Reviews (1)

Fascinating
This is the third book I'vepurchased by Uelsman and his work never ceases to amaze me.His vision in the darkroom is beyond anythingI've ever seen but hope to increase my knowlage by observeing his.Keep those photos comeingJerry.Your work is nothing short of brilliant!!!Thanks for shareing your work with us. ... Read more

Book Description

Georges Seurat, painter of Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte, hada meteoric career that ended in 1891 with his death at age 31. In this generouslyillustrated book, the leading specialist on Seurat examines the entire range of the artist'swork, focusing on individual paintings and drawings and interpreting the personal andsocial meanings of their subjects.

Robert L. Herbert closely examines Seurat's early oil panels of rural and suburbansettings, early drawings of Parisians at work and leisure, and later canvases and drawingsof café- concerts and circuses. Showing that Seurat's work drew on classical tradition aswell as on popular arts, Herbert reevaluates the artist's painting technique and argues thatindividual pictures reveal artistic craft and trial and error rather than a "scientific" nature.And he demonstrates that although Seurat's drawings and paintings have striking formalstructures, they are not "abstract," but rather poetic distillations of social andpsychological meanings.

This collection of the most influential of Herbert's writings on Seurat, long out of print,bear out the praise he has received for "his ability to mix a deep knowledge of paintingsand drawings as physical objects with an acute awareness of the way they embody ideasand can be understood as social documents" (Jack Flam, New York Review of Books).This attractive book will appeal both to the general reader and to the student of Frenchnineteenth-century art. ... Read more

Book Description

Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice, here published in a revised and updated edition, explores the visual tradition of one of the most important centers of the Italian Renaissance through a study of three masters--Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto--who dominated and shaped the traditions of Venetian painting in the High and Late Renaissance.David Rosand also explores the formal principles and technical procedures that determined the uniqueness of painting in Venice, above all the development of oil painting on canvas. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Don't be misled by opinionated review!
"Ann Arbor" is way off the mark, and did not read the Tintoretto chapter carefully, as it celebrates the depth of the artist's religious imagery. This book is a classic! Gracefully written, deeply learned yet unassuming, and deserving the most attentive close reading you can spare. The introduction is the best, most concise treatment available anywhere of the outstanding contributions of Venetian Renaissance painting. Rosand is possibly the most distinguished scholar now writing about this marvelous topic. Note that the 3 "artist" chapters are not meant to produce a SURVEY of Venetian painting--each has a different THEME that is traced in the art of the master best suited to it. I've been teaching Venetian Renaissance art at the undergrad and grad level for over 20 years, and I can vouch for the excellence of this book.

Good and bad...
This book would have recieved 5 stars if it wasn't for an apparent misunderstanding of Tintoretto on the part of Prof. Rosand. The first section of the book is oustanding, laying out beutifully such necessary background info/theory as the role of the artist in 16th century Venice and (even better) the aesthtics of the disengo vs. colorito / florence vs. venice controversy. Now for the bad: while it is generally a nice, concise overview of Tintoretto's artistic production, Rosand misses the point in terms of expressive content of his art, debunking the notion that Tintoretto communicates a real, personal passion and piety. He also claims that, contrary to popular scholarship, the Council of Trent had little effect on the outcome of his paintings and "any attempt to link associate specific doctrines may be misleading" (approx. quotation regarding the San Giorgio Maggiore "Last Supper). Despite these questionable views (which he contradicts in other sources, by the way) it is a valuable volume to anyone's personal library.

