Books by Valerio Terraroli

This book gathers the covers of 120 regular issues and some special ones (in 1:1 format) of Ver Sacrum, plus an anthological selection of the most important inventions in printing, like block prints, lithographs and copper engravings, for the 120th anniversary of this historic magazine. This book narrates and illustrates the originality of a language, perceived right from the first issues, of the legendary official magazine of the Vienna Secession, elaborated like actual program manifestoes and a cornerstone of Modernity. The goal of Ver Sacrum was to give life to total works of art, the so-called Gesamtkunstwerk. That's why each issue had to be a work of art, a perfect representation of Secession ideals, extraordinarily epitomized by the covers. Ver Sacrum, which alludes to the Sacred Spring of ancient Latin people with their renewal rituals through young generations and new settlements, was an absolutely original magazine that elaborated new forms of design, illustration and print/editorial composition: the influence of this represents a cornerstone of Modernity in Western art. During its six years of activity, 471 original drawings were specifically made for the magazine, along with 55 lithographs and copper engravings and 216 block prints. Conceived by Gustav Klimt, Max Kurzweil and Ludwig Hevesi, the illustrated magazine was founded in 1898 and was periodically published until 1903; it included not only important reviews on literature, music and contemporary art but also a rich selection of engravings and decorations from Secession masters.

Covers the fundamental events and pivotal works of international art in the 20th century. This book relates how artists reacted to the greatest tragedy of the 20th century and responded to the advent of the society of mass communication and consumption, to the moulding of the world.

This series offers a complete, up-to-date survey of the phenomena of the 1900s and the first years of the new millennium through an original, transversal and interdisciplinary analysis of artistic culture in the twentieth century. The second volume analyses and presents the hugely diverse world of artistic production between the two world wars, taking into consideration not only the environment that took shape in the immediate wake of the First World War, from the so-called "return to order" to the re-emergence of a figurative approach (The New Objectivity, Novecento Italiano, Magic Realism) that was profoundly anti-avant-garde yet imbued with strong plastic and semantic values, but also the evolution of an avant-garde that was now historicised, with its second-generation artists (Aerial Painting, the second generation of Futurism). Also considered are the codification of certain phenomena, such as Surrealism, changes in taste (from Art Deco to Novecentismo), as well as art as the expression of the totalitarian regimes, and the outbreak of the Second World War, with the embracing of environments outside Europe, particularly the USA. The chronological boundaries are marked by the birth of the Dadaist experience in Germany and the establishment of Metaphysics in Italy (1917- 1920) on one side and by the birth of the great season of U.S. Abstract Expressionism (1943-1945) on the other.