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nice plates
lots of nice plates and informative text. a good book. ... Read more

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gothic terror
...I got the two books Holy Terror's and American Gargolyes... it was a great deal. The book is loaded with pictures of gargoyles from across america and desrcibes what type of gargoyle and where it is located in america. The photographs are beautiful and descriptive through out the book. If you gargoyles get the two books for the price of one. Highly Recommended!!!!

gothic terror
This book is one of the best books I got from [amazon.com]. I got the two books Holy Terror's and American Gargolyes... it was a great deal. The book is loaded with pictures of gargoyles from across america and desrcibes what type of gargoyle and where it is located in america. The photographs are beautiful and descriptive through out the book. If you gargoyles get the two books for the price of one. Highly Recommended!!!!

Arguably the best all-around book on gargoyles to date
It's got everything... the history, the pictures, the lore, the awe-inspiring Notre Dame Cathedral! An excellent comprehensive work by Janetta Benton. If you only ever buy one book on the subject, this is the one.

Family Appeal
"Holy Terrors" is that rarest of books, one that is of genuine value to adults curious about art and architecture, but also very much capable of holding the interest of children. My five-year-old son loves the pictures--especially the "Hairy human with animal head" that adorns the cathedral in Burgos, Spain. We also both appreciate the excellent selection of medieval illustrations, such as Schongauer's "Temptation of Saint Anthony." Skimming through "Holy Terrors" is a fun way to introduce kids to one of the cultural treasures of Europe.

A excellent book on the history and meaning behind gargoyles
After searching several times for a book that gives the true meaning behind what gargoyles are, and where to find them, it has been found. This book combines a great number of detailed pictures with excellent writing. Way to go Janetta Benton!!!! ... Read more

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Wished I brought this with me
I just recently returned from a visit to this amazing city. It's huge and so utterly incredible. I sure could have used this book to help understand what I was looking at. This book has great photos, history and temple layouts. I bought a guide book at one of the temples (one needs it because a local guide isn't always understandable) and it is not even half as good as this book is. If you're planning a visit, this book is essential.

Excellent guide!!
First of all, you got to know the author Jean Laur was the Director of Angkor monuments from 1954 to 1959. He's very knowledgible about Khmer Angkor and the architects. Now, if you want to know about Angkors (all of the monunents in Cambodia) you got to read it from the source--the director of Angkors himself!! You can't never go wrong with this book. Every Angkor monument in this guide has some illustrated picture. Surprisingly the monument names are both in English and Khmer. I got 4 copies and gave them to my Khmer friends. They love it, especially the Khmer character names of the monument !! ... Read more

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Cone six glaze theory made simple.
This is not a recipe book or a catalog of glazes, nor is it a chemistry textbook. It focuses specifically on cone six oxidation (electrically-fired) glazes, with easy-to-understand charts of glaze properties, and simple explanations of the materials that create the different properties of glazes. This presentation allows the glaze creator to predict where any glaze they make may fall in terms of its firing properties, with particular emphasis on coefficient of expansion. This is an important factor in glaze design since it determines 'glaze fit': whether a particular glaze will craze or even cause cracking in the clay beneath it. This topic has seldom been explained with such clarity and simplicity.

Each broad type of cone six glaze (matte, glossy, low-expansion, porcelain, etc.) is discussed, and charted for comparison with other cone six glaze types. 'Special' glaze types are also mentioned, including Chun glazes, Bristol glazes, crystalline glazes and single-firing glazes for greenware.

Methods of calculating glaze formulas are reviewed in this book also, covering the conversion of a recipe to its unity formula and percentage analysis. Not an in-depth course in calculation, but a basic introduction for the novice, or a handy review for the more experienced (but not yet expert) glaze developer.

Recipes are given for each glaze type, but they serve less as suggestions for glazes to use than as typical examples for comparison. Colorants are discussed in a basic way, but are not the focus of this book.

Photos are given for each example discussed, featuring test tiles of each glaze arranged for easy comparison. Not many pictures of pretty pots here, just consistent, representative photos of glaze samples of the sort shown on the cover, and pictures of a few actual ceramic objects to demonstrate the appropriateness of various glazes in practice.