Great book
I haven't seen the book, but i have a feeling it will be grea ... Read more

Book Description

Foreword by Jacques Dupin. Compiled by Anna Agusti.
11.75 x 12.5 in.
1144 illustrations ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Out of Expressionism
Because he cared about how his art looked and because he accepted traditional ideas of what looked good on canvas, EGON SCHIELE remained outside of Expressionism. Expressionist influences nevertheless showed up in his bold graphics, distorted lines, and unnatural colors: "The artist's wife" wore a plain skirt covered with heavy impastoes, against a similarly treated background, by the emotionally charged, energetically treated brushwork style of Oskar Kokoschka; "View of Krumau" brought Georges Braque- and Pablo Picasso-type Cubism into the exaggeratedly high, unusual viewpoints to make a three-dimensional motif work on a two-dimensional Gustav Klimt-style decorative picture plane. They also had their role in his opinion of art as having to do with feelings, which he drew as abnormal or exaggerated in his self-portraits: "Self-portrait with black clay vase" gave him a double-jointed pair of hands in the manner of medievally represented saints, Paul Gauguin-style self-painted ceramic head, and a vulnerably, wide-eyed look. Expressionism played a part, too, in his pessimistic views: "The family" painted an unhappy trio looking in different directions against a brightly lit background as menacing as a spotlight; drooping "Sunflower" leaves hung dejectedly along a woody stalk; and with her Gustav Klimt-styled fine society lady's huge hat, "The scornful woman" showed an Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-styled fish wife nude to the waist and sneering at a hurtful world. Author Frank Whitford has come up with a good set of illustrations and text. The author's book, along with his KLIMT, and Christopher Short's SHIELE give a good idea of the artist's place among Bernard Denvir's TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, Jose Maria Faerna's KOKOSCHKA, Hans Ludwig C Jaffe's PABLO PICASSO, Susanna Partsch's GUSTAV KLIMT, Belinda Thomson's GAUGUIN, and Karen Wilkin's GEORGES BRAQUE. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

great book
It's really a great book not only for it's illustrations but also for it's essay.I especially love konemann series of art because of the large size pictures and good quality of reproduction.The book contains a lot of famous paintings along with the details and is convenient for students or art lovers to copy.At last but not the least,it's very cheap. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

A clear look into the mind of a great artist and philosopher
I have been a fan of Richard Serra's from the moment I first viewed the torqued elipses. I looked for his work and information about him all over the place, all of which sparked my interest. I saw this book and I was incredibly curious to read what an artist who does so much head work has to say, and whether it would be clear and understandable. I was so pleased to find that Serra was incredibly open, direct, honest, well-expressed, with an even humorous turn-of-phrase at times, which was refreshing. I highly recommend the essays and interviews 'Extended Notes From Sight Point Road,' 'About Drawing: An Interview,' and 'An Opinionated Museum Goer.' I personally found myself agreeing with much of what Serra said and wrote, in fact, to my surprise, he was able to articulate many of my thoughts better than I ever had. A great, influential man, and I highly recommend this book by and about him. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Master of Atmosphere
The watercolors of JMW Turner have the concise, simplified vision of contemporary art even though they were painted in the mid 1800's. This survey shows the progression of this master of light and delicate color from tightly delineated landscapes to the atmospheric , nearly abstract vistas of his late career. The reproductions are supported by quotes selected from writings contemporary to the paintings. This book provides an inspirational overview of the work of Turner and belongs in the library of the serious watercolor artist. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An Important Historical Reference for Photography
Camera Work was the most important publication in the early development of modern photography. Camera Work was the first primarily pictoral periodical.

Edited by the indefatigable Alfred Steiglitz, the publication was the voice of the important Photo-Secession, but operated independently of it. Through Camera Work, early aficionados of great photography were able to discover the works of the first geniuses in this field. Later the publication also introduced Americans to the works of Marin, Matisse, Picasso, and Cezanne.

Please realize that I am rating this book for its value as a historical reference. This is not a coffee table book, and many of the images will not attract the casual observer. If you are looking for a book of beautiful and wonderfully reproduced photographs, this is not your book.

Before going further, please also realize that this book contains many tasteful nudes and would be "R" rated as a motion picture.

