5 comments about Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X.

1. When I was younger, I saw this image in an art book and, without reading anything about it, decided that it was a fasion plate from the 1950's. I picked this book up because I instantly remembered the white shoulder. Davis's book puts the painting in a cultural context that greately helped me understand it. There is a black and white print of people at an outdoor cafe on the day of the Salon in which Madame X appeared. The women are covered in bustles, multiple skirts, gloves and hats. I now understand what that audience found so dangerous about her wayward strap.



2. This book is about the French-via-Creole socialite Amelie Gautreau's interaction with American-expatriate painter John Singer Sargent, an encounter that resulted in a painting that altered both of their lives. In weaving together the story of these two people, author Davis has created an engaging volume that simultaneously provides a window into 19th-century French society and a biography of the great painter Sargent.
   
   Sargent's decision to paint Gautreau's portrait with a strap hanging off her shoulder at a time when he was trying to promote his fledging portraitist career was a calculated decision to glean publicity on the heels of Manet's "Olympia." There's a saying that "any publicity is good publicity" -- true in the case of Sargent. The strength of his work outlived the short-term scandal caused by the painting, which was so disturbing to him that he soon repainted the shoulder with the strap back on (now in the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum). Unfortunately, the scandal ruined Gautreau's life, although simply growing old probably would have had the same effect on Gautreau, whose self-worth appears to have been inextricable with popularity, appearance, and youth.
   
   The author is to be commended for trusting her intuition in following a very small detail -- the dress in Sargent's painting -- and finding the mystery behind it, revealing in the process a fascinating story. In so doing, she has created a marvelous glimpse into the art and society of late 19th-century France, as well as an easily-read biography of Sargent, certainly one of our most complex and greatest 19th-century American painters. I have always loved Sargent's work but have never read a biography of him, and was glad to have the opportunity to do so in such an interesting context. A very good read and interesting book.



3. In a brief, readable book, Davis does a good job giving us an overview of Gilded Age Paris, the social changes between Sargent Madame X's debut and paintings of Mrs. Gatreua just a few years later.
   
   She also gives us some nice background into lives of some of Sargents subjects, and the fraternal band of painters at the time. The only thing I would take with a grain of salt is her 'was he gay theories' some of the examples of drawings she uses to speculate into this show a lack of understanding about the artistic process. I know several professional painters who read the book and liked it but laughed at her 'proof' - the drawing over of a young many with a similar silhouette as Madame X - this is done all the time by artists, sometimes your subject 'turns into' another.



4. Two very interesting lives that leave you with the desire to know more about "Belle Epoque". Looking forward to another book by Deborah Davis.



5. In la belle epoque France, people lined up for the annual art exhibition the way we do today for blockbuster movies. In this case, John Singer Sergeant painted more than just the portrait of a beautiful woman, and Paris didn't like it. The resulting scandal almost ruined him, it did ruin her, and I still want to dig him up and ask him why he put the strap back up.

1 comments about Brush Strokes With Greatness: The Life & Art Of Joe Sinnott.

1. For those who may be unfamiliar with TwoMorrows Publishing, they put out the very best books about comics books in the world, everything from the Golden Age to the Modern age. This book spotlights legendary inker Joe Sinnott, who is best known for his years teaming with Jack Kirby on the Fantastic Four. Sinnott has been working in comics for nearly 60 years and, naturally, it was Stan Lee himself who gave Joe his start at Timely Comics back in 1950.
   
   This wonderful book tracks Joe's entire career, from the Golden Age right through his most current work, which consists of literally thousands of issues including over two hundred issues of the Fantastic Four, over a hundred issues of Journey Into Mystery/Thor. The thing I found utterly amazing is that Sinnott inked Kirby's work on Fantastic Four for some seven years without ever even speaking to him. While their collaboration began in the early 60's, the two did not meet until a convention in 1972. That alone is testament to just how much Jack trusted Joe to handle his pencils. Such is the reverence that so many other artists also have for Sinnott. Esteemed pros such as John Byrne, Neal Adams, George Perez, Ron Frenz, Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor Smith, and Roger Stern all take turns paying tribute to Sinnott. The book is also filled with vintage photos of Joe going back to the 40's. There's great pics of Joe with legends such as Burne Hogarth, John Romita Sr., and, of course, Jack Kirby. But we also get a lot of photos of Joe along with his family, and Joe was a dedicated family man.
   
   While Joe is known primarily as an inker, the book includes hundreds of examples of his artwork to show that he was just as accomplished as a penciller as he was an inker. These include a look at some very rare work from Joe's earliest days doing romance comics for St. John's Publishing as well as the war comics he did for Timely/Atlas in the 1950's. Joe is still going strong today working on the Spiderman newspaper strip with Stan Lee. For collectors, the book includes a checklist of all of Sinnott's work not only for Marvel, but for other comic publishers and advertising work as well. This is a marvelous tribute to a true legend in comics.
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson

5 comments about Sandro Botticelli: The Drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy.

