Book Description

Thomas Eakins` extraordinary rowing pictures-some of the most celebrated and recognized images in the history of American art-appear together for the first time in this beautiful book. Fascinating information about the sport of rowing and its heroes, about Eakins` development as an artist, and about nineteenth-century social, cultural, and artistic concerns accompanies the twenty-four oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings of this extraordinary series. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

For the Academics
Joselit's study of Duchamp is a top-notch academic book and for the non art history buffs, it will certainly be a challenging read. Joselit's vocabulary is immense and sophisticated and without direct references to the reproductions included in the text (ie. Nude Decending a Staircase, figure 1, p. 33) his assertations can be hard to follow. For those already familiar with Duchamp and his art, this book will take your knowledge to the next level. Joselit is an incredible modern scholar.

A work of impeccable scholarship
Thorough, rigorous and provocative. Joselit provides fresh insight into the intellectual basis of Duchamp's work and arrives at some startling conclusions, but never makes any flying leaps of his own-- his results stem from careful research and solid analysis. Jammin'! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

he looked around the world with intelligence.
signs, space, forms. These were his world and were his words. he found the special language with signs. and his language was the expression of his own world which would be woldwide. his hungry eyes saw the world through his angry intelligence with the pronteer. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Beginning of My Love Affair with Duchamp
This book is highly recommended. The information available within the covers is something that I could not find in my art history book. The reader will gain insight into Duchamp's views and his thoughts leading up to his decisions to take the road, artistically, that he did. Wonderfully written, glorious color photos and beautiful insights, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to add to a library. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

One nice alternative Rosary
Through The Rosary With Fra Angelico is a beautiful pamphlet which provides one alternative for reciting the rosary. It begins with a short history of the Rosary and instructions on how to say the Rosary. For each mystery it includes art by Fra Angelica; a short description of the mystery; a Biblical passage related to the mystery; prayer intentions; Then for each Hail Mary after "fruit of your womb Jesus" it provides a phrase "who ; for final prayers it provides the Salve Regina and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.

Every Catholic should know the "plain vanilla" Rosary but everyone must find the form of the Rosary (if any) which is most appropriate to their prayer life. This could be an excellent choice.

23 year old recommends this book
This book is an awesome way to help you meditate on the mysteries while praying the Rosary. I have bought it for several of my friends. The paintings are also beautiful. Try it out. It is only a couple bucks! :O)

Through the Rosary with Fra Angelico
I've used this book for years, and I find it to be a much more meaningful way to say the Rosary than the usual method. It is a good way to do a meditation on each of the mysteries. I bought copies for all the kids at the diocesan summer camp that I run, so obviously, I really do recommend it! Fr. Bob Haux ... Read more

Book Description

Leonardo's writings on painting--among the most remarkable from anyera--were never edited by Leonardo himself into a single coherent book. In thisanthology the authors have edited material not only from his so-called Treatise onPainting but also from his surviving manuscripts and from other primary sources, some ofwhich were here translated for the first time. The resulting volume is an invaluablereference work for art historians as well as for anyone interested in the mind and methodsof one of the world's greatest creative geniuses. ... Read more

Book Description

The quintessential "Renaissance man," Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is still recognized today for his accomplishments in science, architecture, and philosophy, as well as his artistic masterworks. Full-color reproductions and thorough text provide a quick yet solid introduction to this master. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

El personaje más fascinante del Renacimiento.
La serie Basic Art de la Editorial Taschen funciona como introduccion al tema, es una pequeña guia muy ilustrada y condensada para todos aquellos que viven sin tiempo para leer un trabajo mas profundo o solo desea comensar a entender sobre la vida y obra de su pintor favorito, asi que el libro es pequeño pero vale la pena darle una ojeada.

