5 comments about The Paintings of Joan Mitchell (Whitney Museum of American Art).

1. If you're looking for a book on Joan Mitchell's vivacious abstracts, this is as good a place to start as any. In 2002, ten year after Mitchell's death, the Whitney staged a comprehensive exhibition of her work. This book was published to coincide with that exhibition. The colour quality of the illustrations aren't bad; although the description and bioblurb are pitched to a ubiquitous audience, they're nonetheless grounded in reality, intelligently written, and thus painless to read. All in all, you can't go wrong. If you can afford it, go for it!



2. text isnt that good.....way too many plates from when her paintings werent so good...1950 to 1964



3. I went to this amazing show at the Whitney. I stood for hours with her huge paintings. Even though a book cannot compare to the artwork in person, this book does a good job presenting Mitchell's stunning work. The only other book I have seen that might compare is Joan Mitchell by Klaus Kertess, but this book is hard to find.
   
   I recommend buying the Whitney Museum book. It is inexpensive and is comprehensive.



4. The painting of Joan Mitchell was for me a discover of an tremendous and excellent painter, almost unknow in my country Argentina. The quality of images, photographs and texts includes on this catalogue dont dissapoint me, in fact, it gave me hope in contemporary paint and help me as a painter.
   I recommended this book for any person who love the beauty of color, life and paint, and for painters who want to learn what means the freedom of action and think.
   Thank you and excuse my english.



5. This catalog of Joan Mitchell's Whitney exhibit is one of the great bargains among all artist monographs. Superb full color, almost full page plates of a wide range of Mitchell's work over a long period of time, numerous additional photos and snapshots, an in-depth biography of the artist and contributions by multiple authors make this a "must have" text, actually more valued than my collection of numerous Robert Miller Gallery monographs on the artist accumulated over many years. Her work has exploded in popularity over the past five years with good reason and many shows will be forthcoming.
   
   Like Ellen Landau's large-scale monograph on Jackson Pollock, you wonder why a book of this quality is available so inexpensively. Someone must have done too long a print run initially. Take advantage. When you look at the prices of the Kertess or Bernstock monographs on Joan Mitchell, you realize this is a screaming bargain, not to be missed.

3 comments about More than a Movie: Ethical Decision Making in the Entertainment Industry.

1. This book states that the Blair Witch was an actual legend here in Maryland.....when it most certainly was not, and is pure fiction. Do your research before you actually write a book and spread false information. There are many ghosts and legends in this region of the state, but there are no 'witch' legends of any sort in Burkittsville.



2. Anyone in the media and entertainment industry should study this book. Should be required reading for students of these fields as well. I also think it took some guts to write it!



3. ANYONE IN ANY FORM OF MEDIA AND THE ENTERTAINMENT FIELD SHOULD STUDY THIS BRILLIANTLY PRESENTED BOOK. SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR STUDENTS OF THOSE FIELDS AS WELL. I also think it took some guts to write it!

2 comments about The Flower Painters Essential Handbook: How to Paint 50 Beautiful Flowers in Watercolor.

1. A wonderful addition to my art bookshelf. I found The Flower Painter's Essential Handbook easy to follow, well illustrated in full color throughout and detailed.



2. This is an excellent book to learn watercolor flower painting with, and I love the loose, relaxed style of the 50 flowers you will learn to draw and paint. It is different from some other watercolor books I already own, and fills a nice gap in learning to vary painting styles.
   
   I really like it for it's simplicity and loose relaxing style, while at the same time, presenting about 50 different types of flowers to paint in a step-by-step fashion. It's a great book. It has drawing instructions for each flower, pointing out the details and things such as a folded or twisted petal, and how the bud attaches to the stem. Arrows explaining where the light and shadows fall and how to paint that are easy to follow. The palette for each painting is between 3 to 6 colors, which I also found nice. The washes and layering are also taught in an easy to follow manner.
   
   The book is almost completely devoted to 50 two-page exercises on painting 50 different flowers from letter A to W, and does not spend much time on presenting such things as color theory. I really like this book and recommend it to anyone who wants to learn and practice flowers in watercolors.

No comments about Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia.

