Book Description

The bestselling biography of the controversial artist, and a vivid account of the fast times in which he lived--and died

Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was the Jimi Hendrix of the art world: in less than a decade he went from being a teenage graffiti writer to an international art star; he was dead of a drug overdose at age twenty-seven. Basquiat's brief career spanned the giddy '80s art boom and epitomized its outrageous excess, from its art dealers to its drug dealers, from its clubs to its galleries. A legend in his own lifetime, Basquiat became a fixture in the downtown scene and got involved with many of the period's most celebrated personalities, including Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Madonna.

Phoebe Hoban's Basquiat, the first biography of this charismatic figure, charts the trajectory from the artist's troubled childhood to his volatile passage through the art world of white dealers and nouveau-riche collectors. As much the portrait of an era as the portrait of an artist, Basquiat is an incisive expose of the eighties art market that paints a vivid picture of the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, the East Village art scene, the avaricious dealers, and the out-of-control auction houses. Ten years after the artist's death, Basquiat resurrects both the painter and his time.

* A New York Times Notable Book
* Basquiat appeared on the Los Angeles Times and Voice Literary Supplement bestseller lists

"Compulsively readable. . . there is enormous value in it, especially in Hoban's depiction of the glitzy 1980s art world, which is sharply etched and deadly accurate." --Patricia Bosworth, The New York Times Book Review ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Good book, He think.
Don't look to this work for any information about Basquiat as an artist. This is a book about fame. It took Ms. Hoban 7 years to write about an artist whose career wasn't even that long. This is a book about the eighties, fame, and excess. You will not learn much about Jean-Michel by reading this book. You will learn about the climate of the eighties art world and the ever-present parasites that the enormous speculation over great artists can create(Braghoomian for instance). The photographs of Jean-Michel are interesting, but because of the ownership of the artist's works, none are present to look at while reading this work. Buy a book of Basquiat's work if you are interested in the artist. If you are interested in the vacuum of New York 1980's culture, check this out at the library--it's not worth purchasing.

Basquiat: We hardly Knew Ye
This book runs the gamut between gossip, stories of 80's excesses, and art history. The book is not so much a biography of Basquiat, rather a peek into the insipid world of the 1980's New York art scene. It has the usual "hangers-on" bottom-feeding on the talents of others, the "know nothing" art buyers driving prices up on marginal works, and the merciless art dealers who appear oddly enough to be the victims in this book. Basquiat does not deserve glorification, after all he was a drug-soaked addict and mooch, and this book provides none. It is a lively read that brings to the forefront the artists that drove the scene, the dealers that made them famous, and the host of actors that shaped the movement.

IF YOU NEED ONE BOOK ABOUT BASQUIAT, THIS IS IT !
I really love this book ! I buy a lot of art books all the time. Some of them are pretty bad, and one of the art books I recently bought only because it was published 20 editions already. And that one was really a disappointment. This book, however, is the BEST art book I have ever bought! It is a book I will always come back to read again and again. (I have finished it 3 days after I got it and now I am reading it the second time) If you need only one book about Basquiat, let this one be it, and you will make a great choice. The writer has great knowledge in art, and that make this book so much more valuable!

I cannot recommend the book called Widow Basquiat. Because nobody knows who should be called Widow Basquiat. There are at least 2 dozen girls fighting for that title and the money behind it, not-knowing that Basquiat senior has already got the best lawyer and inherited everything from his son.

Phonebe Hoban is a great Basquiat expert
Phoebe Hoban has shown that she is a great Basquiat expert. She spent 7 years to do research for this book, and that is why the book is filled with credible interviews, comments and fascinating stories. She is so honest and decent, and she is not afraid of affending bad guys or anyone for that matter. She even named all those drug dealers who sold stuff to JMB. I solute and applause to her great effort. In the end of the book, she also did not forget to write her visit to JMB's mother who is apparently suffering from her fraigile psychological condition. The writer told us the vivid scence at her home. The writer asked us not to forget this: while JMB's father got millions dollars by inhariting the entire JMB fortune, his mother who has been long divorced from his father, Basquiat senior, has been living in absolute poverty. Lawyers, this is your chance to make it. Even if you do not have much good conscience, just think about the estimated value of the JMB estate - (now valued over $500 million !) you should go and and visit JMB's mother today and start sueing JMB estate which is run by JMB's father. (by the legal arrangement, each party has 50%) This is one thing JMB himself will be pleased.

Informative - but somewat petty and gossippy.
I know that's a contradicition however one gets the feeling that the author was not a fan of Jean-Michele Basquait. His art or his work.

She seems to take an almost preverse pleasure in sharing the more "scandalous" aspects of his behavior.

There is much more time devoted to his alleged "drug abuse, whoremongering and venereal disease sharing" than his art work.

Overall, I learned some interesting information about his relationship with art dealers. The author seems particularly infatuated/intimidated with the recording artist/actress Madonna (who Basquait has a brief relationship with) and the art dealer Mary Boone.

But there is precious little about his family life, what motivated him or his connection to the Black community of which he was most assuredly. In fact, there seems to be a lack of respect for the African-American culture and the community as a whole.

I wanted to like this book, and it was very detailed,however much of it came from interviews, innuendos and third-persons accounts. Fufilling at some points, it often reads like tabloid journalism too. Some objectivity would have been nice, but maybe that's another book.

Surprisingly, I would recommend it to the Basquait fan, (for informational purposes) just check it out from the library or used stack. ... Read more

Book Description

Picture a world where good sex is a blessing of the gods, not a cause for guilt, and where acts often considered immoral, even illegal, by today's standards are instead celebrated. Such a world is no futurist's fantasy, but rather the reality of ancient Rome, 100 B.C. to A.D. 250.

In Roman Sex, a lavishly illustrated, contextual study of the erotic art of that era, historian John R. Clarke exposes previously hidden paintings, sculptures, and ceramics featuring such controversial subject matter as group sex, lesbianism, and the phallus as talisman. He then uses these works to explain ancient Roman attitudes toward a range of societal issues. The beautifully reproduced art, all in color, hails from the entire Roman empire, including what is now Germany and France.