En esta edicion en ESPAÑOL sobre la vida y obra de Leonardo Da Vinci (el personaje más fascinante del Renacimiento)la cual esta en el formato de pasta dura(hardcover) nos enseña las primeras obras del gran maestro del Renacimiento, una cronologia de su vida y muchas ilustraciones de sus pinturas mas conocidas como tambien las que no son parte de un tour y estan en colecciones privadas, es una obra bellisima no es la obra definitiva ya que hay trabajos mucho mas completo sobre su vida e influencia pero si es un buen comienso para entender al famoso y controversial Da Vinci. 96 paginas totalmente ilustrada a color con muchos detalles de pintura y bosetos del pintor asi como sus dotes en otras ramas como la musica la escultura y las ciencias pero esta obra es dedicada por completo a su pintura.Muy recomendado.

Low quality painting reproductions
Though the book is printed nicely on a good paper, the painting and drawing reproductions are of a very poor quality. Thy are too dark and do not show the dark details at all. Additionally the colors are distorted by a brownish (sepia) hue. The dark painting reproductions are so bad that only the basic elements are visible. All the details are gone. It pertains The Virgin of the Rocks on p. 28 and 31, Portrait of a Young Man on p. 48, The Last Supper on p. 53 as well as Burlington House Cartoon (too dark cartoon) on p. 60. Other reproductions may also be affected, but I did not have anything to compare them with. The Last Supper is additionally divided between two pages with the connection going thru the Christ's face and center of the painting sunk in the groove between pages. Rest of the book is O.K. What rest [sic!]?

Simple but sophistocated
If you don't know much about art but know what you like, this might be the sort of book for you. Leonardo's life is described in this basic biography, focusing on his famous works of art (finished and unfinished) and on his supporting works as well (sketches, architectural and mechanical ideas). The book is printed on glossy high grade magazine paper with color illustrations on almost every page. It brings the artist and his works to the reader in a presentation that caters to those who enjoy have an appriciation, though not an expertise, for art. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

how one great artist thelt and fought (sic)
In order to get something worthwhile out of reading Delacroix's Journals, the reader should know something about Delacroix other than that he was a 19th century painter of the first rank. Ingres found Delacroix's work execrable and cast aspersion upon him by saying that: Delacroix was an apostle of ugliness who had come to 'end' painting as the French and the Europeans in general knew it. Today, Delacroix's work occupies a huge chunk of the Louvre's halls -- outstripping Ingre's portion. The fact that Delacroix in fact did fulfill Ingres' curse/prophecy may say something about the nature of death/life and rebirth/resurrection in art.
I read this wonderful book over ten years ago and so powerful was the impact of Delacroix's insights into the nature, perception, creational origin, and fate of art that much of it still remain with me. Delacroix in his day was not revered as he is today. He did not have people knocking down his doors to see his work, nor did he always have it easy trying to show it publicly. One day, after a bad review, to console himself, he wrote that (I paraphase) a great work of art in history is like a plank of wood held under water -- it is kept down when the powers-that-be hold it down. But that power ('political agenda' in contempo art-babble) does not last forever and must sooner or later let go of the plank whose nature is to float to the surface for all the world to see. He seem to have had the same intuition about the nature and fuction of art as the Greeks did: that art is light, that which shines of its own, and by which power that which 'sheds lights' and 'explains' what is around it rather than something that needs to be explained.
He never married but was looked after by a doting housekeeper. Not exactly a recluse, but most certainly a man of breeding descended of a noble stock who was careful about the company he kept, Delacroix spent much time, as artists and thinkers do, with his own thoughts and feelings, and expressing them. He was famous for his cordiality and urbanity, and among his friends in town (Paris) were Chopin, Georges Sand, and other individuals who would leave a mark (or in some cases, a mountain) in the arts one way or another. In other words, Delacroix was an agreeable man and as sociable as any thoughtful man would be but no more. Delacroix's social life is visible in these pages as is the Parisian milieu in which he lived and worked.
But the really great thing about Delacroix's Journals is that one gets to see something about how a great artist sees and feels things. Although he is over a century removed from us, his work and thoughts serve as a reminder that art is not always about anything socially or politically itchy; that art is just art; and that art is not something one needs to get hysterical about or merely a medium to carry an agenda. The fact that, historically, art was always commissioned by the aristocracy, and executed by those who were aristocratic in feeling and sensibility is one that is largely ignored today. Read this and see the significance of this fact, and why the term democratic art is ultimately an ugly oxymoron. Those who would champion the 'demos' sometimes think too highly of art and the need for "the people"'s participation in it.
In my humble opinion, if Delacroix were alive today, I think he would have loved Rauschenberg's and Jean-Michel Basquiat's work and their strong democratic origins but he would detest the democratization of art as such as found in Van Gogh umbrellas and calendars so loved by those who "love" art. He wouldn't go to Mozart Festivals either.

