A worthy addition to the oeuvre
591440
As usual, I now must wait a few years for another edition, just when I have settled down to life with Ativi again.
1891074
The intricate level of detail, and the small features that make these paintings great art are evident throughout the book.  The clothing and possessions show a degree of wear that make the scenes more believable than one finds in many paintings where items appear as almost new and un-tattered.  This is particularly true with the deerskin and other hides.  And the composition of the pieces show the use of a pair, or two, of very skilled eyes.
1466364
For passionate art collectors, for students of all stages, and for art book afficianados this new volume of Still Life is about as fine as they come.  The author introduces us into this historically significant genre in  a way that encourages us to actually READ the book rather than the too  frequent tendency to browse through the pictures alone.  In presenting some  of the finest examples of 16th, 17th, and 18th century paintings he opens  our eyes to the symbolism, allegories, spiritual icons, and social history  that lies heretofore hiddden within the complex and elegant depictions of  fruit, flowers, game, weapons - scenes in and out of the home.  But more  important to the service of arts education, Schneider lays the groundwork  for looking at  subsequent versions of still life, especially the current  resurgence of the genre in today's artists.  Beautifully illustrated and  scholarly presented, this new volume belongs in libraries of Art Academies  and homes alike.  A generous introduction to a endlessly fascinating  medium.
3450075
_Texturology_ continues and expands Beaumont Hannant's explorations of sound, from the long swirls and breaks of "Teqtonic" to the sedate but no less complex "Vague." Hannant oftentimes holds back his melodies until the midway point (as in "Shades of Haze), establishing the mood first. "A Summer Spent" is a warm slice of melancholy, while the modulated voices in "Oblique" adds a certain eeriness. The tracks also show careful development: the various iterations of "Crouton" flow into one another. _Texturology_ seems to have more consistency than Hannant's previous long player and holds together better as an album. "Latur" drifts quietly at the start, only to introduce some acid-laced waveforms midway and a delicate piano line towards the end. Excellent.
1727487
Mehldau and Metheney have collaborated such that their work on this cd is continuous with their previous but separate efforts while still being a creative and enjoyable work.  Most of the tracks have, as their foundation, Mehldau's incredible sense of balance between the complex and the simple.  Mehldau's sense of when and how to fill--and not fill--in the spaces continues to be an incredible strength of his approach.  Metheney's contribution is to ride this gentle wave with his usual mix of engaging accessibility.  Metheny's use of a synthesizer effect allows him to explore two of the tunes more freely which provides the most satisfying tracks on the album (5 & 9).  What the album lacks in explosiveness (check out Mehldau's version of "Solar" on the album Art of the Trio Vol IV) it makes up in subtle inventiveness.
857453
This is the annual exhibition for colored pencil work and the good news is that the range of styles is getting wider.  This medium has tended to attract only those artists with a photo-realistic style in the past.  Now,  more artists with styles not quite so realistic are becoming attracted to  this medium as well.  One still doesn't see the versatility that one sees  in work from other media but that may well be coming.  I bought this book  and am enjoying studying the work within it.