Fresh, accessible, and seriously fun, Roman Sex offers copious information about a culture that, though very different, was an important precursor of our own. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

fine assessments
The greatest injustice a potential reader of this book could commit would be to see it as merely a handsomely illustrated presentation volume. As John R. Clarke writes in the introduction to this work, it presents a more adequate synthesis and overview of the findings and researches he has pursued on Roman sexuality over the last two decades or so. The essay, a series of discrete chapters, reveals the finest descriptions of Roman sexuality informed by the analysis of ceramic, fresco, and engraved art.

Most clever about Clarke's approach, similar in this respect to his earlier, more site-specific work, is the emphasis put on the interpretation of the artworks by recreating what Roman viewers would look for and find. Roman taboo and Roman prescriptions for the realm of sex differ profoundly from ours and Clarke explicitly draws the distinctions. He explains the narratives on the Roman walls with convincing acuity.

Images from Pompeii figure prominently here. Still, the author has also sought out and discusses more recent findings from Roman France as well as special items that seem finally ready to be shared by their keepers in private collections and museum holding rooms in Switzerland.

Clarke imaginatively and convincingly tries to set the images and objects of art into their original contexts. For example, the images of the Suburban Baths at Pompeii according to the author depict positions and situations that would induce laughter from Roman bathers, male and female alike, thus warding off the evil eye. I am not convinced that a frequent bather would continue to find the same fresco images comical and therefore a protection, but Clarke's understanding of Roman sexuality is stunning and gracefully communicated.

For those who wish to read a beautiful exposition of Roman intimate pursuits and daily encounters with the erotic, I recommend this book highly. ... Read more

Book Description

To the standard material on bone and muscle has been added a section dealing with the types of human physique:a section on anatomy from birth to old age, and on death; an orientation on racial anatomy; and an analysis of facial expression. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

a hidden treasure
Copyright 1951? Wow, what a stimulating discovery, and what fun! Besides the skeletal and musculature illustrations, "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" is full of Peck's own drawings of basic anatomical features. These are not just the "final" drawings, but the beginning "rough sketches". I find this delightful because every beginner needs some inspirational guidance in drawing's first steps. A simple rough sketch of a nose, with shading; or bones drawn as a simple hinge joint. Peck's general reduction of the human figure to basic shapes is of inestimable help. The reader may just find himself saying, "Hey, I can do THAT!!!" And that is the wonderful thing about PECK's book.

Peck has impeccable credentials and must be compared to Robert Beverly Hale. Peck's is not merely an alternate duplication of the same material Hale covers. There is a 'personal' touch in Peck; but the problem with any/all anatomy books, for beginners, is that they are simply intimidating, in their detail, their precision, their absolute realism. PECK overcomes this anatomical intimidation. I would venture that PECK ought to be included in at least the first several "drawing" books that one acquires. Sometimes it seems that several pages offer more practical instruction to a new student than entire chapters in the books coming out in recent years with gimmicky titles.

"Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist," in combination with any beginning book on figure drawing is a must. With Famous Artist's school, Willy Pogany, Walt Reed, Jack Hamm and similar instruction, any book-buyer/beginning artist will find themselves on a solid footing. I rate this in the top 4 of figure drawing books for the beginner.

The chapter on "Distinctions of Age, Sex, And Race" is highly useful. PECK may be in danger of getting shoved aside with time and the publication of new pablum texts containing nothing vital; but PECK has written a timeless text that commands respect. I rate this book a very deserved 5 stars*

The best anatomy book I've seen
The photographs are too dark in this book, but honestly, who needs the photos? They are the least instructional part of this book. The magic of this book is in all of those little off the cuff-looking diagrams that compare the ribcage to a truncated egg, or the joint of a finger to a sideways spool. Study them well until you can reproduce them from any angle from memory. Those simple, blocky diagrams and the accompanying handwritten teacher's notes are like gold. If you seek a solid understanding of human anatomy as a foundation for figure drawing, then buy this book. If you are really just in the market for reference photos of a particular pose then go buy a book of reference photos.

the best anatomy book i've seen
I've never actually seen a five-star anatomy book; each is different and has its own strengths and weaknesses, but this is the best and most balanced book I've found.

The muscle and bone diagrams are good, but seem very stiff. Fortunately, he supplements them with his own soft pencil drawings on other pages, and he includes detailed (and surprisingly readable and relevant) descriptions of how different bones and muscles connect. He does give the proper names for muscles and bones, but he doesn't bore us with overly scientific discussion.

The few photographs don't illustrate much, but they serve as fair examples for differing body types and positions. Peck puts uncommon effort into facial features and expressions: he doesn't just draw the muscles on the face, but he indicates the directions they pull and how they work to express temperament.

A previous reviewer expressed dislike for the racial comparisons - but I liked them. I don't think Peck means to say "all white people look like this, all black people look like this, etc." but he gives the artist characteristics to watch for when drawing from life (to base your own drawings off of his descriptions, well, yes, that would be silly).

He also describes proportions and motion in good detail. If you're going to buy one anatomy book, make it this one.

An invaluable aid to beginners and professionals.
This book is neither a tome of detailed anatomical examination or an attempt to encompass a politically correct set of social photography so as not to offend female teachers. (two reviews pointed to these issues as detractors to the book)
What it is, is a superb tool to aid the artist in understanding the complexity of human anatomy in a visual, easy to grasp manner.
It portrays the human form in ways that allow the artist to understand the underlying mass, weight and structure of the human body and gives answers to many questions most artists don't even realize they had until studying this book.
True, it hasn't been updated since its original debut, but it hasn't needed to be. As far as human anatomy is concerned, it hasn't been updated since my original debut either.
Get this book if you are serious about understanding human anatomy and how to portray it convincingly in your drawings, paintings or sculptures.