Greatest Testament
Critic Roger Kimball called Delacroix's Journal "perhaps the greatest literary testament any painter has left." See Roger Kimball, "Delacroix Reconsidered," The New Criterion, Sept. 1998, p. 10.

An intimate glimpse into the mind and times of Delacroix
This journal is a surprisingly accessible account of Delacroix's life. It has been well edited and covers a time frame spanning his early years, then his later life. Within these pages he includes his observations of Paris and the French countryside in the mid-nineteenth century, the people he knew like Chopin and Georges Sand, as well as his passionate reviews of works of art that influenced him. He offers sublime meditations on the nature of creativity and ruminates over ideas he has for new works. His outpourings capture the essence of the romantic movement. As an artist, even though separated from him by over a century, I found him to be a kindred spririt. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is an ambitious work that surveys the development of a majorsculptural medium in Italy across four centuries. It is the first work of its kind to considerthe varieties of fired clay sculpture, especially in the context of the sculptural process.Whenever possible, clay models have been juxtaposed with finished works in order toshow changes between a sculptor's initial concept and the final product.Over eightyobjects are considered, ranging from drawings and sketch models to enamelled terracottasand marbles. The entries are supplemented by a series of essays, addressing major aspectsof clay sculpture from the Renaissance to Neo-classicism; there is also a survey of recentinformation gleaned from the conservation of terracotta sculpture. ... Read more

Book Description

Walker Evans was perhaps the greatest "documentary artist" American has ever known. In a career that lasted forty-six years (1928-1974) Evans profoundly changed the way Americans looked at themselves, their social causes, and their country. Drawn from a largely unseen private collection-the largest private collection of Walker Evans photographs in the world-this lavishly produced volume publishes here for the first time scores of pictures that have henceforth been inaccessible to the public. Included are the familiar images of Evans's Southern work (1935-36), as well as far less familiar images of Evans's friends and fellow artists, his work in Tahiti, photographs that he made of Victorian House architecture (1930-31), and photographs done on travels to England, Cuba, Maine, Nova Scotia, Chicago and New Orleans. Authors Belinda Rathbone and Clark Worswick rise to the occasion of documenting Evans' monumental career, exploring the overlooked byways of Evans' career at a moment when a rediscovery of his life's work is taking place in both the museum world and in the world of photographic collecting. What we are presented with here is a definitive and sometimes surprising look at the photographer whose oeuvre prefigures the work of photographers and documentary artists of all stripes. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Secret and Excellent Documentary of America
'The Lost Work' refers to Walker Evans's own private collection of his B/W images - 'the prints that he chose to keep in his own print boxes for posterity'. He was probably the greatest documentary artist America has ever known. It presents the faces and lives of Americans in the late 1930s and then to the mid 1970s.

From the introduction, we can see how a photographer had struggled for his lifetime for acquiring support, and eventually his works could 'enter' museum or collectors' hand during the end of his life. Behind the images, you may have a deeper insight of this photographer. From his life, it seems very contradictory between his character and his images.

The printing of this book is excellent. ... Read more

Book Description

This strikingly beautiful book-the first to focus on Degas` late work-presents a new and definitive view of his last decades. Degas played an integral role in reshaping the visual arts at the turn of the century, says Richard Kendall. The artist`s remarkable drawings, pastels, oil paintings, and sculptures involve startling explorations of color, unexpected combinations of technique and media, and a radical reexamination of the human physique. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Six great articles and many magnificent plates
I was fortunate enough to see this show in London and actually have the article in the Telegraph from Sunday July 26, 1996 that inspired me to see the show.This really beautiful book contains six interesting articles on aspects of the art shown in this event.The first is partly biographical on the last years if the artist's life.I say this because a discussion of the biography must also include some discussion of the art.