The appendix contains a useful chart of the chemical compositions of many common ceramic materials used in the US and UK (where the author resides).

This book is an excellent aid to making cone six glazes from scratch. It's not quite a 'start from zero' book, but a useful supplement to the standard studio-ceramics textbooks. Easy to understand, not scary, and does not presume an extensive chemistry or mathematics education, though a high-school-level background will be helpful. This is a book for the ceramist who has been using existing glaze recipes, but is now ready to find out how they work and to develop their own. ... Read more

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An excellent, easy book about Antiquity's most famous statue
This book is well written, and easily read and understood by the average reader. It explores not only the history of Praxiteles most famous creation, but also deals with the female nude in the Ancient Hellenic world. The book helps explain the attitudes of people towards female nudity, and make sense of the appearance of the various female nudes of antiquity. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Two entirely disparate aspects of our present zeitgeist--the embrace ofmulticultural complexity in place of its former suppression, and the currentelision of landscape design with "real" sculpture and art--might seem to be asadolescent as our own postmodern age. Both, however, were fully embodied in thework of the great Japanese-American Isamu Noguchi (1904-88), which as early asthe 1930s was finding reconciliation in cultural rootlessness, and eroding theline between landscape and sculpture. Ana Maria Torres's handsome, erudite, andbroad-ranging study of Noguchi's public works drives these two points home.Complete with a wealth of black-and-white photographs of both his completedworks and models of his unrealized ones, the book prompts us to consider fromnew angles some of the unique accomplishments of this very enterprising artistwho incorporated elements of ancient outdoor sites into exterior work thatprovided an uncannily fitting complement to the very midcentury-modernarchitecture that it was commissioned to accompany.

Here, more than 75 projects are presented and considered; they are divided intoseven chapters (each of which focuses on a subsection of Noguchi's vast output,including playgrounds; "earthworks"; gardens, plazas, and parks; memorials;fountains; interiors; and public sculptures) and engrossingly narrated byTorres. Each chapter is kick-started by a Noguchi excerpt about the work inquestion. The thematic organization of the book means that we keep bouncing backto the 1930s just when we are familiarizing ourselves with the projects andartistic preoccupations of Noguchi's final decade. But that format alsounderscores how his style and ambitions evolved in a uniquely personal manner,even as they seem to reflect perfectly the spirit of their particular age.

The exciting work that is included here is almost too vast and varied to besummarized, although a small sampling of highlights might include Noguchi'sgardens for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, for which he convinced architectsMarcel Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Bernard Zehrfuss to relocate a mobile ofAlexander Calder in order for him to expand on his own ideas (needless to saythat Calder was not pleased); the famous sunken garden for Yale University'sBeinecke Library, with its three bold marble sculptures--of a pyramid, a ring,and a cube--and marble paving work that was inspired by that of Michelangelo'sPiazza del Campidoglio, which Noguchi adored; the massive pylon water fountainand sprawling circular plaza that he designed for downtown Detroit from 1971-79,much to the delight of legendary mayor Coleman Young, who prompted him to designa subterranean amphitheater just beneath it for the city's annual EthnicalFestival; and, three years before his death, the garden of the Domon Ken Museumof Photography in Sakata, Japan: an enclosed court of water that runs over fourstone terraces, with a single granite pillar rising up near the center--surelyone of the most serenely beautiful vistas in modern architecture, even asreproduced here (as are all of the photos, somewhat unfortunately) in laconicblack and white.

There is some less monumental work here that fascinates and delights, too,including the boldly biomorphic and drop-dead mod undulating ceilings thatNoguchi designed for St. Louis's American Stove Company building (1948) andRockefeller Center's Time-Life Building (1947, now shamefully destroyed), pluspotentially terrific unrealized work, such as plans that he devised in the 1960s(with beloved collaborator Louis Kahn) for a playground for New York's RiversidePark.

