5 comments about The Painted Word.

1. Tom Wolfe, that most trenchant of all observers of contemporary American society, turns his gaze to the world of painting and drawing during the first seventy-five years or so of the twentieth century in this book, published in 1975.
   
   Just about anybody with eyes has, I think, wondered by what criterion a good deal of the painting during this period can be considered art. Few of us, however, have Wolfe's command of language to explain the complete vapidity of the work produced during the period that he covers, nor the ability, nearly unique to Wolfe, of allowing artists, critics, and theorists' own words to expose that vapidity.
   
   This is indeed a refreshing work, and written with Wolfe's usual mastery.



2. If your interest is writing or art, you'll enjoy The Painted Word by Tom Wolf. If you like both, then this irreverent, little book will make you laugh, nod in agreement, or cry out in protest. You definitely won't be bored. This is Wolf at the top of his game and you'll find yourself constantly reading passages aloud to anyone within earshot.
   
   First published in 1975, Wolf decomposes modern art movements in a way that is both enlightening and entertaining. His clever style provides the reader with an inside look at the art world and illuminates the follies of our cultural elite. Even if you have only a cursory understanding of modern art, Wolf's insightfulness will prompt numerous "oh yeah, now I get it" moments.
   
   The Painted Word will make your next visit to an art museum more discerning and a heck of a lot more fun.
   The Shut Mouth Society
   The Shopkeeper



3. A Review of Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word"
   
   Tom Wolfe's rhetoric is at times overpowering but like beautifully complicated music (Bach?) it is a symphony for both the brain and the heart. Wolfe is saying that as art loses its goal to communicate it becomes lousy art, if art at all. He implies that "art for art's sake" is a false concept, and I agree with him. He attacks pretentiousness in both artist and art lover and correctly labels it a game.
   
   Wolfe's title is a word play in two respects. (1) The modernists invent their genres and make them more important that the art itself. (2) Art must have a subject, just as a sentence must have a subject.
   
   The phrase "Art for art's sake" can be used in an adjectival way meaning devotion, obsession, degree of love for the activity of art, and that's fine with me. But there must be more to art than excited devotees. Otherwise, every fanatic, let alone every hard working man who loves his job, would be a creator of art in some form or another. And the crudeness of our world, albeit with beauty scattered about here and there, tells us that is not the case. Of course, beauty and tenderness can exist and not be art. For art does not become art simply because someone says it is.
   
   Much modern art is good and beautiful and meaningful in its dealings with color and form. And a painting might indeed deal solely with color and form, and not with reality. For they are legitimate subjects. On the other hand, an artist's desire to bamboozle is not enough. I love some modern art, and some not, the same as with the other genres. So when is modern art a thing I can accept? When it communicates a subject, even form and color alone; and when it is honest and makes no claims that are not there.
   
   There is a difference between paint-artists and writers in how they perceive their own art juxtaposed others, and how they assign value. Most writers move about, back and forth, and are influenced by all forms, all styles, all of history, and they are capable of learning from the past. They might read Proust one day and Joyce the next, Emily Dickinson and then Virginia Woolf, Goethe and then Vonnegut, Rushdie and then Shakespeare. Take a look at James Joyce's great novel "Ulysses." It depends on the Greek myths, a vastly different kind of writing than his own, but without Homer Joyce's novel would be less than we have now. At the very least, it would be a different novel with a different message.
   
   An exaggeration, even if grotesque, might be characterization, and might be art. James Joyce was aware of that.
   
   On the other hand, more than a few paint artists are bitter in their historical perceptions, hating the art outside their own genre. The Impressionists (whom I especially love) had a vigorous abhorrence for what came before them, and the abstractionists hate everything and everybody but themselves, even denying that their art has to have a subject. "Flatness" is not a subject, it is a technique. A question - why can't I pour paint onto a canvas drip by drip, like Jackson Pollock, and make art out of it? What skill, artistic or otherwise, is involved in that? And what would my spills and splashes communicate?
   
