction" explores the art of mining, the transformative industry of the American West, competing in sublimity and striking colour with the natural scenic landscape on its own terms. These landscapes of enterprise altered the natural environment on a spectacular scale, with open pit mines, coal tips and oil rigs.

In less than two decades, Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) created a powerful oeuvre comprising paintings, woodcuts, glass works and mosaics. Her expressive subjects, including landscapes, townscapes and harbour scenes, are characterised by luminosity and increasing transparency, by rhythmical compositions of the pictorial space, black contours and an intensive use of colour.

When Paula Modersohn-Becker’s artist friends examined her extensive estate a few weeks after her death, they were overwhelmed. They only gradually realised that in the painter, who had died so young, they had had an outstanding artist in their midst. Modersohn-Becker was largely unrecognised during her lifetime but is regarded today as one of the pioneers of Expressionism.