The book's strength is that it contains all of the illustrations (and even some of the advertisements) from the entire 50 issues of Camera Work. For most people, this book is the only way you can observe that work. Although many people have heard about Stieglitz's work in advocating photography, few have seen what an issue of Camera Work looked like. You will also benefit from seeing the essays that Stieglitz wrote about the photographers. These were done in New Yorker style and are very accessible variations on the essays often found in catalogues for exhibitions. In fact, Camera Work increasingly doubled as a summary of exhibitions at 291, Stieglitz's gallery.

The book comes with a fine essay (in English, German, and French) that explains many valuable details about Camera Work.

Stieglitz was very dedicated to quality and sought out the best reproduction processes for the images involved. Unfortunately, these reproductions as done for this volume will fall short of the expectations of most viewers. The pages are quite small, making many images appear differently than they were probably intended.

Stieglitz liked photography that included a soft focus or the diffusion of light that fog and rain can provide. In many cases, these effects are enhanced by other techniques to make the resulting images more abstract. In this book's format, these images often don't look their best. In particular, it seemed to me that many of the images were overinked in this printing, which would create more obscurity than was intended by the artist.

Here are my favorite photographic images from the book:

Bartholome, 1903, Edward Steichen

Letitia Felix, 1903, Clarence White

Ely Cathedral, 1903, Frederick Evans

Storm Light, 1904, Will Cadby

Illustration to "Eben Holden," 1905, Clarence White

Katherine, 1905, Alfred Stieglitz

Experiment in Three-color Photography, 1906, Edward Steichen

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, 1907, Sarah Sears

The Rudder, 1908, Alvin Coburn

Spider-webs, 1908, Alvin Coburn

Still Life [glass bowl with floating flowers], 1908, Baron A. de Meyer

Portrait Group, 1912, H. Mortimer Lamb

The Balloon Man, 1912, Baron A. de Meyer

Ellen Terry, 1913, Julia Margaret Cameron

Dryads, 1913, Annie Brigman

New York, 1916, Paul Strand

Photograph [shadows on geometric objects], 1917, Paul Strand

After you finish enjoying this remarkable collection, I suggest that you think about how the styles represented here have affected modern photographic methods and our concepts of photography. In a sense, these images are the dinosaur bones of modern photography.

See the truth, the beauty, and the pain! ... Read more

Book Description

One of the most influential figures in the history of photography, Edward Steichen (1879-1973) was also one of the most precocious. Born in Luxembourg, raised in Wisconsin, and trained as a lithographer's apprentice, Steichen took up photography in his teens and by age twenty-three had created brooding tonalist landscapes and brilliant psychological studies that won the praise of Alfred Stieglitz in New York and Auguste Rodin in Paris, among others. Over the next decade, this young man--the preferred portraitist of the elite of two continents--was repeatedly acclaimed as the peerless master of the painterly photograph. This volume, covering the period from the late 1890s to World War I, highlights masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the finest collection of Steichen's early work in the world, and reproduces them in near-facsimile through four-color digital offset lithography.

Steichen worked with a designer's inventive eye, a Symbolist's poetic sensibility, an entrepreneur's charisma, and--above all--the originality and finesse of a creative and painstaking printer to establish ambitious new standards in artistic photography. Overlaying the subtle tone-poetry of his platinum prints with repeated washes of harmonious color, he created unforgettable images. In his three famous twilight views of New York's Flatiron Building, one of the landmarks of turn-of-the-century architecture, Steichen crafted a powerful symbol of a new age. His stunning sequence of Rodin's Balzac figure in the moonlight is presented here as are his nudes, with their frankly erotic sense of flesh and weight. And the intense energy of a decade comes to life in his portraits of a diverse cast ranging from Richard Strauss to J. P. Morgan, Maurice Maeterlinck to George Bernard Shaw--and Steichen himself, the founding auteur of a century of celebrity. In the accompanying text, Joel Smith explores Steichen's maturing artistry in the light of contemporary developments in photography, graphic design, and the decorative arts.