   And then there is the world of hanger-oners and art critics who speak and write in an insane insiders' language, pretentious wanna-be-nabobs living in intellectual temples, wobbly dirty white towers, who feel compelled to tell us what to think, what to love, what to read, what to look at, what to marvel at. And if we disagree they tell us we are bourgeoisie philistines, poor brain and heart limited creatures, incapable.
   
   Tom Wolfe has written a wonderful and humorous look at the sometimes ridiculous world of modern art. Agree with him or not, you will be entertained.
   
   Like Tom Wolfe, I am bemused and irritated by the art reviews in The New York Times. A review of rusted pipes and broken fixtures on display at an art show pushed me over the edge. So I wrote a review of my own and sent it to them. They completely ignored me as I knew they would. My review was of my cat's litter box. Here it is -
   
   **********
   
   A Review of Menace in Simple Things
   
   My love of art and my disdain for the many tortured reviews of art that I stumble across more often than is good for my mental health has led me to write a review of my own. The subject of my analysis is - to say the least - as profound as elephant dung on a Madonna, twisted plumbing, rusting scrap metal, empty white canvasses, or a crucifix inserted into a jar of human urine, objects that are taken quite seriously on the daily art pages of our great American newspapers and in their Sunday supplements. But please, do not take my subject too seriously, for my cat does enough of that for all of us.
   
   A few days ago I happened upon my cat just as he was leaving his litter box after taking a poop. A friend was with me and as he observed my interest in the affair he asked, "You act as though you know what this is all about. I don't get it." Sensing a crisis I suggested that a search through Britannica or The New York Times Arts and Leisure Section might be helpful.
   
   "I can do that." he said, and abruptly left me to my musings. It seemed threatening that I found myself alone with my cat's poop.
   
   The poop seemed to be arranged in a stripped-down manner that made it appear to be on a lighted stage that integrated its various themes into an art form - if you will - that has its roots in Minimalism, and that merged the entire piece into a distinct theatricality. It seemed to have its sources in childhood, a numinous presence having the effect of a domestic twilight zone. Ordinary chunky things were combined in weird ways.
   
   The result was a spooky, dead narrative, perhaps even an autobiographical content. Domesticity - poisoned, entrapped disrupted - was its main theme. And no artist better captured a sense of Foucault's romance with oppression than my cat. At the same time, there was room in the poop for humor, however sardonic, and a strain of poetry that would become more evident with time.
   
   All these morphological riffs loosened up the obtuse, adamant solidity of the poop and suggested a wealth of associations - baptism, slaking thirst, warming, cooling, healing, and of precious things gone down the drain and lost.
   
   It is important to understand the metaphorical dimensions of my cat's poop. But it is not always easy to do that. As time goes on, and the cultural climate that produced this poop moves backward, a new and grand brew of pessimism and nostalgia delivers a shock. But can it be - will it be - a heavy-handed emphasis on a more flexible medium?
   
   Perhaps baby poop next time.
   
   **********
   
   I think I'll go to Macy's and buy me a white suit.
   
   Joseph A. Psarto
   440-835-5179
   jpsarto@juno.com



4. A classmate lent me The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, published in 1975, and boy, if you ever want some actually intelligent criticism and questioning of the establishment of modern art, this is it!
   
   The beauty of this book is that Wolfe doesn't usually attack the art - though occasionally he does accuse artists of allowing themselves to be too influenced by popular theory - he really attacks the establishment.
   
   And he does so in a hilarious way. For instance, Wolfe starts out explaining the "mating ritual" between the bohemian artists, "boho", and high society that can financially back and establish the artist, the "monde". He talks about how to be successful, an artist must first be an honest boho, live amongst the other bohemians and adopt true anti-bourgeois values. This is called the "boho dance". But once an artist has attracted the monde with his dance, he must "doubletrack", which means learn to gleefully hobnob with the elite and enjoy his success, despite being a hypocrite.
   