Visit my blog with link given on my profile page here or use this phonetically given URL (livingasseniors dot blogspot dot com). Friday's entry will always be weekend entertainment recs from my 5 star Amazon reviews in film, tv, books and music. These are very heavy on buried treasures and hidden gems. My blogspot is published on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
2869936
Perhaps not as strong as the two previous studio albums, but still a most worthy addition to the canon. And, the melodies ARE there. They're just not conventional melodies that grab you on the first or second listen. Highlights: The Werewolf, Street Angel, Stranger to Stranger, Proof of Love, Cool Papa Bell.
4632938
The sprawling Piano Sonata No. 2 by Sorabji is, despite it's continuous length of over 52 minutes, one of Sorabji's more graspable, accessable works.  The work unfolds in continuous invention, veering from straightforwardly tonal to nearly atonal in harmonic idiom.  If there is motivic development it is shrouded in the ongoing motion of harmonic and rhythmic expression.  But the work is still actually quite engaging and not as demanding upon the ears and mind as is, say, much of "Opus Clavicembalisticum".  This is a much earlier work, and shows Sorabji just as he was beginning to develop his idiom of continuous inventiveness and intricacy.  Pianist Tellef Johnson does the work proud with his unflagging and very finely wrought pianism.  This recording is the US premiere in a live performance, and the quality of the recording is just a shade less than ideal, with the piano sounding a bit less than full-bodied in timbre (hence the 4 stars rather than 5). But don't let that dissuade you from buying this recording, as it is one of Sorabji's best works and a very worthy addition to any piano music library.
528934
These editions make the book an aesthetic pleasure and gives the story the dignity it deserves. Totally worth the extra expense, you'll hand it down.
517191
It would be hard to argue that, whether you love her or hate her, Sister Wendy has probably had more impact than anyone else on shaping what the wide, non-specialist audiences know about art. In spite of being a mega  hit, her last best seller "The Story of Painting" has sometimes  been criticized for its naivet, and [perhaps rightly so] for too little  scholarship, and far too much touchy-feely stuff. And yet, it was this  combination of direct, and unabashedly personal take on art, along with  DK's splendid reproductions, and accessible "perfect X-mas gift"  pricing, that made Sister Wendy's book and TV series a well-deserved  runaway success [and my students' favorite]. She was so different, so  irritating, and yet strangely likeable, all at once. Now DK is back with  another lavish Sister Wendy production, just in time for yet another X-mas  season. Sorry to say it, but this one is sort of a dud. Arranged  alphabetically like an encyclopedia or a dictionary, but far form  encyclopedic depth, discipline, precision, or detail, this sizeable book  crams 1000 reproductions on its by now regular-fare DK pages. It is an  impressive, if odd collection, and yet, despite all this dazzling  lavishness and colorful fireworks there is more glitter than substance here  and, alas, all Sister Wendy's oddball charm and likeability are gone for  good too. Sure, it's a nice coffee-table book, and at this price, with  literally 1000 decent [not great] reproductions it's certainly a bargain.  But the necessarily short sound bites that accompany most paintings are  often banal, always shallow, and sometimes of arguably questionable  interpretive accuracy [e.g. Frida Kahlo piece]. The text is  hardly worth  reading, having none of its predecessor's charm, coherence, and gusto. As  for pictures, impressive collection that they are, many have frequently  been reproduced in DK's earlier books, including Sister Wendy's own  "Story of Painting." On the merit of its colorful variety alone  [since clearly not for its text], this book deserves a place in any  library's reference section. It will also be a wonderful gift for any  experienced art aficionado: a quick review of the great and famous, with a  few rare, bonus finds, but only if you know enough to fill in the fine  details yourself. It's like a concert piano: unless you have the skill to  transform it into art, it's just a piece of furniture, impressive as it may  look in your living room. As an entry-level introduction to art, however,  "The Story of Painting" remains an unbeatable champion, and  neither this book, nor DK's similarly hefty, lavish, and even more failed  "Art: World History" comes close.
3867776
In reading and enjoying Handke's work I've been in good company:  he's been shortlisted for a Nobel a few times (his politics may make that award an impossibility now) and Harold Bloom considered him one of the "writers of the century"  in The Western Canon.  True to his supposed avant-gardist status, his styles and forms have been Protean, but common threads in many (Weight of the World, My Year in the No-Man's Bay, On a Dark Night...), this one included, play up his remarkable powers of observation in nature, his subtle and meticulous identification of the connections between outer world and inner consciousness.  His style in these has been a "seemingly casual tone, in which every word bears indispensible weight" (Kai Maristed) creating "..a kind of associative philosophical meditation that both maps and manifests the movements of mind."  (Sven Bikerts)

I'm personally uncomfortable with the term avant-garde;  I prefer to think the very best writers, from Joyce and Proust to the late Gilbert Sorrentino, are not only great craftsmen but formal innovators,  re-inventing fiction and pressing language into service it simply hadn't performed before.  Gauguin averred that if art isn't revolutionary, it's not art;  whatever your definitions, literary art in its most vibrant forms needn't be further labeled.  At any rate, Crossing the Sierra de Gredos is both typical, easily recognizable Handke and something new and full of surprises,  recalling Chaucer and maybe Swift and Cervantes.  Even paragraph by paragraph, there is a playful stylistic richness of invention.  I was baffled by some passages, even extended passages--some seemingly satiric episodes escaped me entirely--but I was enraptured or delighted by others.

It is a testament to the power of this writer that, even though I have several books now waiting to be read that are surely excellent--short stories by Edward P. Jones, John Williams' Stoner,  Solnit's Storming the Gates of Paradise, Seidel's Ooga-Booga,  they all will probably be a step down from Handke.

So there may be some unevenness in Crossing the Sierra de Gredos, representing an attempt that's not fully successful, but Handke is Handke.  Cymbeline can be regarded as inferior only in comparison with other Shakespeare plays, and Handke needn't be made to compete with himself. With apologies to the new translation of Pomuk's Black Book, even slightly-flawed Handke may be the best thing I read all year.  So five stars.
436086
This to me is a different kind of guide. It does not just show you how to draw the figure but gives you an art history of the figure as well as analyzing other artist work. For someone who has read and tried most of the popular books on the figure, this is a great addition to the topic. I am self-taught, so I'm starting to get into the history of art. I appreciated the history of the art form that I can use in my work.