There is one thing that this very satisfying retrospective makes clear aboutNoguchi: instead of letting the contradictions of his own ancestry undermine hiswork, he used them to his advantage in a way that--for all of the diverse globalinfluences of his oeuvre--struck this reviewer as quite distinctly andresourcefully American. --Timothy Murphy ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Illuminating a visionary but in black-and-white
Noguchi is, unfortunately, not as well known by the public as the major artist that he was. This book does a good job of showing the relationship between conception and execution of his major public spaces and public sculptures (the intention of the book), but a full understanding of Noguchi requires seeing his other works, such as his furniture and stage designs. The major drawback of the book is that the illustrations are entirely in black and white. While Noguchi's works were primarily about shape and their relationships and distribution through space, it would have been nice to see the photographs of the finished spaces and sculptures in color to get a better sense of their ambience. This book is appropriate for sculptors, environmental artists, architects, larger public libraries, and libraries in academic institutions with art programs that include instructors open to a broad range of ideas in art. A good complement to this book would be Bruce Altshuler's "Isamu Noguchi" (Modern Masters, Vol 16), 1995. ... Read more

Book Description

Gathering together photographs of stunningly realistic wax anatomies from Florence's Museo La Specola, Encyclopaedia Anatomica is a fascinating journey through the human body.Each chapter from the original volume is reduced here, though the most important views and studies have all been included. ... Read more

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Wow! X Files meets the Medicis!
I ran across this book in a small shop in Rome (wish I had seen it here first) - while the text of my copy is all in Italian (And I don't read Italian) the pictures were enough to sell me on wanting to see the exhibit it represents. It is chalk full of beautiful photographs of the human anatomical exhibit at La Specola, a zoological museum in Florence, Italy - kind of on the strange macabre side, but if you like that, you will love this book. The focus of the human exhibit is a number of incredible 18th century wax sculptures that were done for the study of medicine and strange ailments of the body. As a figure drawing student, I am very interested in learning as much as I can about anatomy - this book has some beautiful artistically well done photographs of these various anatomical structures which are a wonderful study tool for me. Hey, all I can say is that the price was so good and I loved the book enough to buy a couple copies and give one as a gift - and I will add that the price here on Amazon is better than what I paid. ... Read more

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A Compromise
If you seen the work of Joseph Cornell before and loved it then you will find much to learn from in this book. But, I'm not sure readers encountering Cornell for the first time through this book will be won over. The detailed text by McShine is thorough, covering his life, his surrealist box constructions, collages and cinema. A huge amount of his work is reproduced, and an extensive bibliography are included. However, most of the plates are in black and white, with only a handful of colour photographs of his work. Moreover, the photographs of his work lack depth, so the three-dimensional tactile qualities of his enigmatic box constructions are lost. Perhaps these qualities would be difficult to convey in any photographs. So, it is not the perfect Joseph Cornell book. But the writing is interesting and I still loved looking at the less-than-ideal reproductions of his work. ... Read more

Book Description

Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel-the great glory of Vatican art and one of the most treasured masterpieces of Western painting-provide a visual feast for art lovers in this magnificent, affordable new book. Presenting a complete survey of the restored Sistine Chapel frescoes from Creation scenes to the Last Judgment, the book includes a new text by a prominent American scholar. The stunning photographs, previously published by Abrams in two separate volumes, show brilliant details as well as large, overall views. No other one-volume work on the Sistine Chapel offers such a clear, concise introduction to this perennially popular subject. ... Read more

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Loved it!
This was a wonderful book at a really good price. The pictures are quite good, showing a lot of detail and clarity. The narrative is enjoyable as well. This book will make you want to go to Rome and see the real thing up close! (This is also a good book to read along with Ross King's "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.") Great for your coffee table or art history collection! ... Read more

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Clas Oldenberg / An Anthology
I could not wait to get my hands on this book as Oldenberg (to me) is one of the great Contemporary Masters. To say the least it wasn't a dissapointment. It is "The" Bible of Oldenberg. I would reccomend this Anthology to anyone that has any interest whatsoever in the Building Blocks of Contemporaty Art. ... Read more

Book Description

Over the past 20 years, the sculptor Antony Gormley has created some of the most memorable and controversial public art installations in Britain, the United States, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Australia, and China. His work has focused on the human figure and each piece is either cast directly from his own body or one of his volunteer models. He is best known for large-scale landscape interventions, such as Another Place, where 100 cast iron figures are installed facing the horizon on the coastal mud-flats at Cuxhaven, Germany; The Angel of the North, commissioned by the city of Gateshead in England; and Inside Australia, where 51 sculptures were cast from the inhabitants of Menzies, western Australia, and set in 10 square kilometers of a dried lake. Gormley has also created many collaborative works in major public museum sites, such as the 190,000 figures in Asian Field and the 250 Domain sculptures made of stainless steel bars commissioned by the Baltic art center in Gateshead, England.