1. i heard of this drawings thru a brief documentary on Dante's Divine Comedy,and managed to track down a book about this subject, finally consulted Amazon to get it .Frankly when i saw the relatively modest price tag ,i did not imagine that in fact the book is not only a first class Art book worth( in an ideal world a bit less insane that the present one)much more than some 40 euros ,with a magisterially commented analysis ,and a magnificent one at that,for each of these trascendental drawings.Moreover the riproduction of the drawings is excellent,and the close examination of each of them with a magnifying lens can only leave a passionate of both Dante and of Great Painting simply speechless.Congratulations to authors,editors and everybody who made this available, from a humble old lover of Dante,of Painting and Music , those things that can stiil distinguish us from the "bestie', the "bruti" ,sincerely,guido zargani



2. SANDRO BOTTICELLI'S DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY IS NO MORE BETTER.
   MERCI FOR THE AUTEUR-EDITION .



3. This book brought Dante to life in a way for which I was unprepared. From the moment I saw Boticelli's depictions of the damned I was sure he must have had an "inside" look into what Dnate was writing about. A wonderful coffee-table book that will get your guests to talking.



4. As a former museum photographer, I can speak to the fine reproductions in this volume. The complexity of reproducing drawings of such fine detail in print is quite difficult if not impossible. One would expect to find this quality at a much greater price. This volume is not only a master work of techical ability, but the history revealed in the essays is astounding. I actually could not put it down. As a painter working with the subject matter, it provided an invaluable resource.



5. This is an extraordinary book. It's like finding a rare and beautiful volume in an antiquarian bookstore. The book consists of almost a hundred drawings by Botticelli, made around 1500 to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy of 1300.

   The drawings are marvelous. The devils and monsters are rather tame by modern standards but the thousands of individual characters are beautifully drawn and are easily recognizable as Botticelli's work even to the untrained eye. Botticelli illustrates each canto like a modern day story board or sequence of drawings in a cartoon strip. The action follows all of the events described in each canto. I pored over the drawings every evening for a month. I used a recent translation of the Inferno as my guide to this section. Opposite each drawing is a short but comprehensive summary of the canto together with a description of the drawing. The summary was sufficient to carry me through the Purgatorio and Paradiso sections and the descriptions were extremely helpful and never pedantic.

   The book is superbly produced with informative essays and excellent photographs of paintings by Botticelli to illustrate his style. Even the dust cover is well-made and robust. It is illustrated with a scene of Dante and Virgil crossing a bridge over a pit of burning souls (the evil counselors). The hard cover of the book is embossed with the flames from the same scene, making it a very attractive volume.

   Most of the drawings, which were intended to be colored, are unfinished, but this adds to the interest since it's possible to see how the artist worked. In some, the drawings are so dense and complex that you might need a magnifying glass to see them. On each such occasion the producers of the book have provided an enlargement of the drawing on the following page, anticipating the reader's needs. A particularly fine example of the complex drawing is the illustration for canto X of the Purgatorio. The scene shows marble reliefs on the walls of the mountain terrace illustrating example of humility. There are three tableaux of such detail and intensity that each could represent a sketch for a fresco on the wall of a cathedral and yet the complete drawing is on a piece of sheepskin parchment measuring about 14 x 16 inches.

1 comments about Myths And Motifs In Literature.

1. This interesting book presents the archetypal theory, both explaining the theory and providing numerous examples from Classical myth, the Bible, and even modern literature. The cycle of life is presented - the divine family, initiation, fall from innocence, the task, the journey or quest, the search for the father, and death and rebirth, as are many archetypal character - heroes and antiheroes, the wise fool, the devil figure, the outcast, the double, the scapegoat, and the temptress.
   
   Overall, I found this to be a pretty interesting book. The theory was interesting, but even more so were the very interesting examples - Circe from the Odyssey, Gimpel the Fool, Prometheus from Aescylus's Prometheus Bound, and so forth. This is an interesting book, full of hours of interesting reading.

1 comments about Consuming Bodies: Sex and Contemporary Japanese Art.

1. This is a really useful book for people studying contemporary Japanese culture. Understanding the changing nature of the body in Japanese art is key to making sense of what's going on right now in art. My only complaint is that I wish they had a more academically established cast of authors, though the varying backgrounds of the critics allowed for insight into how these issues are cropping up in various fields. (and since the field is growing and changing, it isn't easy to find people with post-doctorate degrees in modern Asian art yet) Naturally, the writing style and critical depth also varied from essay to essay.