Looking for a Reference book?
I bought this book for reference but when I wanted to look at the bones and muscles in detail, the pictures were too dark and not clear. I ended up buying "The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing : A Contemporary Perspective on the Classical Tradition" ... Read more

Book Description

From a bestselling author and journalist renowned for his access to the rich and famous comes the epic story of the last great apartment building erected on Manhattan's Gold Coast--home to countless 20th Century icons including Bouviers, Rockefellers and Chryslers, as well as modern Midases like Edgar Bronfman, Henry Kravis, Ronald O. Perelman and Saul Steinberg.

740 Park Avenue is the best-known, and most lusted-after co-op apartment building in New York-and so, in the world.

Built by Jacqueline Kennedy's grandfather, the building has housed America's oldest, richest, most powerful and most gossiped-about families for 75 years.

Their stories are juicy, startling, and above all entertaining, but no more so than that of the building itself--and in 740 Park, Michael Gross tells all.

The backbone of the book is the building: the financial, artistic, and social stew that created it and made its apartments the most expensive in New York. Interwoven are stories of the residents who set the building's tone and made its grand reputation--including Countess Kotzebue, a five-times married multi-millionairess; Marshall Field III, whose family was a model of patrician dysfunction; C. Channing Blake, the Friendly's Ice Cream heir, whose gay lover lived on one floor of the duplex while his wife lived upstairs; Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, brother of the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Kamel Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian billionaire believed murdered by his third wife; and many more.

Michael Gross knows their world intimately, having explored its every nook and cranny. More than just a sensational read, 740 Park is rich in social history, providing a glimpse into a world that most of us can only dream about. ... Read more

Book Description

More than any other artist, Edward Hopper (1882-1967) made the unique visual landscape of the American city his own. In his works, all-night diners, motel rooms, and deserted, after-hours offices are sparsely populated with isolated, brooding figures. While never directly narrative, his restrained and carefully handled oils and watercolors have a timeless, universal quality that has long struck a chord with a huge international audience.

From paintings made in Paris in the early 1900s to iconic views of Manhattan created more than 60 years later, this book examines Hopper's work in the context of both American and European painting from the turn of the 20th century to the 1960s. The influence that film and other forms of popular culture had on Hopper is explored here for the first time. Published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern in London, this stunning book is the definitive work on this quintessentially American artist. AUTHOR BIO: Sheena Wagstaff is director of exhibitions at Tate Modern, London. Peter Wollen is professor of film, television, and digital media at UCLA and a filmmaker, critic, and scholar. David Anfam has published widely on American art. Brian O'Doherty is an artist and critic and the author of American Masters: The Voice and the Myth in Modern Art. Margaret Iverson is professor in the department of art history and theory at the University of Essex, England. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Art Appreciation
The author discusses the elements which make up a work of art from the Western world; from the Fifteeth century to Modern times. Even with her technical emphasis, giving less attention into movements and subject matter, she maintains an easy writing style. An interesting and serious instruction of art appreciation. There are some colour plates, but most of the reproductions are disappointingly in black and white. For the more casual reader, this focus might be a bit tedious.

Informative
I enjoyed this book on the principles and elements of design. I think she selected exemplary pictures to illustrate her point. I especially enjoyed the chapter on "subject matter". The only drawback of this book was having to flip back and forth from the reading to the painting. Also, she talked about some of the paintings color combinations that were printed in black and white. In the paperback version some of the details of the paintings were lost because they were reproduced on a small scale. Overall, though I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about design elements.

Fine introduction
Composition, space, form, tone, color, subject-matter, and other pictorial elements of the plastic arts are considered and their interrelationships explained in this handy introduction, with over ninety well-chosen illustrations, some in color.
The author, an experienced art teacher, has also included illuminating essays on drawing and its purposes, looking at prints, a handy glossary of art terms, and references for further reading.
Highly recommended as eminently suitable for an Introduction to Art course, and for anyone else interested in learning to see more in paintings.

(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.) ... Read more

Book Description

Out of the fantasies that enriched an often reclusive life, the enigmaticAmerican artist Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) created a world of enchantment with hisfamed shadow boxes and collages. Using common objects such as cordial glasses,marbles, and mirrors, Cornell beckons us into a realm vivid with half-remembereddreams, at once magical and tantalizingly, nostalgically "home." His work reminds us ofthe strangeness of the familiar, the odd familiarity of the strange, and the finalmysteriousness of the world we thought we knew.

The respected art historian Diane Waldman probes the elusive imagery that marksCornell's work. Interviews with Cornell and his family and access to the artist's lettersand papers inform her text. With Cornell's popularity soaring, this richly illustratedbook—one of the few to cover his entire career—will be essential reading. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An Excellent Primer On Cornell and His Work
Finally, a beautiful, comprehensive book about Joseph Cornell and his work. Diane Waldman knew Cornell intimately ever since she was an art student (and through doing gallery shows for him), and this affinity shows; this is ultimately a book of love and tribute to a friend.

The biographical material is excellent. Most fascinating segments deal with Cornell's stranger sides, such as when at his brother Robert's funeral, Joseph put a sheet over his head and laughed, creeping everyone out, and explained it was only a side joke that Robert would have understood. Cornell was terribly timid in front of women (particularly the ones he fancied) and had a complete dependence on his mother (he died months after she did). Waldman probes these and other significant personal issues (such as his association with Surrealism, and how the younger artists that have passed through him have influenced his work) and examines how they factored in Cornell's art. The book is generous with illustrations - Waldman supports her points with not only Cornell's work, but with other artists that were influential to him.

However, it is the lonely and telling poetry of Cornell's work that is the heart of this book. The boxes that Waldman chooses to include are presented intelligently, and beautifully. The innocence and nostalgia of each box is lovingly portrayed. The Medici series - Cornell's especially heartbreakingly beautiful and mysteriously passionate work - is presented perfectly by Waldman with thoughtful commentary and context, capturing in full its yearning and ardor. Waldman has given us a book that speaks eloquently about why Cornell is an artists people will remember for generations hereafter. ... Read more

Book Description

Walter Groppius, granddaddy of steel and glass, conceived his architectural vision in the rubble of WW I and the decadence of Weimar in the decade after.

