1 comments about Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text.

1. Anyone interested in Islamic art must read this book. And even if you are new to the subject, or are curious it is still very interesting. Bierman writes very clearly and provides many examples to support her arguments. Plus, most people are accustomed to figural art and knowing more about the beauty of non-figurative art is wonderful. The book has made me want to discover more about Islamic Art, especially from Cairo.

3 comments about Game Art: The Graphic Art of Computer Games.

1. Game Art by Dave Morris and Leo Harris is one of the best ways I have found to learn about the history of video games. There are great drawings and pictures of many different games from Pong to Halo. This book has a lot of great information.
   There is a whole section about a game called Fable, which is the second most popular on X-Box. Fable allows the player to make choices and each choice leads to a different destiny. It's possible to take over the world and rule with an iron fist or you can save it. This is somewhat like the book, The Pearl, because the main character must choose between the pearl and his family. In this book, the pearl represents greed and evil, and the family is happiness.
   Overall, this is a nicely done book. I would recommend it to anyone that likes video games, or wants to know more about them. This is not just a book with a lot of pictures. It's like portal that shows you about lots and lots of video game and information for every one.



2. This is far more than a book of glossy game art pics, and certainly not a coffee table prop. Appropriately the book has a number of layers and themes which together provide an absorbing insight into the history of computer games. The text is free from the gushing sycophantic praise that blemishes many of the genre art books. Instead the authors produce a clear categorisation of games with illustrations in support. Comments from game designers are likewise intelligent, thoughtful and devoid of self agrandisement. What the reader gets is a book of useful illustrations, clear game categorisation by features, useful insights into game creation and an indication of where the genre is probably headed. Overall there is a subtle intellectual tone to the book which makes it both a pleasure to flick through but a much more profound pleasure to read.

   If the book as any underdeveloped theme it is arguably the absence of game postmortems. What went right? What went wrong? This would have rounded out the book very nicely. However, if you are interested in game design and the role of art in creating various immersive experiences, then this is a book to buy and revisit from time to time.




3. I've never been an avid computer games player (wrong generation, mostly), but their progressive development, and especially the continuing quest for verisimilitude, fascinate me. I remember when Asteroids and Pac-Man and Space Invaders first appeared (in the lobbies of movie theaters, when "arcade" still meant pinball), and how addicted my adolescent kids quickly became. But that level of 2-D was nothing, of course, compared to the MYST series and to god/simulations like SimCity 3 -- not to mention keyframe animation and real-time interaction and detailed storyboarding that wouldn't be out of place in Hollywood. This is the first book I've seen that really gets into all aspects of video game art and design (there wouldn't have been enough to say even a few years ago), and it succeeds nicely both in its glossy-paper graphics and in the discursive text, which includes numerous interviews with designers.

1 comments about Fake? The Art of Deception.

1. In the interest of what accounts for a 'fake' this book offers some good insights and essays. It explores the issues of artist copies, deliberate forgeries, wartime counterfeiting, and historic fakes vs. contemporary. The book gets muddled in its handling of layout and captioning: images are often on separate pages than their captions - and the captions often reference objects that aren't in the pictures. This is maddening when you are trying to visualize the description between the fake and the real object, for most often the real object is not shown for comparison.

No comments about The Best of 1-and 2-Color Graphics.

No comments about An Uncommon Vision: The Des Moines Art Center.

2 comments about Paul Mellon's Legacy: A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art).

1. I found this book very disappointing because is almost 100% devoted to painting forgeting the sculpture and other art forms. I was hoping for a book devoted to Paul Mellon's passion for british art! The illustations presented in it are of very good quality so if your interest is only painting then you may find it worth considerably more than I.



2. Gorgeous photographs of the artwork and in-depth views of this intensely private and fascinating man, Paul Mellon. Thanks so much for finally creating this masterpiece!

No comments about Letters to a Young Artist.

No comments about Owen Jones Decorative Borders CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art).

No comments about 120 Portrait Paintings CD-ROM and Book (Full-Color Electronic Design Series).

1 comments about Gardner's Art through the Ages (with Art Study CD-ROM and InfoTrac).

1. I had to buy this book for a visual art history course in college, and it is one of those books that I kept after graduation. It is a very thorough historical account of the important art and the artists who created it. The pictures are wonderful. A great book even just to skim through.