This book is the definitive guide to Gormley’s career. An extensive, large-format publication, it is the first major retrospective of his most significant works. Each chapter considers one of 25 projects in a comprehensive visual essay and a text written by the artist, explaining the genesis, creation, and installation of the work. An extended illustrated essay by the renowned political philosopher and writer Richard Noble will consider the development of Gormley’s work, its context of late 20th-century sculpture, and the problematic use of his own body as a model for sculptural forms, as well as offering the first analysis of the political nature of his collaborative works. Essay by Richard Noble. Clothbound, 9.75 x 11.75 in. / 400 pgs / 200 color and 100 b&w. ... Read more

Book Description

David Nash has built an international reputation over the course of his thirty-year career. Since his first one-man show in 1973, there have been more than eighty solo exhibitions of his sculptures and drawings and his work is held in public art galleries and private collections all over the world. Working predominantly in wood, Nash has been a driving force--along with Hamish Fulton, Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy--in what has become known as English Land art.

This book is the first to consider the entire range of Nash's work, including sculptural precedents and influences, and some of the key issues affecting contemporary sculpture.Working in close collaboration with the artist, Julian Andrews presents Nash's work in terms of themes, drawing formal relations between works, which are highlighted through the illustrations accompanying the text.

In addition to 240 black-and-white photographs, color plates illustrate seventeen key works. The main text is supported by comprehensive reference material, comprising chronology, bibliography, lists of exhibitions, public collections, and works in open spaces. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Wonderful tribute to Groundbreaking Artist
I have this book and I love it. You are given a glimpse of the New York art scene in the 1960's and get a feeling of what it must have been like during that exciting period. In fact, it's a little scary to imagine being around during that time, kind of overwhelming. Conceptual art, pop art, Andy Warhol, the whole psychedelic hippie scene. But oddly still a man's world, for all the miniskirts and 'free love' hype. Her contemporaries were pretty much all men, and the women tended to be more like sidekicks and dilettantes. (Not to take anything away from male artists, that's just the way it was at the time.) The end of Eva's marriage, to another artist, seems almost a given once she really started to come into her own right. It must have been kind of lonely, men were probably threatened by the idea of a female artist, or maybe it was just that she didn't have time to find the right person in her short life. Also, at the time there was much less awareness of toxicity in art materials both traditional and non-traditional. I have to admit I'm fascinated by the romance of this heroic figure producing art despite the cost to her personal life and health. I don't see her as a martyr but as a brave pioneer who left us with beautiful art. Many of Eva Hess's sculptures were made using ephemeral materials but this book has pictures of them when they were new. Even if the actual sculptures don't survive, the image of them will somehow continue to survive, maybe with the help of virutal reality technology? Anyway, thank you Lucy Lippard for this informative book packed with pictures and info about Eva!

Great document of crucial, endlessly fertile Hesse
Featured are reproductions even of artworks which no longer exist, and Lippard's commentary is always to the point. I don't dwell on the fact that Eva Hesse died young -- in fact, I'm not interested in the cult of personality which in my view only obscures the works themselves. But in at least three directions Hesse has given me plenty to think about and purely enjoy, and this book documents everything... maybe it slights the drawings a bit, but there's another book out there with nothing but drawings, drawings galore. The implications of what Hesse accomplished remain "mindblowing." Anyone who has only heard about her or seen one or two works needs to see what they've missed. ... Read more