4 comments about The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths.

1. Don't let the number of syllables fool you - Krauss' words are far too big for her britches. Sarcastic and often defensive in tone, this polemic falls short of the academic masterpiece it is often purported to be. Her characterization of Mondrian's artistic program as an obsession with the grid betrays either an ignorance of or indifference to the artist's own (extensive) writings that is shocking for a critic of such high repute. While I support Krauss' broader aim of knocking Modernism out of its traditional ivory tower, her willingness to forego evidence in favor of arguement does nothing to further the cause.



2. This book was very good from an art student point of view. It is very revealing of some subtle changes that took place early in the 20th century and became part of the collective-art-unconscious. You just don't get this sort of insight from an art history class. Thank you Ms. Krauss.



3. As Hal foster... writes, miss Krauss cannot be blamed of the conceptual limitations of the time... if read within a historical context, this book Is very enlightening and very compromised with structural analysis, as it is with it's by- products (of wihch, we often make so much of a deal these days) ... this includes early -and pure- examples of deconstructivist meta-texts. It seems to me that her efforts have not been scaled to the dimension they have. It is (still) a formidable introduction for anyone interested in really getting involved in post- structural thinking. A sort of golden thread for the roots of contemporary thought. Her, "sculpture on the expanded field", is illuminating, don't miss it. I really regret having rated "the optical unconscious" 4 stars, it must also be 5. Such risks taken by an art historian must not be taken lightly. She has taken first, as few others,the steps to construct--- the difference---.



4. While this book deals with some incredibly interesting subject matter, overall it tends to fall flat, partially due to Krauss's outmoded Weltanschauung and belief (although probably unconscious) in transcendental/idealist aesthetics. Although if you like Hal Foster this would be right up your alley.

5 comments about The Art of Hellboy.

1. Anyone who appreciates Mike Mignola's unique art style will enjoy this book. Lot's of unpublished pieces in here that I had never seen before. Definitely worth a look!



2. Mike Mignola's amazing art for Hellboy looks very different from anything else being used in comics today. His distinct linework and inking style, combined with a well-honed eye for panel layout makes his artwork a perfect complement to his stories.
   
   That said, this book is mostly a collection of finished art, covers and promotional pieces. What I really expected from an "Art of" book was process, sketches, and perhaps some discussion of technique. A fair comparison would be the recent Usagi Yojimbo art book or the Blacksad Sketch Files.
   
   Maybe one of these days Mr. Mignola will put out a "Making of Hellboy" book that fills the gaps. The few sketches and thumbnails in this book really aren't enough.



3. I would be warry of spending too many of your hard earned dollars on this book. I am a new fan to Hellboy, and absolutely love Mignola's art. However, the reason I would be heasitant about recommending this art book is that there is very little new art in it. Most of it is just rehashed covers, pages and posters. Probably about 10% of it is stuff that you've never seen before; which in my mind, does not warrant the hefty price tag. If you have all the books in the series then you already have 90% of the art found in this book. The sketches and other doodles that are only in this book can most likely be found floating around the net if you look hard enough for it.



4. Mike Mignola is the master of what not to put in a finished peice of art. While he draws loads of details with the original pencil lines as soon as the ink is applied, he buries them. What makes that technique work so well is that regardless of no evidence of the black flooded pencils the viewer knows the details are there. That masterful ambiguity is what makes the Hellboy art so creepy, menacing. From out of the shadows lurch horrors not meant for the eyes of humans. This is quirky, fun and scary without having to overwork the skilled designs and careful layouts. When I look at all the cartoony comic artists, with their minimalist leanings, and contrast them with the guys who insist on drawing every hair on a head while laying in invented overdone musculature that fairly bulges through a sweatshirt, it is refreshing to see Mignola's seeming ease and inpeccable black spotting that shapes even the things not seen, but definitely suspected, along with shambling ancient horror and explosions of combative violence in the defense of the human race against festering ancient evil.Words? In this book? My brain is full of words unread but ever present. That's Mike's other gift to me.My only question is when will we see a volume collecting his myriad other works?



