No comments about As Witnessed by Images: The Trojan War Tradition in Greek and Etruscan Art.

No comments about Cult People: Amazing tales from Hollywood's Exploitation A-list..

2 comments about The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.

1. College-level architectural collections serious about their in-depth coverage will want to look at the weighty The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. It catalogs all of Latrobe's domestic commissions from interiors to exteriors, and even includes analysis of his training and career in both England and Europe, his design principles, and his methods. Analytical essays accompany sketches and vintage black and white photos, surveying changes in his thinking and approach, considering his contemporaries and influences, and examining the preservation of his structures. A comprehensive 'must' for any serious college-level architectural history holding.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. THE DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF BENJAMIN HENRY LATROBE by Michael W. Fazio and Patrick A. Snadon. Johns Hopkins U. Press, Baltimore, MD; www.press.jhu.edu. 2006. 769+xx pp. $75.00 hardcover, 9" x 11", ISBN 0-8028-8204-8. maps on endpages, color/black-and-white photographs, illustrations, architectural diagrams, notes, index.
   Nothing is spared in the way of breadth and depth of scholarship, nor in the way of production quality--for a definitive study of this important, but generally overlooked, American architect of the late 1700s into the early 1800s, the early period of the American Republic. A leading architect popular with the English royalty and gentry in their adaptations in a growing democratic society, Latrobe attracted the interest and commissions of the old and newly wealthy in the United States in the decades after the Revolutionary War for design of homes with many similarities to those he had done for the upper classes in his native England. And he attracted interest from government officials wishing to build impressive buildings representing the pride, the values, and the ambitions of the new Republic. Latrobe's architectural principles and designs went far in America as they had earlier in England because they characterized what he called his "rational house" based on ideas of the Enlightenment partly originating in England and embraced by America's Founding Fathers in their creation of the basics of the American political system and its institutions. Fazio is a professor at Mississippi State U.'s School of Architecture; Snadon is a professor of interior design at the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the U. of Cincinnati. The abundant biographical, critical, and analytical text with the hundreds of illustrations of all scales of architectural works are peerlessly informative standing alone. But also they work to render the authors' revisionist perspective that "perhaps only Thomas Jefferson...held a panoramic view over the international architectural scene comparable to Latrobe."

No comments about The Papered Wall: The History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper, Second Edition.

No comments about Story Of The Tao #2.

5 comments about Fashion Rendering with Color.

1. I have found Bina Abling's books to the most useful of all the different fashion sketching books out there. This book was a supplemental to my Fashion Sketching class, and it has invaluable information on techniques for rendering multitudes of fabric, designs details, etc. in full color.
   
   As noted in other reviews, there was also a lot of black and white images for a book focused on 'rendering in color.' But I have found that a lot of the illustration work I'm now doing will be printed in B&W, so having Abling's examples of how to create color and texture variance in a limited color palette has really helped my art.



2. Would have been useful if 98 % of the book was actually in color, not black & white. Was extremely expensive for such a short book printed in this way.



3. I bought this book because it had such good reviews, but I was very disappointed with the contents. The title is fashion rendering with color, but most of the illustrations are black and white (very misleading). Plus the illustrations don't look very professional in my opinion. If you have no drawing skills but want to become a fashion designer, then this is the right book for you. Otherwise, don't buy it.



4. Bina Abling's Fashion Rendering with Color is a great source of information and consultation for starters on fashion design, and drawing in general. I've just started fashion design lessons, and I do not have many resources regarding this specific subject in my country, so I turned to Amazon.com to find the best, and I did. I've presented a collection of 30 dolls, using some of the styles on this wonderfull book, and I'm doing great, so I recommend this book to anyone who is starting, or just wants to know how to render with markers, and other materials.
   
   I hope you find this review helpful, and have a nice day!



5. Rendering with Fashion by Bina Albing is a very descriptive and helpful illustrated book for all students. This book has proved to be extremly helpful to the new student in drawing and finishing a fashion product. It gives prompt examples to the learning with colorful examples to help one learn. Idealy all students should get this book for future no matter the experience already learned.

No comments about A World of Images (Discover Art Book).

5 comments about Renaissance Art Card Game.

1. I purchased this as a gift for my 11 year old. The game part is boring as it includes only Go-Fish and Concentration. The quality of the material is very good. I'd resell the game except that the book contains many weak attacks against the Catholic Church (even though all the artists featured were Catholic). A particularly funny one goes: "Medieval scholars declared that the earth was flat because the Bible seemed to say so." Um... sorry, medieval scholars knew that the earth was round - though they did believe it was a perfect sphere, as Aristotle taught. More like this sprinkled throughout.



2. My kids grew up overseas and are quite familiar with Renaissance paintings. They've seen many of these paintings and are very familiar with them. I realize this is not the typical situation.
   
   I was disappointed that the game is basically a game of luck. It is not challenging or reinforcing of our kid's knowledge. I had hoped for a game like "Famous Authors" which builds on and tests the level of knowledge of the players.
   
   Nonetheless, the game is well presented. It's on the expensive side, but the book alone is worth half the price. Looking for a fancy gift with cultural overtones? I recommend this.



3. I purchased this book when we took the kids (10, 8 and 8) to visit the Louvre this summer so they would have some idea why we were wandering around that vast building. Little did I know that it would spark an interest in my 8 year old son that borders on the obsessive. He has read the book two dozen times, spouts off all kinds of interesting facts about the artists and the times, and studies the paintings intently (this from a kid who has no artistic talent at all and whose favorite pasttime is sparring with his brother). The stories behind the paintings, the odd facts about the artists and the practices of the Renaissance period, are all presented in a compelling way with beautiful illustrations to boot. I recommend this highly readable and entertaining book.



4. This is a great way to painlessly teach your kids about art and the quality of the photographs is just exceptional.



5. I received this game as a gift and it really is a great! The book that comes with it would have been a perfect 'Cliff Notes' for the Art History classes I had in school. My eight-year-old daughter won the first game we played and I'm re-learning lots of stuff I had forgotten. Highly recommended!

1 comments about Velazquez (National Gallery Publications).

1. This book is the catalogue for a blockbuster exhibition that was held at the National Gallery in London in 2006. Pictured and analysed here are 46 of the artist's paintings, mostly court portraits (the Spanish royal family) and biblical scenes. The text is divided into five chapters; especially interesting are the one on the technique of Velasquez and the one on the historical and sociological context in which his famous nude turning her back to the viewer, the Rockeby Venus, was painted. The last chapter deals with the reception of the artist in Britain and the way he was much sought after by British collectors early on. Even though his famous masterpieces Las Meninas and the Surrender of Breda were absent from the exhibition, they are evoqued and illustrated in the book's detailed chapter on the life and art of the painter. The illustrations are of a high quality, with many close-ups and details.
   
   It is therefore a must-have for anyone interested in Velasquez.

No comments about More Than Words: Illustrated Letters From The Smithsonian's Archive of American Art.