Book Description

Tom Friedman is an unusual young American sculptor who produces quirky yet beautiful sculptures out of household objects – pencils, plastic cups, laundry detergent, paper straws. Featured in cream and in a one-person presentation at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Friedman has quickly gained an impressive following of some of the most attentive and influential contemporary art-watchers in the United States. This is art which raises questions about the making and seeing of art, about the pleasures of small transformations producing sudden beauty. This book will coincide with Friedman's first major American museum tour, to be held in 2000–2002.American art critic Bruce Hainley examines the artist's work as a kind of giant self-portrait. Poet and novelist Dennis Cooper discusses with the artist such unexpected influences as contemporary electronic music. Guardian art critic Adrian Searle looks at the artist's work Untitled, 1993 – a ring of plastic cups in a home-made Minimalist tradition. The Artist's Choices are The Dinner Party (1919) by Swiss writer Robert Walser, and the glossary to Info-Psychology (1975–76) by Timothy Leary, the cult psychologist who advocated the use of psychedelic drugs. Facsimiles of the artist's notebooks and text works are published alongside an important interview by curator Robert Storr. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Fascinating to Look at
Tom Friedman is a conceptual artist whose work has the remarkable ability to intrigue almost anyone. This book is impossible to not examine: the works are wonders, the layout and photography are beautiful, and the text is as enlightening as it is thought provoking.
I'm a High School English teacher and I sometimes leave this book out so that unsuspecting students can open it and marvel at Friedman's work: The bubblegum piece and the toothpicks never escape their attention. I've yet to meet anyone who can simply dismiss Friedman's work they way most installation art is written-off as unappealing to anyone without an art degree.
While the interview with Friedman occasionally lapses into vacuous philosophizing, it is surprisingly lucid and often adds another dimension to the viewer/reader's engagement of a particular piece. Friedman is especially good at addressing (and dismissing) the common (and lazy) description of his work as "obsessive."
This book's representation of Friedman's work has a popular appeal that is inextricably intertwined with its philosophical and artistic inquiry:
"bubble gum": What is craft?
"1,000 hours of staring "What is history?
"Ball of feaces": What is the line between existing and not existing?
In short: burn your art history books and replace them with this one.

Great artist, Great collection
Tom Friedman takes household objects and...well read the book jacket if you want a description of what Friedman does, the fact is this is a great book. The obsessive nature of Friedman's work really comes through in this collection, with descriptions of the painstaking process Friedman went through to create his works. One such work is a blank piece of paper that Tom Friedman literally stared at for a thousand hours, not consecutively of course. Friedman explains his thought process, how he conceptualizes his art. The "1000 hours of Staring" for example, are Friedman's attempts to "create" a history to an object (without knowing the "history" of the piece, you would simply be looking at a blank piece of paper)

It would probably be more impressive to see these pieces in person, (especially in his pieces that are very very small or emphasize 'imagined' space such as the area that Friedman had a witch put a hex on). To anyone who hate art installations and the like this book may change your mind. But don't think that Friedman only does installations, his work covers many different areas, from photograhpy to sculpture and illustration. The one quality that links all these mediums is Friedman's intricate, detailed thought process. Even people who aren't into modern art will be forced to meditate on the nature of the objects Friendman employs. Can't say enough about this book. Pick it up even if you think you don't like post modernism, pick it up even if you hate art. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

a tribute
sculptor. architect. child prodigy... Bernini's real name was Michaelangelo, but he hid the fact so that his own work would stand apart from that of the greatest sculptor of all time. Here is a tribute to a man who fufilled a great potential to create beauty in this world. The Galleria Borghese in Rome will attest to this. A wonderful volume about a truly incredible talent.

bellissima
Wittkower has created a book that is easily enjoyable for those familiar of Bernini, or those starting to learn about art/archetecture of the Baroque. I highly reccommend this book to anyone remotely interested in this period, as the photos are clear and the explanations are not filled with jargon a lay person could not understand. bravo.