3 comments about Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications).

1. Saint Catherine's Monastery, located at the base of Mount Sinai, Egypt is on the top of the list of amazing places I want to visit - and for good reason. Not only is the monastery one of the oldest continuously inhabited monasteries in the world but also has one of the largest collections of icons in the world. Moses saw the Burning Bush nearby where God told him to return to Egypt and free his people. When Moses returned, he received the Ten Commandments at the peek of Mount Sinai (the exact mountain remains uncertain). Christians began to settle in small hermitages in the region in the 3rd Century in order to be near these important biblical sites. The site became an important pilgrimage location in the 4th century and according to tradition, a small church was built for the monks through a large donation from Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great.
   
   The monastery's massive walls and its church were constructed at the base of Mount Sinai during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian the great (reigned 527-65). Since Muhammad conquered the region in the 7th century, a mosque was built near the church (perhaps to allay Muslim attacks) and an amicable relationship was established between both religions at the important religious site (Muhammad promised the monastery security in 625 and signed the document with his hand since he could not write). The Monastery was named after a 4th century Christian Martyr, Saint Catherine, who was killed (on a wheel - unsuccessfully - then beheaded) after converting some of the pagan scholars of Alexandria. The Monastery's library contains a massive and historically important collection of Byzantine manuscripts, including pages from a 4th Bible thought to be one of the 50 commissioned by Constantine the Great. The monastery also contains thousands of icons - "interestingly - since the monastery was under the control of Muslims the period of the destruction of icons that occurred in the Byzantine empire did not touch the monastery."
   
   This volume contains 11 pages of essay/introduction text and 76 pages of beautiful and stirring photographs. The Introduction covers all ground in a cursory and basic manner - it lacks any real analysis of the monastery's texts or art etc but is a good introduction to the topic. However, the photographs are absolutely stunning - not only are photos of the vast desert landscape, ancient hermit cells, massive walls and the beautiful 6th century church, icons and mosaics, church interiors, celebrations and feasts, included, but even important monastic activities such as bread baking and relations with the local Arabic-Muslim Bedouins. That said, better books exists - in Italian. At my University library I found a great book called "The Treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine" translated into English, however, the only version offered on amazon.com is still in the original Italian text. "The Treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine" offers MUCH more extensive text and many more photographs and is a much better buy (if you can muddle through the Italian). However, if that particular romance language escapes you then "Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay" is definitely worthwhile and will tempt even the most resolute and sedentary heart to travel and gaze with one's own eyes this fabulous place!



2. This is an excellent photographic essay on the monastery - a must-have to remind you of an exciting visit or to prompt you into visiting Sinai very soon. Both the photographs and the essay are of first class standard. And of course the author and photographer had access to parts not available to ordinary visitors which makes the book even more valuable. As a constant reminder of a once-in-a-life-time adventure I cannot recommend it enough.



3. This book is a compliment to the catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition BYZANTIUM: FAITH AND POWER (1261 - 1667) and especially to the exhibition itself. For lovers of icons this was a must see exhibition and if you were not fortunate enough to see it in person, the catalogue, accompanied by SAINT CATHERINE'S MONASTERY, SINAI, EQYPT: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY would more than suffice.

No comments about Impossible Worlds: 2 in 1 Adventures with Impossible Objects (Evergreen Series).

No comments about Between Two Spaces: Reflections on the Spiritual in Art.

3 comments about Morning Wood.

1. Excellent book if you are into street art/graffiti! Tons of today's best artists! Highly recommended.



2. I'm really admiring Roger Gastman and all the artists from New Image Art Gallery. So when I decided to buy this book is because I think this book quitely seems like that Vitamin P book (from Phaidon?) for the low brow art, and yes it is. The only thing that make me didn't give 5 stars is because the example of the art works from each artists are very few, c'mon... we need more...



3. This is a massive collection of "alternative art". I can't recommend this book highly enough. It works as a reference for up and coming "outsider art", an inspirational tool for artists, or straight-up eye candy for your dome.
   There's a strong connection between all of the art in the book even though the contributors come from diverse backgrounds. "Graduates from the school of graffiti" such as ESPO, SABER, & WISE are well represented, but there are also some fine photographers like Dave Schubert, Cynthia Connolly and Carlos Batts here too. On top of this there's a strong showing from a new crop of artists that don't really fit in to the the mainstream, but transcend the Juxtapoz definition of outsider art like Ben Woodward from Space 1026 in Philadelphia. A few old skool contributors like Ricky Powell, Jamie Reid and John Pound round out the collection nicely. 50 artists and bios, more than 300 pages, what's not to like...

No comments about Photographing the LA Art Scene, 1955-1975: 1955-1975.