The second article discusses Degas' role in the art market in his later years.His current popularity does not give you a proper sense of the complex reactions different portions of the art marketplace and the general population had towards him in his last years.

The third article is a fascinating study of the artist's craft and centers on studies and photographs he used to prepare for his finished and larger works.I remember being very fascinated by the studies while viewing the exhibition.

The fourth article discusses his use of pastels and oils in his later years.Degas was a master colorist and the way he layered his pastels and saturates us with color is still breathtaking.The fifth article discusses his subject matter and how it changed over his last few years.

The sixth article discusses his place in the community of artists and their society in his later years.This is interesting given his reputation as a recluse.

The second half of the book provides full-page plates of the paintings, drawings, sketches, and sculpture in the exhibition.There is also a chronology of his later years, the lenders to the exhibition and a detailed list of items in the exhibition, notes for the articles, and an index.

As fine a book accompanying an exhibition as you will likely find.
... Read more

Book Description

The Journal of Eugne Delacroix is one of the most important works in the literature of art history: the record of a life at once public and private, it is also one of the richest and most fascinating aesthetic documents of the nineteenth century, as Delacroix reflects throughout on the relations between the arts, especially painting and writing. Indeed, he approaches the question from a unique perspective, that of a painter who wrote extensively and theorized his own writing in the Journal, a painter who had a passion for literature and a powerful literary imagination, a narrative painter whose work is rooted in literature and the literary. This book is the first to explore the crucial importance of this relation for Delacroix's aesthetic theory and artistic practice. Countering the long critical tradition which sees his writing as the inverse of his painting, it argues that, through his diary and art criticism, he sought to develop a painter's writing, proper to painting itself, and that such a writing is closely related to his conception of pictorial art. This approach has significant implications for interpreting the narratives of his public decorations, four of which are analyzed here: the library schemes of the Senate and the Assemble Nationale, the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre, and the Chapel of the Holy Angels at the church of Saint-Sulpice. Delacroix's ideas on the theoretical and practical relations between writing and painting, narrative and the image, are shown to be central not only to his aesthetic, but also to his views on civilization, history, and culture, and on the role of the artist in the modern world. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A remarkable mind
I have a passion for original sources - as close as I can, reading the master's own words. This book is the only introduction I know to the original thoughts of this great painter.

Delacroix presents a paradox: a skilled, expressive writer who argues against writing as an expressive medium. In his day, there was some kind of contest. One would be superior, either images or words. Even if the one-must-win mind seems silly now, he surely wrote his point about writing much better than the writers drew theirs about drawing.

Back then, his use of color was considered brash or worse. A mind like his must have its own way, though, and his critics are mostly forgotten. There was very little outlet for his views of art, so he planned his own art encyclopedia. It was really to have been an encyclopedia of his own thoughts on art, but would still have been a magnificent work.

It would also have been 150 years ahead of its time. Like the Journal itself, this dictionary was to be highly non-linear. Instead of alphabetical or other order, it would present a structure relating each part to others through footnotes. Give or take a technological vocabulary, it sounds like a heavily linked hypertext to me. He also, without using modern words, expressed fractal, self-similar structures like the recursive branching of trees.

The Journal did not follow strict time sequence - events were reported in contradictory orders and also revised at various times. This is where Hannoosh's scholarship adds its value. She has not only made the text available to French-deficient readers like me. She has also unwound its convoluted structure, and pinned it to other historical sources.

The proper balance is delicate, though. I wanted to read Delacroix's journal, not a commentary on Delacroix. The translator and scholar makes the original accessible, but also injects her own voice. The last chapter or two is almost exclusively about Delacroix, not by him. Even though Hannoosh seems to be a fine scholar, it was not her words that I hoped to hear.