A Must For Bernini Scholars
Wittkower's work is simply stated an artistic anthology of the achievements and life of the chief architect of the Roman Baroque. His perseptive commentary and pertinent factual information are extremely useful to all who attempt to comprehend the complex messages behind all of Bernini's work. While the author stays committed to rendering the artist as a sculptor and architect, one wishes that Wittkower would delve more into the environment, particularly political and religious movements, that continually serve as an impetus and background to Bernini's chef d'oeuvres. Regardless, Wittkower's inclusion of both color and detailed black and white plates allow the viewer to observe the Baroque master's works in their appropriate light. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

THE BEST CATHEDRAL BOOK EVER
This is the most spectacular book for you if you like lots of HUGE clear photos of TONS of gothic cathedrals. There are MANY pages of history and other information about the making and restoring of the cathedrals. A MUST HAVE for any gothic-history lover.

Big beautiful book! Coffee table caliber.
I first discovered this book in the library and I checked it out several times because I just loved looking at it so much. The pictures are so breathtaking, it increased my resolved to go to Europe and visit all these incredible places first hand. It's a great thourough book for anyone who is new to Gothic art forms as well as a visual reference for people who are already familiar with the style.

Hard to carry around, but very easy to read!

Fabulous book, fabulous bargain
Having borrowed this book over and over from the library, I really had a hard time parting with it when I last returned it. The photographs are splendid, a joy to look at. Since it also qualifies as a reference book, I looked it up ..... to but [buy] a copy but was certain price would be ... more than in was. Now I'm about to by my third copy --it is an amazing bargain.

Great purchase
I found the book superb. As a lover of Gothic arquitecture, I buyed it recently and I found lots of great color photographs, really interesting texts as they have been written by german experts, and more surprising, with an excellent price/quality ratio. After buying this book, I have completed the series buying the books dedicated to Romanesque, Baroque and Renaissance. All of them are really fantastic.

Absolutely Incredible!!
I have been looking for this book for ages! I have had all of the other books for a while and thought that "Gothic" was beyond me. Now I'm glad that I kept looking. I know that there are other books out there on the Gothic period, but none of them are as well-done as this one. Usually you would spend twice as much to get a book of this caliber in your library. The photographs and text perfectly compliment one another. This book delivers far more than I ever expected. ... Read more

Book Description

The Venus de Milo is both a great work of art and a popular icon, and from the moment of her discovery in 1820 by a French naval ensign, she has been an object of controversy. In Disarmed, Gregory Curtis gives us the “life” of this magnificent representation of life.

Using memoirs, letters, and official accounts, Curtis takes us up close to events. We see the Venus unearthed by a farmer digging for marble building blocks on the Aegean island of Melos at the moment a young officer and amateur archeologist looking for “relics” happened by. We also see how the island’s elders, excited by the Frenchman’s offer of money, fought with their Turkish overlords over who owned her. We learn how the French pressed their claim and then, outwitting other suitors, brought her to the Louvre, where she became an immediate celebrity.

A passionate researcher, Curtis shows us Europe in the early nineteenth century, caught in the grip of a classical art mania and a burgeoning romantic Hellenism. He sketches a tale of rich historical intrigue, revealing just how far the Louvre was prepared to go to prove it had the greatest classical find of the era. He tells how this resulted in two magisterial scholars, one French and one German, battling over the statue’s origins and authenticity for decades.

Finally, expanding on accepted research, Curtis offers his own ideas of who carved the Venus and when, and how she appeared in her original setting on the island of Melos. He ends with a tribute to the statue’s beauty and eternal appeal.