His doctrine found fertile soil in America, where it was time to adopt a clearly defined and suitable representative architecture.

Tom Wolfe, author of THE PAINTED WORD and THE RIGHT STUFF, treats us to a chronicle of the trends that ultimately brought us the ubiquitous and baffling "glass box" of modern commerce.

"Delightfully witty, biting history of modern architecture...scintillating high comedy of big money, manners and massive manipulation of public taste." (Publishers Weekly) ... Read more

Reviews (23)

Great! but...
Wolfe hits the nail on the head with most of this book. But I also agree with the reviewer who says that he generalizes too much. Granted, he does give Wright due praise, but he seems to lump the rest of the modernists together as if they were all the same (Kahn is treated as just another International disciple and Aalto is conveniently left out altogether). I disagree with a lot of his analysis of early modern architecture, and I happen to think some of the ideas of the Bauhaus guys were very important. But any Corbu-bashing is music to my ears; his late work in particular is just hideous and anyone who doesn't admit at least that much has to be hiding behind pretentious theories or hero-worship. The real prize of the book is Wolfe's excellent take on postmodernism. He basically confirms the suspicion that today's artists are pulling the wool over our eyes, and he exposes the blatant stupidity and intellectualization of Venturi and his cronies. A great read, lots of fun!

Tom misses the target
This is Wolfe's second book dedicated exclusively to the fine(r) arts. The first one was "The Painted Word" where he skewers the art world. That was a *great* book. This one is not.

In this book, Tom misses a good opportunity to skewer the architectural world. (Whether or not such world should be skewered is irrelevant to Tom Wolfe. His goal in life appears to be to criticize all aspects of modern culture. Is he a Republican? :)

His major mistake is his oversimplification of the history of modern architecture. By failing to critically distill the difference between movements, he paints himself in a corner of contradictions. He praises Frank Lloyd Wright, but fails to mention that Frank incorporated elements from the Bauhaus school Wolfe loves to hate. He criticizes some of these "paper" architects for designing buildings that are never built, but fails to mention Lloyd Wright did the same too. (In all fairness, Frank did not get famous because of these drawings, unlike Le Corbusier.)

In "The Painted Word", Wolfe took several movements that to the untrained eye appeared different (compare Rothko and Pollock with Warhol) and found the common thread. He then was able to skewer the entire modern art world by criticizing the common thread.

On the other hand, because most of modern architecture (at least during the period the book covers) is organically related rather than a seemingly-obvious break with prior movements, Tom cannot skewer architecture and its follies in the same manner. Instead, he has to attack modern architecture as a whole. Well, that was more than he could chew, so the book is muddy at best. Too bad. It could have been a fun book to read.

Wolfe tries to make us care about Modern Architecture
Tom Wolfe focuses a jaundiced eye on the sphere of 20th Century Architecture in this slender volume. More a historical summary than an artistic statement, Wolfe examines how socio-economic forces led to the formation of the European art compounds of the twenties, and follows how they led to the state of architecture in America as it existed when this book was written, at the close of the 1970's. The major players are portrayed as arrogant, untalented, and self-serving theorists who have no interest in pleasing the hard-working, money-grubbing bourgeoisie, who after all, are paying to have these structures built, and there is no attempt to garner our sympathy by humanizing them in any way. Fans of Wolfe will already be familiar with this formula, and may still appreciate his caustic views on the topic, but this book is rather too superficial to be good scholarship, and as entertainment, it's only as captivating as its subject matter.

As a writer, Wolfe is Wolfe, and can not be faulted for his irreverent style, his mastery of sarcasm, and his delightful ability to ferret out anything that smells of authoritarian doubletalk. Himself a master of the written word, he is never shy about ridiculing the nonsense that has often passed for scholarship in this field, but is this the fault of the writers, or merely an inadequacy of language itself? As Frank Zappa has pointed out, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", and writing about architecture probably can't be much more effective. A structure has to be seen to be appreciated, and the dozen or so plates included in this book seem far too few for so essentially visual a medium. In particular, Wolfe's basic premise, that all the architecture of the past fifty years is dull and repetitive, would have been better served by page after page of ugly, cookie-cutter building projects that passed as great architecture.

Disclaimer: no one old enough to actually remember the seventies has any less knowledge of modern architecture than this reviewer, who not only has relatively little interest in the subject, but is notoriously unobservant at the macro level, generally. The relevance, of course, is that anyone who has strong opinions (positive or negative) about modern architecture, or any architecture, for that matter, will surely find this book more interesting than I did.

Don't bother if you LIKE modern architecture
For the rest of us who find cold, modern architecture to be...well...cold and modern, this book will briefly explain why you feel that way...and why some people seem to like it so much. It is a book that is clearly only skimming the surface (look at it sideways, how could it purport to be otherwise) but it's a fun surface to skim. I also wouldn't read this if you're a devout post-modernist. You'll find uncomfortable parallels between Wolfe's jabs at architecture and jabs others make a po-mos. A fun read that will enlighten someone who never hopes to be an "expert" on architecture, but would like to know why some God-awful, very expensive buildings ever got built.

Modern Architecture debunked
I live a few blocks from the marble lollipops at 2 Columbus Circle: Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art. And as I read the impassioned articles in the New York Times about its impending destruction, I have wondered to myself "What is this strange building, and why do so many people care so deeply about it?".

Tom Wolfe is just the man to tell me. And while he's at it, he put a whole field of endeavor into perspective.

I grew up disliking the "modern" residences that disfigured Haddonfield New Jersey in the 1960s, but being too insecure to say so, and feeling vaguely uneasy about Waterfalls and puzzled about The Fountainhead. Wolfe to the rescue!