This is a stunning visual record of the emergence of Steichen as a great artist and is one of the most important books to be published on his life and work in recent years. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Steichen; Early Master
This is an excellent photography book. It highlights the early career of this true master of the medium. Steichen's work rivals his contemporaries Steiglitz and Strand.A must have for any serious collector of photography monographs. ... Read more

Book Description

Walter Sickert (1860-1942), perhaps the most important and influentialearly modern British artist, completed an outstanding body of prints that have been littlenoticed until now. This catalogue raisonné brings together for the first time Sickert's 226prints, many in rare or unique impressions, and discusses the artist's unorthodoxtechniques, the influences on his work, and the evolution of his printmaking career.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art ... Read more

Book Description

German artist Kurt Schwitters began constructing the Merzbau, a combination of collage, sculpture, and architecture, in a corner of his studio in Hannover, Germany in 1920. Also called the Cathedral of Erotic Misery, this was Schwitters's private world. It eventually took over his entire living quarters, the apartment above, and part of the yard, and was divided into rooms-the Biedermeier Room, the de Stijl Room, the Goethe Cave, the Mondrian Cave, and the Mies Cave, among others. It was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in 1943.

Although the Merzbau is of essential importance in understanding the early Modern Movement, this is the first in-depth study in English of this structure. Elizabeth Burns Gamard discusses its physical evolution and its significance within the artist's oeuvre. She also investigates its larger relation to German Expressionism and romanticism and to critical thought of the time. This book offers an in-depth analysis of a single structure through original documents, drawings, and critical examination of the design process. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Too many inaccuracies
This study of Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau is very disappointing, particularly coming from a Professor of Architecture, as the largely unexplored architectural aspects of the Merzbau have in general been ignored. The first part of the book is interesting insofar as it provides an introduction to the post-modernist aspects of Schwitters's work, but when it comes to more detail about Schwitters and the Merzbau, there are far too many inaccuracies. For instance, Professor Gamard is unsure about the exact location of the main sections of the Merzbau (placing it both on the ground and second floor of Schwitters' home) and is vague on Weimar history, stating that Weimar was the capital of the Weimar Republic. In all, there is far too much in this book which is plain theorising and which has no substantial factual basis. ... Read more

Book Description

Stieglitz's most significant essays published together for the first time in a single volume.

Over the years, Alfred Stieglitz wrote extensively and authoritatively about many aspects of photography. In Stieglitz on Photography renowned Stieglitz expert Sarah Greenough and art historian Richard Whelan gather more than fifty of this master photographer's astute writings about the medium, along with their insightful and anecdotal commentary on each article.

Throughout his six-decade career, Stieglitz devoted himself almost entirely to the investigation of truth and integrity in artistic expression. With the pioneering exhibitions he mounted at Gallery 291, the pages of Camera Work he edited and produced, and his extensive writings on photography, Stieglitz tirelessly championed photography as a fine art-a legacy that continues to influence thinking on photography today.

Illustrated with reproductions of photographs by Stieglitz and his contemporaries, as well as with selections of his articles in their original layouts, this volume contains reproductions of many of Stieglitz's photographs that are otherwise unknown today.
... Read more

Reviews (1)

"Must" reading for all serious students of photography.
Alfred Stieglitz is legendary in the annals of American photography. In Stieglitz On Photography: His Selected Essays And Notes, Richard Whelan has compiled and annotated the best of Stieglitz's commentaries regarding the power and beauty of the photograph as an artistic and interpretative medium. Drawing from Stieglitz's exhibition reviews, travel pieces, technical articles, and various diatribes on Pictorialism and the founding of the Photo-Secession, Stieglitz On Photography is "must" reading for all serious students of the developmental history and cultural relevance of American photography. ... Read more

Book Description

The Turner Prize has played a vital role over the last 20 years in bringing British contemporary art to the attention of a wider audience. This book offers an opportunity to survey all the artists who have been shortlisted for the prize, from Howard Hodgkin and Richard Long to Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili. Their works are illustrated alongside a brief summary of their careers. A history of the prize, along with an essay assessing its impact, make this book an invaluable resource on contemporary art. ... Read more