5. Mike Mignola's comic books are great. You should buy them instead of this overpriced collection of Mignola art. The very thing that makes Hellboy so beautiful, the simplicity and elegance of design, means that looking at a Mignola sketch is exactly like looking at a finished comic book panel, except you can see the India ink brush marks in the black areas, and there is no supporting narrative thrust to give the picture meaning. The same goes for his pencils (of which there are few included- I don't think this guy makes a mark on paper without inking and publishing it). There is not even a discussion of Mignola's sources or inspirations, no bibliography of the occult (oh, I forgot, we're living in post-literate America). There is no insight to be gained by investing in the Art of Hellboy, because it is just a sampler of beautifully designed panels that look better in the comic books.

3 comments about Art of Claudio Aboy Vol 1.

1. Una muestra del maravilloso estilo de este gran artista que comienza a darnos los frutos de su trabajo, esta primera coleccion nos deja ver el perfecto dominio que Aboy tiene de la figura femenina; desde dibujos de personajes famosos como Vampirella, mujeres de las cavernas, guerreras, ciencia ficcion o simplemente desnudos que solo podrian describirse como soberbios y de gran calidad (su dominio del lapiz es sencillamente magnifico); artistas como este son los que convierten el cuerpo de la mujer en todo un arte y el erotismo se revela como una disciplina llena de elegancia y grandeza.



2. First off, the cover of this book is probably the best piece of art in the book IMO, for the simple reason that it's the only piece besides the back cover that is in color. The rest of the book is black and white, even when it looks as if some of the art inside could have been painted in color. Some of the pieces featured in this book are little more than photo mish-mashes to make a scene, and some of those didn't really turn out well. If you really need an art fix, pick this up, but I think there are far better art books out there.



3. SQP continues to bring the latest stars in fantasy and erotic art to fans all over the world, the latest being the subject of their newest release, Claudio Aboy. This is the very first collection of Aboy's erotic art. Born in Argentina, Aboy got his start as a cartoonist but his eye for detail and beautiful women soon drove him into the field of fantasy art. Today, he works primarily as a freelance artist for publishers all over the world.
   
   This book presents a diverse collection of his women, from futuristic, gun-toting butt-kickers to prehistoric warrior queens, with lingerie and bondage illustrations stirred in for good measure. In "Midnight Snack" we wee a buxom blonde in a torn, full body fishnet suit, chained to a wooden pole while a goblin-like creature delights in her helplessness...not to mention the wonderful view!
   
   "Shoulder Mounted Mayhem" presents a topless hottie in camouflage thong and baseball cap with a rocket launcher resting on her shoulder and ready to do some series damage. "Bound to Please" is one of several bondage-themed illustrations in the book. This one features a woman in thigh-high leather boots and corset, bound tightly with cords and chains. "Invitation" is a fantastically photo-realistic rendering of Pam Anderson who is shown in lace bra and panties with one breast exposed.
   
   Aboy also has several illustrations of everyone's favorite female blood-sucker Vampirella in the book. One called "Throne of Blood" finds the dark-haired vamp resting on a throne carved with demon heads. Another titled "Exposed" features a topless Vampirella dressed only in her trademark bat thong.
   
   SQP has once again found a new star for fans of erotic fantasy and pin-up art to savor. This is a marvelous first collection from Aboy!
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson

5 comments about Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series).

1. This is a beautiful book illustrating the different ways cultures reform the body and for what reasons. It is just like actually visiting an exhibit at a major museum. But this you get to take home and enjoy over and over. The photos are plentiful, full color, large and professional. The text is not overly scholarly, but informative and intelligent. It does leave me wanting to delve deeper into the subject intellectually.



2. To read this book reveals not only plenty of interesting and quite often surprising information on fashions past and current but its text and pictures are highly complementary. In addition a lot of the provided information gives insight into social structures of the centuries referred to - and once more it is proven that fashion is one of the quickest instruments to testify social and historical changes to the world.