It's short; it's sharp; it's funny; it's topical, still; it's entertaining. Buy it, read it and you'll never look at modern architecture in the same way again. ... Read more

Book Description

Providing legal analysis and touching upon social history and art history themes, this work offers an objective review of five art trials. Spanning the last 20 years, specific areas of law are examined with each trial: First and Fifth Amendments, copyright law, contract law, valuation of art, and misrepresentation. Art, outside of the legal vacuum, has been embroiled in a battle initiated by social conservatives to promote decency. Three trials involving this struggle and the National Endowment of the Arts are analyzed. The valuation of art is examined in the context of Andy Warhol's estate and copyright law is considered because of the appropriation of contemporary images by Jeff Koons. Although each trial is reviewed distinctly, all are interwoven to present major issues relating to contemporary art. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Art in the Courtroom
This is a fascinating book about five different art trials dealing with various issues.(It has been reviewed as a book about copyright law, but this is a small part of it.The trials deal with the artists, Koons, Warhol, Serra, Finley and Wojnarowicz.

The book has fascinating details about the various trials that can not be found in other places.It is full of intereesting facts, like Warhol had 90,000 pieces of his own art in his estate.The valuation hearing described Christie's method of appraisal, etc.

This is a book worth having if you are seriously interested in contmporary art.

I enjoyed it and I would guess that others would as well. ... Read more

Book Description

The “Wu Family Shrines,” one of the most important cultural monuments of early China, comprise approximately fifty stone slabs from the so-called Wu cemetery in Shandong province. Depicting emperors and kings, heroic women, filial sons, and mythological subjects, these famous carved and engraved reliefs may have been intended to reflect such basic themes as loyalty to the emperor, filial piety, and wifely devotion; centuries later, they vividly bring to life the art, social conditions, and Confucian ideology of the Eastern Han.
This generously illustrated book examines the stone slabs and their rubbings as artifacts with a complex cultural history from the second century to the present, and addresses questions about the traditional identification of the structures as Han dynasty shrines of the Wu family. Written by a team of distinguished scholars in the fields of Chinese art and history, the book includes a novel examination of Han burial items in relation to burial belief, pictorial carvings, and funerary architecture.

... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

This was the pioneer
Liang Sicheng is among one of the most outstanding Chinese scholars that I admire and respect deeply. As a young man,the beauty of Chinese architecture inspired him to be the first person who studied traditional Chinese architecture scientifically with western methods.After Liang graduated from U.Penn., he moved to Harvard and registered under Graduate School of Art& Science, where he chose the subject "Chinses Architecture". Because there had almost no references in the area, he promised his professor that he will back to China to collect first hand data, and than back to US to finish his study.
The rest of his story is unbelievably dramatic.( You can find more details in <> by Wilma Fairbank)

I am very glad for the reprint of this cheaper edition, this is the book that every historian of Chinese architecture should have.Highly recommended to Chinese historians as well as architecture lover. ... Read more

Book Description

Previous studies of Picasso's involvement with the classical have tended to concentrate on the period immediately following the First World War, and to attribute that involvement to both the rise of political conservatism in France and the domesticating influence of the artist's marriage to Olga Koklova. Focusing instead on the later, classicizing prints of the 1930s, this book offers a radically different view of Picasso and the "classical" -- a view that aligns his work much more closely with Surrealist, and specifically Bataillean, revisions of antiquity.

The book's argument is built around detailed analyses of several separate print series: Picasso's illustrations for Ovid's Metamorphoses, the etchings of the Vollard Suite, and The Minotauromachy. Common to all of them, the book shows, is a strong engagement not only with the classical, but with the viewer. In the latter, Picasso's prints are clearly at odds with the understanding of the relationship between classical art and its audience that prevailed throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- an understanding that held the work's purported autonomy to mirror the viewer's own. By exposing that autonomy as a fantasy, Picasso opens the "classical" work and its viewer alike to the entanglements of desire and the dissolution of boundaries it inevitably brings.

Much of the argument turns on close readings of key Surrealist texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, and Roger Caillois. Even more important, however, are the prints' numerous references, heretofore unnoticed, to specific works by, among others, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Goya. These references effectively create an alternative "classical" tradition out of which Picasso's etchings can be seen to have emerged. ... Read more

Book Description

The third volume in the only comprehensive modern survey of the surviving frescoes created during the later years of the great Italian Renaissance to the Baroque.

Following the success of the previous volumes in this extraordinary series––Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance and Italian Frescoes: The Flowering of the Renaissance—this volume presents twenty-two fresco cycles, each representing a notable achievement in the history of art. The fresco cycles featured include brilliant works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Andrea del Sarto, Parmigianino, Bronzino, Veronese, and Carracci ––all of them still visible on walls and ceilings of palaces and churches spanning Italy from the Veneto to Rome. Here are such celebrated sites as the Sistine Chapel in Rome and Palladio’s Villa Barbaro in Maser, as well as lesser known gems.

Each of the twenty-two chapters is concise and authoritative, offering a descriptive and interpretive essay on all aspects of fresco painting, covering the artists and their patrons in the context of their cultural and political history. Each essay concludes with a diagram of the site, followed by a series of full- and double-page color plates showing the entire cycle, many reproduced from new photographs of recently restored frescoes.

No publisher until now has attempted to gather together and document all the important fresco cycles of the Italian Renaissance. While this volume is a continuation of the previous books, The High Renaissance to the Baroque easily stands alone as an incredible treasury of art and scholarship, which will be eagerly collected by art historians and art lovers alike.

Other Details: 360 full-color illustrations ... Read more

Reviews (9)

A literary, absorbing work
In Bright Earth, science writer Philip Ball presents a fine guide that examines the practical side of art throughout history. From its gains from technological advancements to cultural influences on art directions, Bright Earth surveys how color is invented, reinvented, and presented. A literary, absorbing work.

Historical review about color pigments
If you have a deep interest in color and how pigments and materials have been developed or discovered this is a book to read. There are only a few illustrations and lots of text, it is not a light book to read cover to cover. It is not a handbook and not a book of facts, its more like a history book.

I value the effort put in the book, but it wasn't exactly what I expected and I won't read it twice.

