Man-made objects depicted in art (cityscapes, machines, etc) – The Bell Bookshop

Machines

Emma — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Repair Shop‘s Dominic Chinea takes you on an exploration of 100 essential machines found in the workshops and studios of the world’s finest artisans and heritage craftspeople.

Filled with stunning illustrations and lively, engaging text, The Repair Shop‘s Dom Chinea guides readers through this celebration of the history and uses of 100 machines that have allowed artisans to create beautiful items for centuries.

Fans of prime-time TV series The Repair Shop and Make It at Market will not want to miss Dom’s insightful and complete appraisal of history’s most game-changing mechanisms, with commentary that allows readers to get under the hood of inventions that have defined modern life as we know it.

Immerse yourself in the visual history of the world’s most remarkable machines:

The sequel to 2022’s Tools: A Visual History.
Explores inventions from the potter’s wheel and grain mill to the sewing machine, printing press, wheel maker and plenty more.
Each machine is creatively profiled and deconstructed in pinpoint detail, with Dom Chinea’s trademark insight and commentary.
Striking illustrations by award-winning artist Lee John Philips highlight the beauty of each tool.
A beautiful gift book with a vintage design.

Each machine has a fascinating history and story to tell that highlights its contribution to artisanal crafts. And with every machine accompanied by beautifully ornate illustrations by Lee John Philips, Machines: A Visual History is certain to be a treasured volume for all creators, craftspeople and those who like to delve into how things work.

Venice

Emma — Thu, 05 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A guide to the wonders of Venice, conveyed by means of an artist’s sketchbook

Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint. For years, Venice has been a source of deep creative inspiration for him; and now, in Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, he captures the highlights of this most beguiling of Italian cities.

Unsurprisingly, given his abiding passion for architecture, Matthew provides a wealth of information about the ‘stones’ of Venice, including an illustrated guide to the main building styles of the city – Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern – and exemplars of its balconies, bridges and campaniles. Further sections explore the city’s sestieri – its six residential quarters – as well as its history, paintings, festivals, wildlife and, not least, its cicchetti and aperitivi.

Following the same landscape format as Matthew’s real-life sketchbooks, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide will combine enchanting watercolour illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Venice, armchair or actual.

Contraptions

Emma — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A timely new edition featuring the brilliant work from among the most inventive minds in illustration and cartoon wizardry.

Heath Robinson was one of Britain’s most successful graphic artists. His work has had a huge influence on comic art in this country, but also on the image and self-image of the British.

As the champion of pragmatic man, Heath Robinson presented a vision of the British as an unflappable, ingenious and slightly demented breed of inventors that persists to the present day. The British are still a nation of garage-haunting amateur engineers who will recognise the inhabitants of Heath Robinson’s world, with their pot bellies and pots of tea, archaic faces and sturdily commonsensical approach to the problems of existence.

How to hunt tigers by elephant, how to get an even tan, rise with the sun or put out a chimney fire, these and many more pressing questions are answered in the pages of Contraptions.

With illustrations salvaged from the family archives and commentary by Heath Robinson expert, Geoffrey Beare, Contraptions is the best possible introduction to the work of one of Britain’s great comic talents.

Town: Prints and Drawings of Britain Before 1800

Emma — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Provincial towns in Britain grew in size and importance in the eighteenth century. Ports such as Glasgow and Liverpool greatly expanded, while industrial centres such as Birmingham and Manchester flourished. Market towns outside London developed as commercial centres or as destinations offering spa treatments as in Bath, horse racing in Newmarket or naval services in Portsmouth. Containing over 100 images of towns in England, Wales and Scotland, this book draws on the extensive Gough collection in the Bodleian Library. Contemporary prints and drawings provide a powerful visual record of the development of the town in this period, and finely drawn prospects and maps – made with greater accuracy than ever before – reveal their early development.This book also includes perceptive observations from the journals and letters of collector Richard Gough (1735-1809), who travelled throughout the country on the cusp of the industrial age.

The Cambridge art book

Emma — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Cambridge Art Book contains a unique collection of contemporary images of this most beautiful city, from the grand architecture of its historic university to its more intimate corners.

Cambridge is a unique place with a very special atmosphere. It combines an internationally-renowned university town with a vibrant street-life amongst stunning medieval architecture. This is an anthology of prints from 50 artists inspired by the beauty and vitality of the city, working in a broad range of contemporary media. In this book, you will find:

– Quirky hidden gems such as the dog, officially labelled as a ‘cat’ to subvert college rules and reality checkpoint (the lamppost that marks the divide between the university and the real world)

– Innovative representations of classic tourist sites: King’s College, St. John’s College, the Corpus Clock and the Backs (including Ely and Grantchester)

– Cambridge’s train station and old Addenbrooke’s hospital transformed into artworks

This book will renew memories and inspire visits and revisits to all its haunts.

Oxford Through The Lens

Emma — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Oxford is a place to be taken slowly. It is a city which has survived untouched for the best part of a thousand years. And there has been a university here for nearly as long, yet it never grows old: it renews itself each autumn with a fresh infusion of youth. Look at it closely, and ponder its secret. This collection of Douglas Vernimmen's photography illustrates Oxford at its best.