3. Extreme Beauty is a wonderful book that celebrates the Metropolitan's equally brilliant exhibit about fashion and it's different preoccupations with the body. The exhibit was magnificent, and the book truly honors the tone and feeling of it, while being extremely informative in it's own right. The book is divided into different chapters such as neck and shoulders, waist, chest, etc. Each chapter features photos of the garments displayed in the original exhibit, as well as additional historical drawings and photographs of the various fashions and cultural trends that have celebrated the parts of the body. And, as promised in the title, the book explores the cultural foundations of bodily transformation and mutilation(?) through everything from extreme corsetry, [..] footwear and peircing to the tribal women who use metal rings to actually elongate their vertebrae. Harold Koda's insightful and meticulously researched commentary is just the icing on the cake. This is a must for any fashion library, but also of great interest to non-fashionistas.



4. Sentient humans with brains as well as bodies have always been fascinated by the way we adorn ourselves and why. Once we can get past the cultural anthropology of fashion, and the fads that make it a billion-dollar world industry, we can dig down to discover the roots of historical and current adorned beauty, and EXTREME BEAUTY does this . . . beautifully.
   It is pleasing--in an era in which physical beauty and adornment typified by fashion have been roundly rejected by most of the jeans-wearing public--to find a book that lets beauty out and helps us exercise our sense of mystery and wonder, based in no small part on human sexuality and attraction. Harold Koda (curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Met) has mounted a show and created a book with marvelous insights and passion, and the illustrations are wondrous--consider, as a case in point, Thiery Mugler's 'Chimere,' with its savage eroticism.
   One could quibble with Koda's arbitrary division of the body into 'neck and shoulders,' 'chest,' 'waist,' 'hips' and 'feet,'
   and his exclusion of the fascinating face/head/hair perplex, and the hands, with their magical touch and allure. But this book and its illustrations will become a benchmark by which human adornment is judged, and is a keeper of power and importance.



5. Harold Koda's Extreme Beauty surveys concepts of fashion and beauty. Koda considers the evolving, changing strategies of beauty around the world, focussing on different body parts and how they are accented and displayed through varying uses of clothing and cultural perception. Black and white and color photos of unusual fashion choices and styles make for some eye-opening insights.

5 comments about Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book: 10 3/4 Anniversary Edition.

1. NOTICE! This is not a childrens fairy book! If you are easily offended, then just don't buy it. If you think members of the clergy are infallible, then just don't buy it! If you want a silly romp into the brains of Brian Froud and Terry Jones, then, by all means, buy it! The interview on the DVD is hysterical, but you have to appreciate 'python; humor. Some reviewers have taken this WAYYY too seriously, and it could spoil the book and the others in this "family", and I would hate to see that happen. If you have seen "Goblins", you will see the same zany irreverance as you do here, and I, for one, find it charming.
   It's presented as a little girls' diary, complete with horrible handwriting and spelling, chronicles her way thru young adulthood, and thru to her old age. Her lifelong battle with the fairies becomes her lifes' work, as she squishes her opponents/companions in her book, just as they want. The glee with which they give themselves to be 'pressed', (tho they are not ever hurt, it's a game to them!) is lost on her, she even feels an occasional pang of regret that she has smooshed so many.
   Her pangs are short-lived, tho, and she continues her wanton smushing, never knowing that the fairies were always her best companions, wanting her to enjoy life, and dance with them, the way her mother had. She was half-fairy, and since she never opened the letter her mother left for her, she apparently never knew.
   I will enjoy this book, and its' companion books, for years, but have the good sense not to give them to my little boy. Tinkerbell is more his speed. These fairies are more my husbands' type. :)



2. I recently bought quite a few books (mostly on sale) from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Opening the boxes as they arrived was much like Christmas to me - I love books! Immediately I read the Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Books. I hadn't planned on this being the first books I read from the order. However, flipping through the pages and seeing the beautiful, whimsical artwork of the faeries - I was enchanted!
   
   Lady Cottington is a young girl who writes in her journal about catching, or pressing faeries. As she grows older, her handwriting improves and her stories become even more hilarious about these amusing faeries she presses.
   
   I thought this was going to be a more kid friendly book than it is. Luckily, I did not purchase these books for anyone but myself, and no kids are looking at them. There are nude faeries in the book, and some journal entries are of a sexual content. This should have perhaps been stated somewhere in the book description area.
   