History of color and pigment!
Great art requires talent, hard work, and a singular vision-and it doesn't hurt to have a chemistry set nearby. So demonstrates prolific science-writer Ball (Stories of the Invisible, p. 910, etc.) in this remarkable examination of color in all its glory: physical, chemical, and cultural. Resolutely nonreductivist, Ball looks closely at the practical side of art throughout history: at the early-19th-century technological advances, for example, that made Impressionist trompes l'oeil possible ("after a half-century of some of the most dramatic innovations in pigment manufacturing that visual art had ever seen, the stage was set for the plot to take a new direction"), and at the range of color choices available to the painters of the early Renaissance. But he is just as concerned with examining the cultural and personal side of art, and his text offers data aplenty on such matters as how the ancient Romans carved up the color spectrum ("there is no Latin word for brown or gray, but this does not imply that the Roman artists did not use brown earth pigments"); how a Pacific islander sees the world with a differently tuned eye from that of, say, a Scandinavian; and how modern visual artists are busily remapping the old, inadequate Newtonian rainbow scale with the aid of digital technology. Though Ball, a chemist, is more inclined toward scientific description than aesthetic judgment, he is quick to point out that although science has always accompanied artistic advances, it is "a mistake to assume that the history of color in art is an accumulation of possibilities proportional to the accumulation of pigments"-and a mistake to overvalue science at the expense of art in general. Ball has devoured whole libraries to turn out this work, and though there are a couple of puzzling silences (Goethe, that great theorist of color and art, isn't much heard from, for instance), Ball's study is an altogether pleasing embarrassment of riches. A welcome addition to any artist's-or art lover's-library.

interesting science, poor art history
If you are a painter, or other artist interested in science you should get this book. This is the only book I have seen that focuses on the history of pigment, especially in relation to painting. And the book starts with a useful overview of the physics and physiology of color, though there are many other books that go into more detail on that subject.

Why isn't this book worth 5 stars? The art historical sections that situate the artists are shallow, trite, and full of clichés. I get the sense that the author researched the artists for this book, and regurgitated some of these notes. Great art history requires the meditation of a lifetime.

I recommend "The Renaissance Artist at Work", by Cole, to dispel the notion that art historians do not care about materials. I recommend "The Nude", by Kenneth Clark, as a book that manages to say something profound in nearly every paragraph. I also recommend buying "The Bright Earth", it is the best book I have found on this topic.

color the old fashioned way
ball's theme is disarmingly simple: that the history of western art can be illuminated by the history of the physical substances used to create color.

ball explains very early that his materialistic approach has often been disparaged by artists, who do not want to be seen as mere craftsmen but as visionaries and poets. his reply is simply that the luxury of buying premade paints is a relatively new phenomenon; before this century artists almost always made their own paints and for that reason understood in great detail the best ways to use them for permanency and color effects. ball describes these uses in great detail, in artists as diverse as titian, cezanne and yves klein, and the insights he provides into painting techniques are fascinating.

trained as a physicist and chemist, ball understands the scientific aspects of color perception and pigment manufacture, and has mastered the basics of how these are used in artworks; better yet, he can describe all these facts clearly and enjoyably, with vivid images and graceful writing. i found a few details that struck me as inaccurate or incorrectly interpreted, but as a whole the book is extremely reliable and informative, a testament to careful research and editing.

ball's book is well worth reading along with john gage's "color and culture" (a book ball quotes with approval), which focuses on the social and intellectual aspects of color in art. ball's title might be "pigment and technique," since he shows that the continual appearance of new pigments opened up new technical problems, and technical possibilities, for artists to work on. this is still a relatively new approach to art history and art interpretation, but it is gaining influence: see for example james elkins's "what painting is" for a free interpretation of the parallels and points of contact between painting and alchemy. ... Read more

Download Description

But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers and charlatans. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Great
I love the way Kandinsky writes. It is so captivating. He is a very spiritual artist. He motivates and inpires me. I've learned to develope an appreciation for various art, even the art for which I would not be interested in creating myself. He has helped me to see beauty in everything.

Marvelous introduction to Kandinsky
Written in 1911, Kandinsky provides a treatise on the meaning of modern art. It is a very subjective and very compelling view of the direction art should take, avoiding the superficial pitfalls that were all so common. He provides a pithy review of Impressionist art and its role in the modern art movement. He notes the successes and shortcomings of Picasso and Matisse as they pushed the envelope of art but weren't quite sure where they wanted to take it.

There is a long chapter on the meaning and importance of color, eschewing the analytical approach. He takes a more subjective approach, noting how color and music can be viewed in similar terms. He talks about the attempt in classical music to create chromatic scales, but Kandinsky prefers to deal with such connections more abstractly, treating color as he would the sounds of instruments, for instance comparing yellow to the blare of the trumpet.

There is a short biography of Kandinsky which serves as an introduction and a preface by the translator, placing Kandinsky in the pantheon of modern artists. The book is by no means exhaustive. Kandinsky's writings have been collected into a marvelous book edited by Peter Vergo, which offers the width and breadth of this artist's vision. But, if you are looking for the short course, this is the place to go.

A Spiritual Classic
If you consider yourself religious, and you also love art, this is a book you need to read. Kandinsky was one of our past masters of art. His works were beautiful essays on music, love, and other spiritual issues. It is not often artists are able to express their feelings verbally, but Kandinsky does an excellent job in this classic. Highly recommended for any library.

Invaluable historical document; challenge to the future.
The 1910s was surely the most exciting, radical, innovative and genuinely NEW period in the history of all the arts, writing, music, painting, cinema, dance. it was also one of the few periods when creative frenzy was escorted by critical might, and is almost as famous for its artistic collectives, its '-isms', its iconoclasms and its spectacularly aggressive, wipe-the-slate-clean manifestoes as it is for any one artwork produced.

Today, however, there aren't many of these manifstoes that possess more than quaint historical value. Kandinsky's 'Concerning the Spiritual in Art' is one, and probably to our own shame, speaks as loudly to us today as it did to the artist's contemporaries. A cry against all that is bogus or a dead-end in art - the bourgeois-currying; the trend-following; the excessively materialistic, naturalistic or representational; art in which formal invention is not matched by emotional power - the book demands a return to spirituality in art in an age where a godless faith in science has resulted in a soulless culture.