There is a brief pictorial section in this book - black and white (although Delacroix was a famed colorist) and of uncertain sharpness. I respect that. It indicates the structure of paintings noted in the text, but makes no pretense at being a proper rendering of Delacroix's work. If you want to study the images themselves, you really need another book. These reproductions support the text. But isn't that where we came in, discussing the text vs. the painted image?

The book has voluminous footnootes. It also offers the original French for many of the passages presented in English translation. Together, these cut perhaps half the apparent bulk from the text. That makes this book a brief and very informative lesson in a great man's thinking. Although a bit dry, I really do like this one. ... Read more

Book Description

Amazon.com

If you really want to know what the 20th century looked like from a front-row seat at the main stage, this book will show you. Alfred Eisenstaedt, who was born in 1898 and lived until 1995, apparently didn't miss a thing. To give but a glimpse of the view he captured, this volume, published on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, includes scores of his most famous photographs. The portrait of a scowling Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Culture and Propaganda, showing exactly what educated evil looks like; a sultry Marilyn Monroe, somewhat fuzzy around the edges because the flustered photographer used the wrong film; the adorable Mary Martin (pre-Pan), girlishly singing a Cole Porter tune; Jackie Kennedy, radiant, seated between her husband and the man who would succeed him; Bertrand Russell; Martin Buber; Helen Keller; Albert Einstein; Gordon Parks; Rebecca West; Learned Hand--they're all here.

There is no way for any collection to do real justice to a photographer of Eisenstaedt's reach, but this book goes far, including not just the celebrity images but many others that give a keen sense of the times in which he lived. There is a streetwalker in knee-high boots on the Rue Saint-Denis; a polished Rolls-Royce in front of the Ritz; an aged accordionist begging for a living outside Carnegie Hall; a Mississippi fiddler.

Like those of his contemporaries Cartier-Bresson, Lartigue, and Kertész, Eisenstaedt's photographs stop you in your tracks, their meanings more complexly layered with every passing decade. Take his shot of 5- and 6-year-olds, wide-eyed and screaming at a puppet show in a Paris park in l963, just as television was beginning its long, depressing siege on childhood's imaginative realm. Or the image of women in their spring chapeaus, taking afternoon tea on the roof of the Excelsior Hotel in Florence in 1934, pretending that their pleasant world would endure. The historical resonance of such images is what makes this a thinking person's book, but of course it is possible to love it just for the celebrities, nearly all of them now gone. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Simple Genius
Many people consider Mr. Alfred Eisenstaedt the defining photojournalist of the 20th century. His best known work is probably the photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on VJ Day in 1945. In this superb volume, you can test that assessment with your own eyes. The images in this book were culled from over 290,000 frames available to the editor. I found the quality to be remarkably and consistently high. The reproduction quality is more than adequate as well.

Mr. Eisenstaedt straddles the 20th century almost perfectly. He was born in West Prussia in 1898 and died in 1995. He started photography as a hobby while a youngster, and only turned it into a livelihood as a 31 year-old man. He served in the German army in World War I and was severely wounded in the legs in Flanders during 1918. While recuperating, he visited art museums to study the compositions the painters used. It was time well spent. Later he would comment, "I seldom think when I take a picture." "But, first, it's most important to decide on the angle at which your photograph is to be taken." After the war, he sold belts and buttons. But he continued to take photographs as a hobby.

His big break came when he photographed a women's tennis match in 1927. Discouraged with the results, it was pointed out that the image of the woman serving in one frame would work well if everything else was cropped out. This image is in the book for your reference. This photograph immediately sold, and he was encouraged to come back with more. By 1929 he was doing well enough to start photography full-time.

Because of the rise of the Nazis and the popularity of photojournalism in the United States, Mr. Eisenstaedt came to the New York in 1935 where he visited Time. There he learned about plans for a new weekly photography magazine, LIFE, and became one of four staff photographers in 1936 when the magazine started. Over the years more than 80 of his photographs graced its cover.