   And this mating metaphor is just the beginning. This book oozes sarcasm of the best and most vicious sort. Just check out this passage, about how pop art, according to the theorists, was supposed to be about "flatness", rather than how the subject matter related to real life:
   
   "In short... the culturati were secretly enjoying the realism! -plain old bourgeois mass-culture high-school goober-squeezing whitehead-hunting can-I-pop-it-for-you-Billy realism! They looked at a Roy Lichtenstein blowup of a love-comic panel showing a young blond couple with their lips parted in the moment before a profound, tongue-probing, post-teen, American soul kiss, plus the legend `We rose up slowly...as if we didn't belong to the outside world any longer...like swimmers in a shadowy dream...who didn't need to breath...' and--the hell with the sign systems--they just loved the dopey campy picture of these two vapid blond sex buds having their love-comic romance bigger than life, six feet by eight feet, in fact, up on the walls in an art gallery."
   
   How can you not love writing like that?
   
   This book rocks.



5. This book provides a humorous, easy to read look at the world of modern art. It was a pleasure to read!

5 comments about The Art of Batman Begins.

1. I was extremely disappointed with this book. Not only does it include very few of the conceptual design artworks from the movie, some of the artworks are displayed in the whole page that you can't help but wondering, did they run out of photos, pictures when composing this book? Also, without the inclusion of the film's script (which they published as a stand-alone scriptbook) I feel like I've been ripped off my money. I hope the Art of the Dark Knight book doesn't suck like this one.



2. I ordered this book and realized the day after I placed the order that my boyfriend had bought it for himself. When I emailed the seller to see if it was too late to cancel my order and the reason I got no response. I sent another email 2 days later and I still never received a response. I then got the book (which I'm stuck with) and not even in good condition! BAD EXPERIENCE.



3. It was a pretty easy fast read. I wish it had more info as, "Behind the mask of Spiderman" written by the same author. Nice pics and info but I finished reading it in a couple of hours at the most.



4. After seeing BATMAN BEGINS, I realized that I have just watched a movie that has so much more to tell me. But how can I find out more about the locations used, the props made, the characters and the creative process? "The Art of Batman Begins" satisfied my thrist for that knowledge. It's a great book that makes you appreciate the little things about BATMAN BEGINS and makes you proud to be a person who paid $10 to see it at the Cineplex. Hollywood has given us less than stellar films in the last couple years, it's good to see that the makers of BATMAN BEGINS still wanted us, the audience, to have a magical, wonderful movie going experience.



5. This is book goes into detail on the production of this long awaited film. From the Batmobile to the Batsuit we get details that we've always wanted. The only problem I have with the book is that it's too short, I wanted more.With that one problem aside, this will be a welcomed addition to "Batman" fan's library.

3 comments about The Fairchild Dictionary of Fashion.

1. It's a good reference book when you need information fast. The book is set up that way. It's a wealth of information



2. This is the ultimate resource for a student of costume and fashion design, the key for readers of all levels to decode the jargon that fills this profession's books. The organization is impeccable, the language clear and concise, and the rare but sufficient pictures are crisply adept at illustrating the necessary word or concept.
   
   It covers everything from names of period pieces, accessories, and undergarments to modern terms in the fashion world. It has everything you'd need.



3. A thorough, detail-packed reference book that's invaluable for anyone connected with the fashion industry. We have found it to be the best "first place to turn" for terms and descriptions that add insight and excitement to the marketing messages we create for our fashion clients.

2 comments about Art across Time Volume Two.

1. I didn't read much of this book. I ended up not needing it for school. I think it was ok for the little bit I read out of it. Sorry if I'm not much help.



2. I used this book in conjunction with my text book and it helped me to gain an even better understanding of Art. All of the exercises helped to strengthen my understanding of each chapter.This book helped me so much that I got an "A" for the semester in Art 114.

5 comments about A Year in Japan.