Kandinsky is the artist who said that 'Art was close to religion', and his concept of painting is heavly bound up with his Russian orthodox upbringing (as well as later exposure to theosophy). One does not have to be a card-carrying mystic, however, to recognise the truth of his central argument, that the only art with the power to truly move us is that which is ruthlessly faithful to the artist's inner need, not public taste or contemporary styles.

this belief led Kandinsky towards abstraction: he rejected the idea that a painter should draw what was on the surface, instead of its inherent spirit or harmony (if this led to a cul-de-sac in 20th century art, this is because Kandinsky's mimics lacked his moral drive). This book is fascinating as Kandinsky, still creating recognisably (though distorted) representational works, was struggling towards the abstract geomotry for which he is now famous. It is essential for any lover of Kandinsky's work, and modern art in general, with its revealing analyses of colour and form, their 'psychology', and the various effects they can achieve. it is a portrait of modernism from the inside, and it is goosebumping reading a gifted contemporary passing judgement on Picasso and Matisse, although time has parted company with him in his preference for Maeterlinck and Isadora Duncan.

In his demand for a total art that would unite theatre, music and painting, he looks forward to the great Ballets Russes happenings, most significantly Nijinsky/Stravinsky/Picasso's 'The Rite of spring'. Throughout, he calls for painting to achieve the non-naturalistic liberation of music.

But behind the passion and certainty is an intellectually playful (not always caught by the fusty translation), though deadly earnest artist, who knows that everything he says is provisional and a guide, a record of his own groping, striving, tireless searching.

a classic about color and form as spiritual symbols
Kandinsky spent a lifetime painting in search of the spiritual. His body of work was his philosophical opus, provoked initially by the prodigious philosophical works of Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, in which she introduced the Western world--and Kandinsky--to Eastern philosophies. Kandinsky believed that art had a duty to be spiritual in nature, an expression of "inner need," as he came to call it. He called "art for art's sake" a "vain squandering of artistic power." This book was both his call to artists to meet their obligation to humanity and his attempt to define and explain color and form in its relation to expressing the message of the soul. ... Read more

Book Description

Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors.
For example: Cleopatra used saffron—a source of the color yellow—for seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue “ultramarine” paint used by Michelangelo was so expensive he couldn’t afford to buy it himself. Since ancient times, carmine red—still found in lipsticks and Cherry Coke today—has come from the blood of insects. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

The Travel History of Artist Pigments
This is a joy of a book. Victoria Finley has taken a subject that is very important, but seldom discussed - namely how did we get the colors used by artists for painting - and wove it into a personal account of her travels to find their sources. In the process she introduces the reader to all manner of exotic and little-known, but delightful facts, peoples and places. From cochineal (I might note here that as an entomologist I was somewhat discouraged by her apparent inability to decide whether to call the source a beetle or a bug- it is a BUG! - the one clinker in an otherwise well done book), through madder as a source of orange, saffron for yellow, and on to lapis lazuli for blue, etc. The book is (as noted) also a personal travel narrative with lots of side trips. I found these to be fascinating and to add interest to a book that might have been a dry compendium of facts about chemicals.

"Color: A Natural History of the Palette" is a good book to curl up with at night or to read on an airplane. The reader will find enough local "color" and interesting tidbits to make the hours very pleasant indeed. This is, I think, especially true of artists who may not know much about the colors they use in their work.

Learned so much
I recommend this book to everyone. Ms. Finlay's research into the history of paint pigments offers so many interesting facts, from the source of the color known as 'mummy brown', to the toxicity of the original white pigment, to what gives some soda its red tint.
In this book, not only are we treated to information on hues in the paintbox, but learn some interesting facts about the people, culture, and geography of the areas of the world where these colors originated.

History through a kaleidoscope
This book takes you on rollicking adventures all over the globe in pursuit of the origins of natural pigments and dyes used throughout history. The writer is one gutsy lady - she's the kind who will go to Afghanistan, twice, while still under Taliban rule, to see some idle lapis lazuli mines just to complete her story. So the reader gets the benefits of her audacious journeys minus the formidable dangers, visa and permit applications that never get approved, and the flapping boot that she had to endure.

Overall, this book suited me just fine. I am interested in color, love travelogues, and appreciate it when I can get an intelligent account of something minus the pretension, i.e. with some of the earthy details of everyday living and the real, human emotional reactions that go with it. I enjoyed reading about Finlay's interactions with people of all different colors, cultures, social stations, languages, and cuisines. I was amazed at how she would simply up and fly to a tiny, exotic place mentioned in letters or other historical documents as the source of some pigment, armed with only persistence and the expectation of good luck - and then actually succeed in tracking down a story for her book. I wonder how many disappointments and wild goose chases she omitted from the text! Prepare for journeys on the rough through aboriginal Australia, Spanish saffron farms, Monghyr and Barasat, India, Mixteco-speaking Mexico, Tyre, Lebanon, and the Dunhuang caves in Western China. You will learn why Spain worked so hard to keep the origin of cochineal red secret, how Indian farmers rebelled against forced labor on indigo plantations, about yellow and orange ochre body paint in the Australian outback, deadly Scheele's green (is that what really killed Napoleon?), and mummy brown, which really did come from mummies.

I especially like how this book draws on history that I have a passing acquaintance with and suddenly makes it feel close and real, peopled with men and women like anybody you know.

I didn't much care for the 'I would like to imagine...' parts, since once something is in print it is so easily cited and re-cited and soon becomes part of the historical canon - I think Finlay could have practiced a bit more restraint and omitted these.

I read the original UK version of this book, entitled _Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox_, and wish that books from the UK could just stay in British English for the US market, maybe with footnotes added for clarity when needed - it would help increase mutual understanding, for one thing, and it's also nice to keep the original flavor of the writing.

Order, and get ready for a heady, dizzying journey into colors with a past.

More about her journeys than the actual colors
This is a book about writing a book about colors. The actual color information often gets lost in the oh-so-charming stories of how she researched the information. The author has a fine eye for the "telling detail." And often that's all you get - a string of telling details, without a backbone. And when she wanders off into "I like to imagine that..." I just want to throw the book across the room.