The way the tutorials are broken down is also very interesting. I liked how for a majority of the process is pretty much the same, but each tutorial also provides a sense of how each drawing/painting can be approached in different ways. It's rare to paint or draw something exactly the same way, unless you're an animator. I liked the variety of approaches brought to the table.
Some topics and processes discussed:
-Gesture
-Proportion
-Blocking
-Lighting and Form
-Refinement

Overall it felt like taking a semester long art class where you learn the history, study other artists, and discover your own process. I like this book because it gave a different type of learning and understanding to figure drawing. Great addition, you won't find many like it.
1648604
Our hero is a featureless silhouette. Every few pages he puts on a new body and a new face. Is he Everyman? Anyman? No man? All men? Or is he just inviting the reader onto the page to take his place? I like that answer.

Our hero wanders about the City at night. He observes. One joke that runs through the drawings is that he will observe a simple tableaux involving one, two or three others. It will appear that a specific event is occurring - a fight, a tryst, an argument, dancing. Then the characters from the tableaux are recreatedd in identical positions, but framed by a new background that changes the nature of the event. So the fighters become dancers, even though they have not changed positions. The lovers become strangers, simply through the manipulation of the scene around them. This is elegant stuff, and makes a valid point.

But the bigger question is - what is happening behind all of those lit and unlit windows, and in those cafes, and on the streets, and in the heads of all of the many people by whom our hero wanders? Everone sees,  but doesn't see, everyone else and none of these spectatots know anything about anyone. This is intriguing stuff and nice material for light reflection.

Is this heavy or deep? No. Is it interesting and worth consideration? Absolutely. Has Hussenot fairly called the question? You bet.

So, if you at all like or admire spare watercolors, only the suggestion of a narrative, and reserved drawings that lead you to your own insights, well this subtle and gentle book might be just the thing.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
2085959
Trina Robbins may be better known today as a comics historian, focusing on the underreported role of women creators, but she is also an accomplished cartoonist, whose work deserves a larger audience.

Her adaptation of Dope was originally serialized in Eclipse Magazine in the 1980s.  Those magazines are tough to find today, and Drew Ford has done a great job bringing the whole story to a new audience, along with some articles and essays to help put the story in context.

Robbins' clean line art is beautiful, and she tells the story well.  Thst is really the primary appeal of this book for me.  Where the package falls down is really the story itself by Sax Rohmer.  It is, unsurprisingly, dated, and doesn't seem to have much to say, beyond the surface narrative.  However, for any fan of Robbins' art, this is more than worth it, and the ancillary material does ensure the reader gets a satisfying package.

I know editor/publisher Ford is already working on bringing another one of Robbins' works back into print, and I eagerly await that.
998415
This collection of nineteen paintings, accompanied by passages from various literary pieces,is a neat little book that manages to convey an introduction to the art of Thomas Kinkaid in a compact manner. Tasteful and thorough are adequate words to describe this book. Having read several negative comment's about the author's work by art pundits and critics, I was surprised by the masterful way the paintings were done, reminiscent of the early Renaisssance palettes and early baroque chiaroscuros. I may not be an art critic (though I do have a degree in art history),but I am once again sadly confronted with how cynical and mediocre liberal academia has become. Today, if art does not shock, anger or offend you, it is summarily dismissed as inferior. But consider what makes art masterful. Michelangelo's Pieta for instance is a masterpiece, because, asides from the superb technical work done on the marble slab, it moves us to an emotional response, the pain of the mother with her dead child, the dead Christ off the cross, His death for our salvation. Art should move you, spur you to be better, to reach a higher place. That is the true value of art.  Kinkaid's work, to this end excels.
4478067
Pianist, Jenny Lin is methodically amassing an interesting discography, much of the material unusual and not well covered on disc. Her latest release is no exception. Certainly, there are the usual chestnuts included in a compilation of this nature, but there is more: Turina, Lourie, Paderewski, Glazunov, Griffes and Glinka. The material covers a broad swathe of sensibilities and styles. While one can take exception to some of Ms. Lins interpretive decisions, there is no denying her solid  technique. A touch more poetry and passion would have catapulted this collection to the top tier. As it stands, its quite good and well recorded. Recommended tracks: Glazunov (#4); Turina (#10); Lourie (#11) and Griffes (#13).
2833522
This book is a compilation of several of the masters of botannical illustrations -- and even has a few how-to pointers.  I found the stories about the painters interesting the the color plates irresistable. If you seriously like botannical illustration, this one is an excellent addition to your collection