A delightful, illuminating history of one of the most famous artworks of all time. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Alexandros The Great
What a remarkable book, especially for a "first-time" author! There is so much fascinating information contained in the space of 200 pages, it's a tribute to Mr. Curtis (and his editor) that he was able to sandwich everything in - and to keep the sandwich neat and tidy. The book is a joy to read, from when the statue is uncovered by a farmer on the Aegean island of Melos right up until the final flourish, when Mr. Curtis presents his conclusions concerning who sculpted the Venus, when it was done, and what makes the statue a great piece of art. At first, there was a dispute about who was going to get possession of the Venus - the Turks or the French. Mr. Curtis explains why it was so important for the French to bring home this prize: Greek works were considered the epitome of art, if they were from the classical period (around the 4th century B.C.). It was thought that you could do no better than to imitate what the Greeks had done, and the best way to imitate the Greeks was to have their works where your own artists could study them, copy them, and gain inspiration from them. The British had the famous Elgin marbles and the Vatican had the Apollo Belvedere (which was removed from the Louvre and returned to Italy after Napoleon's final defeat), so it was very important to the French that they "bring home the bacon" and get the Venus to Paris. Mr. Curtis did extensive research and it really shows: in addition to the story of the Venus, we learn a lot about Greek society, including the role of women and female sexuality. Mr. Curtis also gives us a crash course in Greek mythology (we need this information in order to understand his conclusions about why the statue was located where it was, its purpose, and what position the missing arms would have been in and what they were doing). The author also gives us a blow-by-blow description of the "battles of the scholars." French scholars were desperate to prove that the sculpture came from the "right" (classical) period and was not carved at a later date. (This was due to the huge influence of a thinker named Johann Winckelmann, who stated that Greek art from after the classical period was inferior.) Battling against the "French School" was the highly respected Adolf Furtwangler, who concluded (based on physical evidence found at the same site where the Venus had been unearthed) that the statue was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime around 100 B.C. This argument seems silly to us - after all, if the Venus is a great work of art, what's the difference? But it points out the importance of historical context and frames of reference. At that time, it was important to the cognoscenti that the sculpture have the right pedigree. This all allows Mr. Curtis to have a lot of fun showing us the mental "loop-the-loops" the various scholars went through trying to prove they were right and their opponents were wrong. This included much wishful thinking and groundless speculation, in addition to selective use of the available data. (Does this sound surprisingly modern to anyone out there?) Another section of the book I really enjoyed was where Mr. Curtis explained how the Venus de Milo would have been displayed back at the time she was created. Based on standard practice of the time, she would have been adorned with bracelets, earrings and a necklace; her hair would have been painted blonde and her lips would have been painted red; likewise, her drapery would have been painted. Mr. Curtis explains that nowadays we would think all of this would ruin the statue, but to the Greeks it all would have made her more lifelike. Over the years many people were involved with the story of the Venus de Milo, and the author doesn't miss out on the chance to humanize the story by letting us in on their idiosyncrasies. For example, one of the Frenchmen who went to Melos to try and get possession of the statue after the discovery was the comte de Marcellus. He was very eager to sail to the island, but not because he was an art lover. He had happened to see a beautiful girl in a painting by a Viennese painter by the name of Johann Ender. Marcellus was obsessed with the girl in the painting, and found out from Ender that she lived on Melos. So, Marcellus was interested in beauty - but not of the inanimate kind! The aforementioned Furtwangler was also a rather interesting specimen - he proposed to his future wife, Adelheid Wendt, on the first night he met her. As with many brilliant men, Furtwangler had no use for brains that he perceived as operating at a lower wattage. Thus, he referred to a fellow scholar as a "complete ignoramus" and he was never happier than when he was able to pick out a museum's prize piece and label it a fake. The book is full of people such as Marcellus and Furtwangler - brilliant, odd, and entertaining. There is one last thing I should mention: the title of my review refers to the artist who sculpted the Venus, a Greek man named Alexandros of Antioch. He also wrote poetry, and composed and sang songs. Those works are all lost to us, but we still cherish his greatest creation.

Behind the Masterpiece, the Venus de Milo's real story
There aren't many titles about the Venus de Milo, and far fewer in English yet.

Gregory Curtis has written an entertaining and informative book that tells more than the usual cut and dry history and dates for the Venus de Milo. He has written a book that introduces a whole range of characters that had a direct influence on the statue from the time of her discovery on Milos through her arrival at the Louvre and her subsequent history.

I've always fancied myself as an armchair student of the Venus, but learned some new and fascinating things.

The book is a breeze to read. I only wish there had been many more illustrations and preferably some color shots.

Mr. Curtis is convincing in his opinion that the somewhat rough and crude arms found with the statue were probably the originals, but unfortunately, there is no illustration to show how the statue would have looked when she was finished.

This will make an excellent addition to art history libraries and enthusiasts bookcases everywhere. ... Read more