I think it's a fantastic idea for a book. And if it had more substance and less chatter, it would be a fantastic book.

Mesmerizing
An incredible weaving together of science, religion, art, government, exploration... Finlay travels to the remotest places of the globe to understand where our pigments and dyes originate. She brings the esoteric to light in a empathetic and engaging manner. Recommended to anyone working with color. ... Read more

Book Description

Colleges and universities used to teach art history to encourage connoisseurship and acquaint students with the riches of our artistic heritage. But now, as Roger Kimball reveals in this witty and provocative book, the student is less likely to learn about the aesthetics of masterworks than to be told, for instance, that Peter Paul Rubens' great painting Drunken Silenus is an allegory about anal rape. Or that Courbet's famous hunting pictures are psychodramas about "castration anxiety." Or that Gauguin's Manao tupapau is an example of the way repression is "written on the bodies of women." Or that Jan van Eyck's masterful Arnolfini Portrait is about "middle-class deceptions ... and the treatment of women." Or that Mark Rothko's abstract White Band (Number 27) "parallels the pictorial structure of a pieta." Or that Winslow Homer's The Gulf Stream is "a visual encoding of racism."

In "The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art," Kimball, a noted art critic himself, shows how academic art history is increasingly held hostage to radical cultural politics--feminism, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, the whole armory of academic antihumanism. To make his point, he describes how eight famous works of art (reprinted here as illustrations) have been made over to fit a radical ideological fantasy. Kimball then performs a series of intellectual rescue operations, explaining how these great works should be understood through a series of illuminating readings in which art, not politics, guides the discussion.

"The Rape of the Masters" exposes the charlatanry that fuels much academic art history and leaks into the art world generally, affecting galleries, museums and catalogues. It also provides an engaging antidote to the tendentious, politically motivated assaults on our treasured sources of culture and civilization. ... Read more

Book Description

To compliment the new Special Edition versions of the classic Star Wars films being released in theaters, these new editions of the bestselling companion books each include sixteen pages of all-new material, plus all of the breathtaking photos, and artwork that have made them a must for all Star Wars collectors and movie buffs.Complete scripts for A New Hope and Return of the Jedi are also included.

Some highlights of the three volumes:

• Storyboards of action sequences detailing the evolution of the story and characters
  
• Spectacular US and foreign movie posters
  
• Costume sketches
  
• Design and animation techniques used for the immense Imperial Walkers
  
• The evolution of Yoda
  
• Model construction of the new Death Star
  
• Blueprints and sketches of the Imperial shuttle design
  
• Rebel and Imperial vehicles
  
• And much more!
  

Reviews (7)

Five stars for content, minus one for durability
In 1979, Ballantine Books (then the sole licensed publisher of Star Wars novels and most tie-ins) published two versions of this book. One was a limited edition hardcover, which I have never seen, the other was one of those "trade paperback" editions (coffee table size but in softcover). What made this book a must-get was that it contained the entire fourth revised draft of the screenplay for A New Hope (it was the first time I had seen the Episode IV subtitle...even though I bought this book AFTER seeing The Empire Strikes Back). The screenplay I read included scenes that were later edited out of the final film (mainly scenes on Tatooine focusing a bit on Luke's life there and introducing Biggs Darklighter. Another deleted scene -- later restored for the Special Edition 20 years later -- introduced Jabba the Hutt...he would have been very different in look and demeanor from the final Jabba, but at least he was there. Some of these scenes appear both in the novelization (make that ALL) and in the Radio Drama.

The other attractive thing of this book was the amazing artwork. It ranges from pre-production paintings, costume concepts, actual photos, storyboards, and poster art. It even has a section devoted to spinoff art and some cute fan art, mostly drawn by small children.

The one flaw in the book is not content related but the choice of paper and binding. The pages are glossy, like those of a yearbook...but the glue that holds the pages to the binding was not strong enough to hold the pages together. I went through three copies of this book in the time it was in print...I only looked at the last one ONCE and the pages still came loose. Thus, out of 5 stars, I give this book 4.

The Original and Still the Best!
Okay...I have owned several copies of this book. Never the hardcover, since that one is rare ... It is lovely to look at and the screenplay...the fourth draft, which has scenes that were cut in the first version and some adapted in the Special Edition, gives us more of the story as it would be presented in the novel and radio dramatization. It is a wonderful book to look at, ALTHOUGH my other copies had the weakness of falling apart even if one was careful when perusing it. Some problem with the binding, I imagine. It is worth getting, though.

SIMPLY WONDERFUL
I can't even to begin to express how delighted I am with this visit to George Lucas' galaxy, "far, far away". To see designs from the minds of these amazing creators, popular gadgets, gizmos and vehicles as they were conceptionalized, is a real treat and forever an inspiration of how the magic of film making and imagination can transport an audience.

Everything from the beginning...
This is a nice book for the addicted fans who are looking for more. Well, there is not much more than in the movie, but is nice to read the original script (expecially for those like me who are not from an anglophone country) and take a look at the pre-production sketches and to the matte paintings. I appreciated it very much, but if you aren't an addicted fans it's sufficient to search in the net to see the same pictures.

A big disappointment
I recently bought all four "Art of Star Wars" books, and was profoundly disappointed by the "New Hope" and "Jedi" books. Of the books I was disappointed by, this book, "A New Hope," is the lamer of the two. "A New Hope," huh? What an absolute misnomer. Lucasfilm crammed the script into this book, as well some awful childrens' art, and a bunch cartoons that refer to Star Wars. I DIDN'T BUY this book for the script, which can be found a zillion other places, I DIDN'T BUY it for some weak attempts at humour that play off of Star Wars, and I CERTAINLY didn't shell out my money for some nursery school scribblings! I bought it for the artwork, but, sorry to say, this book tells me NOTHING about it! Unfortunately, I wanted the art badly enough that I decided in the end to put up my hard-earned cash, but man, I'm NOT happy about it. ... Read more