Sophia Loren was his favorite assignment, and Ernest Hemingway was his least (Hemingway tried to throw him off the dock).

"I like photographing people only at their best." "This means making them feel relaxed and completely at home with you in the beginning."

Unlike most portrait photographers, he was informal. "I always prefer photographing in available light." His approach to equipment was similarly simple. "A Leica, a couple of lenses, a few rolls of film -- that's all he needed."

Totally devoted to his art he said, "I will never retire," and he never did.

Familiarly known to his friends and colleagues as "Eisie," "'Cold fish' or 'horrible man' were his epithets. 'Unbelievable' was his word for wonder."

These details and observations are taken from the excellent introduction by Bryan Holme.

I found Mr. Eisenstaedt's work here to be amazingly luminescent. He captures a spiritual glow in his subjects and in nature. Realizing that he was using natural light, the images and detail are very well illuminated regardless, much like what you find in Ansel Adams's work. His people have an animation of body and personality that makes the viewer feel more alive as well. Whether professional actor or ordinary person, they each resonate with the viewer through intense and attractive emotion.

Here are some of my favorite images (reduced to fit the space allowed): Italian officer sledding, 1933; Toscanni, early 1930s; La Scala, 1934; Carriage, near La Scala, 1934; George Bernard Shaw, 1932; Ruth Bryan Owen, 1934; Robert Oppenheimer, 1947; Albert Einstein, 1949; Bertrand Russell, 1951; Dancers pause, 1936; Roofs of Prague, 1947; Trees in snow, 1947; Janet MacLeod, 1937; Katherine Hepburn, 1938; Carole Lombard, 1938; VJ Day, 1945; Edward R. Murrow, 1959; John F. Kennedy and Caroline, 1960; Dame Edith Evans, 1951; Marilyn Monroe, 1953; Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen, 1949; Frank Lloyd Wright, 1956; Alec Guinness, 1951; W. Somerset Maugham, 1942; Robert Lowell, 1959; Charlie Chaplin, 1966; W.H. Auden, 1955; Children watching, 1963; Gunter Grass, 1979; Norman Rockwell, 1974; Gilbert Murray, 1951; Menemsha harbor, 1937; Thomas Hart Benton, 1969; First lesson, 1930; Propeller, 1951; Willie Mays, 1954; Leonard Bernstein conducting, 1960; and Tree-lined road, 1978. The effects of well-known painting compositions on these images will be obvious to you.

After you view these photographs, I suggest that you try your hand at capturing people at their best with your camera. Once you get to be reasonably good at that, I encourage you to try to catch them at their best without your camera. Practice the skill of subtly encouraging people to fulfill their potential. That will make you a person of simple genius, as well.

Evoke the best! ... Read more

Book Description

In this interdisciplinary book, Keala Jewell reunites Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) with his brother, Alberto Savinio (1891–1952), a prolific writer and painter who has been kept at the margins of the discussion of surrealism and, more generally, the culture politics of twentieth-century Italy. Yet as Jewell demonstrates, the brothers worked together during their formative years in Munich and Paris and always shared, on the one hand, a drive to salvage Mediterranean myth and history and, on the other, a deep involvement with art’s power to shape cultural identity and authority.

Rather than looking for a key to unlock the secrets of the brothers’ recurrent use of dislocated spaces and bizarre hybrid figures, Jewell focuses on assessing the issues of identity and mastery put at stake in the haunting enigmas that characterize their paintings and writings. Deeply impressed by Nietzsche, she argues, they believed the "human" is inherently unstable and must be constantly "rewoven" with analogies and metaphors seized from empowering states of being.

Jewell’s approach to the de Chirico brothers breaks new ground, not only because it brings them together as artists and writers but also because it sets the brothers within the context of myth, history, and Italian culture politics, instead of French surrealism and its aesthetic and psychoanalytic theories. Further, Jewell’s strong readings of little-known paintings and notoriously difficult texts like Giorgio de Chirico’s Ebdòmero will expand and diversify the sources used in modernist studies. ... Read more