1. Why bother with this book? If the author were creating this for herself (i.e., like the way we write in our own journals) that's perfectly fine. But for an audience other than the self, this books is useless, and meaningless. For an audience other than the self, the author needs to give more in-depth illustrations and textual explanations. Pictures do not speak for themselves when one is a stranger to the place the pictures come from.
   
   Do not buy this book. Go to your local bookstore and read/glance at the darn thing for 20 minutes (or less) and you'll be done.



2. Don't spend your money on this book. I was through within 30 minutes. It's a bunch of drawn pictures with a few sentences to each picture. I don't quite know what to say to this book, but it's really not a book. It's more like a well-meant children's diary with drawn illustrations (sometimes 1 small branch over 2 pages and nothing more). There is SOOOOOO much wasted space and paper! There is no subsence to this book whatsoever and very few and poor explanations. I think the author would have been better off taking beautiful pictures of Japan, which speak for themselves, instead of these child-like drawings that bring you anything but close to Japan. I hate to be so mean, but the book really isn't even worth $5. I just don't understand the purpuse of so much wasted space and paper. It's almost like she didn't know how to fill all those pages....



3. This is an even more beautiful book than I thought it would be. As with all illustrated books, how much you like it will depend on how much you like the illustrator's style. Luckily, I love Kate T. Williamson's style, rendered simply with black outlines and bright colours. I lived in Tokyo for three years and felt that she captured much of what is memorable and visually interesting about Japan - that I would've liked to capture myself if I could draw...



4. This is such a lovely book, with each page a gift of grace and beauty and humor as it seems to capture through its aesthetic, the sensibilities, colors and tone of Japan and the Japanese people. I have not yet had the opportunity to travel to this rich and fascinating country, but Kate Williamson's book is a delicious enticement to make it happen.



5. A book full of fun and humor by Kate T. Willamson is just the thing I needed to relax this past week. With colorful images and interesting observations she brings a small piece of Japan for the readers to enjoy. Socks, blossoms, food and people are all subjects of interest to the author as she traveled about Japan for a year. Just have to wonder about her footwear fetish.

2 comments about Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process and Implementation (Ava Academia).

1. This book presents the structure that sustains the design discipline in the (corporate) world today. You will get more info about the process, the vision and in the end - your own role in this entire structure. It is a great eye opener for the designer engaged only in designing, and a good reference for the manager involved in the process. The graphics gives engagement to the reading. Makes for a good reference book. That's the only reason I got it, since the price tag is considerably high.



2. The book is an excellent example of the successful combination between theory and practice. Structured as a hypertext the book allows you to open and read at from any page or passage. A lot of contemporary cases from all over the world show you a wide scope of design management specifics. After reading the book you'll be armed with the up-to-date ideas and concepts. This masterpiece by Kathryn Best is most useful for the design practitioners as well as for students or lecturers. Being a lecturer in design management and professional development I can note easy language, in-depth explanations and a good glossary of terms used in design management.

2 comments about Come Look With Me: Exploring Landscape Art With Children (Come Look With Me Series) (Come Look With Me Series).

1. All types of art and artists with questions to start conversation about the piece. Great for the elementary age.



2. I am a docent at an art museum and the goal is to get children develop a love of art. This book is exactly what will assist a child to enjoy art.

4 comments about Watercolour Textures (Collins Artist's Studio).

1. 
   If you are looking for someone to hold your hand, forget about
   this book. Ann Blockley is a better painter than teacher, since she assumes you know quite a bit about watermedia. However, if you have a good foundation in painting, she can introduce you to some very nice techniques.



2. If you are familiar with Ann Blockley's flower paintings, you will be surprised by this book. (You can see a gallery of Blockley's paintings on her website.) It is no ordinary, watercolour how-to book, and the cover and title give nothing away. In this book, the author admits that she has stepped well outside her comfort zone to explore an entirely new approach to the painting process. We can be very glad that she did.
   
