Ravenhill's "Shopping and Fucking' -- about a rent boy, an ecstasy dealer, and a recovering addict -- soon became "Shopping and...': English productions were forced to euphemize the title. And even in San Francisco, the United States' most tolerant city, the Magic Theater publicized the production as

Anal, Angry, Bright, Contemporary plays, Dystopic, Gay/lesbian theater, Intense, Journalism, Sexy

Love and war may be huge themes, but Sebastian Faulks approaches them from a microscopic perspective. He detects love in the minute movements of a woman's fingers; in a man's manner of crawling through trenches, he captures fear and torment. Faulks is involved in a romance with detail, charging every

Epic, Intense, Pathos, Realist fiction, Sensual, Violent

The black and white tile piazzas of Italy inspired the work for which Riley is most famous -- an Op Art succession. Caught in a downpour, she noticed how the appearance of the checkerboard tiles shifted and blurred as the water streamed over them. From that point on, she explored the act of looking.

Event, Illusive, Intense, Op art, Physical force, Psychedelic

What would the Baroque have been without Rubens? This dynamo of artistic energy infiltrated all the great courts of Europe, spreading the lush, riotous, regal style that had formed in the wake of the Renaissance. His sprawling canvases depict life on an epic scale, as if he needed extra room to inclu

Baroque art, Dramatic, Dreamy, Ecstatic, Fantastic, Intense