   The Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book: 10 ¾ Anniversary Edition and the Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Letters are the perfect addition to anyone's library that loves fairies!



3. I bought this book for my daughters, age 8 and 3. I ordered it online without ever having seen a real copy, but instead looking at the first few pages displayed on the Amazon site; specifically the page with the little 5 year-old girl's handwriting - misspellings and all - about capturing her first fairy. I thought it would be a cute children's book that my daughters would enjoy.
   
   Instead, it turned out to be a very adult book dealing with the theme of sexual repression in turn-of-the-century England. For adults, I thought this was a very good book -- for children, totally inappropriate. I would have appreciated this being addressed in the description of the book since I believe it's presented in a kid's book manner.
   
   *spoilers* As a little girl, Angelica Cottington captures fairies in her book, and blames the little mischief-makers for doing things like stealing her stockings and changing the answers on her homework so that by the morning, her sums, which were correct the day before, are all wrong as to get her in trouble with her Governess.
   
   As Cottington grows up, however, the fairies get the blame for her budding (and guilt-ridden) sexuality. At one point, she goes on holiday to Italy where a potential suitor shows up in her hotel room (after her "chaperone" has taken a sleeping drug and passed out in her own room) and what ensues can possibly be construed as a rape -- Cottington intends to say "no" to the man, but one of the fairies flies into her mouth and twists her tongue into saying yes.
   
   Soon afterwards, she flees back to England where the fairies are more proper (touching on the stereotype that Italians are passionate and English are reserved.) When she gets home, however, the English fairies trick her into taking a hallucinogenic drug ("...the sweet nectar slipped around and over my tongue like a liquid glove of exquisite pleasure or pain -- I could not be sure which ..."), and causes her to take off all her clothes and dance around naked in a field. When she wakes up, a clergyman she has known all her life is hovering over her. She confesses to him that the fairies are making her do horrible things, and he admits to her "'Oh Lady Angelica! Yes! They torment me, too! Those little fairies!" .... His eyes had an unnerving intensity about them and he seemed to have dribbled on his purple front. At the same time, he slipped his arms around my waist. ... Your breasts are whiter than a five pound note ..." -- adding the theme of clergy taking sexual advantage of people they are supposed to be helping in their time of need.
   
   This book would possibly make a good study for a college class on the subject of sexuality and history, particularly Western cultural sexual repression in women. But I REALLY think this book description should come with a warning about the content. It is very easy to misjudge it's intended audience based on what is available to look at on the Amazon website.



4. This is a review and comment on other comments. :)
   
   The Lady Cottington Faery books are a lot of fun. For those of you who believe in faeries, like I do, I certainly hope your image of faeries are not perfect, beautiful, tiny women with wings. The images in this book are gogeous, unique, and all of Brian Froud's work fits what I believe a faery looks like. For those of you who are upset that this book is a fake when it claims to be real, perhaps you didn't notice the Cottington books are in the humor section... not non-fiction... not children's. There is a warning that says children should not look a "these pages" and are clipped together so kids won't accidentally see them.
   
   I met Brian Froud recently at a Faerie Convention. He doesn't seem like the type who would agree with squichsing faeries into a book. In fact, he honors and reveres him, as did everyone there.



5. I bought this book for my 10yo daughter who loves everything fairy. It is absolutely NOT for children, with text references to a sex-starved bishop ("shoved his tongue in my mouth") and incredibly ugly drawings of fairies. I ended up throwing it away, I was so disgusted with it. Fairy stuff should be beautiful, not hideous.

1 comments about Architecture in the United States (Oxford History of Art).

1. This book will be a classic. It is not so much a history of American architecture as it is a sociology, and not so much a sociology as it is a subtle and invigorating study of the social relations and social dynamics of American buildings and the people who make and use them. The book's views can be startling---see the comments on Jefferson's Monticello, on Buckminster Fuller, on Richard Meier's Getty Center in Los Angeles. It is beautifully written and the photographs are often dazzling. It even tackles the American suburb and shopping malls. Its views of the development of architecture as a profession and the status of architecture in the history of art are provocative and incisive. Highly recommended.