Luxury Diaries - Taschen

Utagawa Hiroshige (also IIchiyusai Hiroshige) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, one of the best and well-known. Ukiyo-e is a style of woodblock prints/cuts and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, with motifs of of landscapes, history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters. Utagawa Hiroshige began painting actors and women, but later turned to landscapes. This diary offers the best of them.

Gil Elvgren was American artist, creator of the most notorious pin-up girls, which gave new spirit to depressed American society and became symbol of the American victory in the World War 2 and the new prosperity. Gil Elvgren photographed his models and then painted them in reshaped reality - with longer legs, wild hair and eye-catching breasts. Maybe a good diary for your husband, what you say? .)

Do not worry - this is no biology class book! Samuel Fallours was a soldier turned clergyman's assistant, he lived on the island of Ambon in what is now Indonesia. He started to paint fishes he caught and later published a catalogue, Despite distributing only 100 issues, his catalogue soon became a hit - most people refused to believe those colourful, weirdly shaped fishes were real.

Well, they were right. Fallours applied colour according to his taste, and when you look closer, you see flowers, or even human heads painted on fish bodies. Maybe not the best book to learn about tropical fauna from, but a collection of amazing pictures from a man with big fantasy!

Diary illustrated by cut outs from the works of Henri Matisse, french painter and the leader of Fauvists. His works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour.

The final diary of Taschen collection offers carefully chosen range of marvellous paintings by some of the most exciting illustrators in the world. A fascinating mash-up of well-known established master draftsmen and neophytes,applying broad range of techniques. If you want to give present to a student of design or somebody with demanding sense for art, this is your opportunity!