   The simple chapter headings give no idea of the innovations Blockley presents. There are the usual texture mediums described in other art instruction books, but Blockely applies these mediums in entirely new ways: clingfilm, salt, inks, granulation medium, bubbles and foam, gold and silver pigments, paint resist and more. The beautiful colour illustrations inspire and encourage the reader to experiment, but the text is even more important.
   
   You could approach this book in one of two ways: either you can use it for the techniques alone, or you can use the techniques to move outside your artistic comfort zone as Blockley has done - beyond what is familiar in your established approach to painting. Blockley admits that it took courage to do this publicly in a book. Any artist - of any medium - can take heart - and inspiration - from what the author shares of her out-of-the-zone process.
   
   This book has plenty of demonstrations and includes three guest artists: Shirley Trevena, Moira Huntly and John Blockley, all of whom explored art mediums in daring ways. You can google all three names and take a look at their on-line galleries.
   
   I nearly didn't buy this book because watercolour is not my medium. I am so glad I did. It's one of the best books I've come across for encouraging the exploration of new ways of artistic expression - in any medium. Better still, Blockley makes the process simple, interesting and fun.



3. Beautiful and inspirational book! I can't wait to try by myself all the examples and exercises.



4. I pre-ordered this book quite a while back and it finally arrived yesterday. WOW! Was it ever worth the wait! Every page is inspirational. I am primarily an oil painter but this book has inspired me to get back into watercolor. I must have 100 watercolor books but this is the one I would save in case of fire. What a great book!!!

5 comments about Typographic Design: Form and Communication.

1. I am taking a course right now with Rob Carter. So at the risk of this sounding like a biased review, please know that I'm not the kind of person who allows personal feelings to stand in the way of my opinion on what's good and bad.
   
   Professor Carter's ability to effectively communicate is carried over to this text remarkably. Any obscure questions that I've had regarding typography and design have been answered by him personally and he nearly always pulls this text out to illustrate exactly what he means.
   
   Point is, I'm in my third year in a design program and even the "random, not covered by other professor" topics, are covered in this text.
   
   This is a text that designers will be going back to long after they've obtained their degree and are working in the field. It's a fantastic investment.
   
   --s



2. This book has tons of pictures and lots of examples. Looking through the book gives you ideas and inspiration!



3. I was impressed to be ableto get this textbook as quick as I did. I needed it right away for school and the campus bookstore didn't even have it. I paid a little more but it was convenient for me.



4. I am very disappointed by this book. We used it as course book in second year type classes and my students were less than thrilled. We'd switched from the Lupton Thinking With Type book. My question is this: Is this meant to be a textbook or a brief history of typography?
   
   The book is full of the sort of language that belongs in academic journals discussing visual culture. It is too sweeping in its coverage. Nor does the text does not relate to the examples in any sensible way. Too often the text discusses issues then refers to an example without explaining how they are connected.
   
   There is much valuable information in this book but it is buried.
   
   My remedy: I would make this typography textbook. I would get rid of the history section or make it very shorter. The first thing you see are ancient stone tablets and hieroglyphics, very off-putting to any student. The type specimens and type technology are unnecessary. The chapter on legibility is, well, awful. Tell me how type works. (Or, I should shut up and write my own type book!) This book is also poorly designed and lacks a design concept. The cover is especially bad.
   
   Review: Typographic Design: Form and Communication. May 2007



5. Among the things that Gutenberg invented was the whole idea of type. Since then however, there have been literally thousands of type designs developed. Some have been developed for greater readability, some came about so that a greater density of words could be put on a page, some were designed for a logo that would be unique and recognizable around the world. Today the typography world in in a state of flux greater than ever before as new digital fonts are being designed.
   
   This book is the bestselling book in the field and discusses virtually everything there is to know about type, its uses, the effect that different styles have on the mind, the characteristic of new electronic fonts, screen fonts, laser printer fonts and much more. It is a highly graphic book using pictures to clearly illustrate what creative use of fonts can do to a book, an ad, or a web site.

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.