3 comments about Erotica 17th-18th Century (TASCHEN Icons Series).

1. Fun book that you can get a few giggles out of, I especially enjoyed the flying [...] with butterfly wings [...] a nun on pg. 153 and the cat watching the friar tugging at a rope tied around his [...] while smacking himself in the [...]. Another funny one was the guy getting shot in the [...] by cupid while he's [...] on page 171.
   
   Funny stuff aside, the highlight on the book is the de Sade engravings from page 111 to 141. Also the artistic ability by Agostino Carracci is amazing. His engravings are absolutely beautiful.



2. Yuk. This rating isn't the fault of editors or such, but the criticism of someone who was interested in whether people of yore generated high-quality nudes of ladies of their age (I'm male, nude males don't interest me). If they did, they didn't make a living doing erotica. I wasn't interested in the erotic side of this (if you've seen it in one collection, you'll see pretty much all that's offered in others - it's quiet repetitive and boring and so unimaginitive that you can pretty much guess what the next generation will do... A parade of genitals and often some sick-statement art saying bad things about sex.).

   The single-star rating illustrates an art critics dissappointment in the quality of the artwork. Women were almost always drawn like men with breasts, all muscles and heavy bodied. Art style has advanced greatly - I've seen and am a fan of many modern artists who's sketchings and paintings break my heart in their ability to render people as real (some of the prettiest of which are of normal, non-glamor model people!) An art apologist will state "But people of that era often viewed fat women as the eye of beauty." That isn't what is wrong here; I've seen heavy women portrayed in realistic artistry and they are pretty. What is wrong is that the painters and etchers managed to render butt-ugly women! Literally, the paintings and drawings are just childishly ugly.

   As a passing art scholar I learned a lot in buying this; the artwork is true-to-norm for the age (art has always grown and improved over the years), and varied, and for fans of the age would be great. But the quality of it based on pure true-to-life norms and beauty which a normal person would base it one is: it stinks. Look at later series and you will see a slow progression in the quality of artwork to the point where modern artists could drawn naked women who looked like real naked women. Not galmor girls, just real naked women! Indeed, if you've never seen it, check out some good art instruction books who use real people for models - it's impressive how a person doesn't have to be a glamor girl to be attractive. If they are presented in a quality piece of art, at least.




3. This is a small scale (pages measuring 5" by 8") high quality art book of explicit erotic painting and engravings - along with a spirited and sensitive ideological introductory essay by Gilles Neret. He starts out with the far-reaching assertion that "there is only one real antidote to the anguish engendered in humanity by its awareness of inevitable death: erotic joy." This collection focuses on the representation and the provocation of that erotic joy. Those who enjoy explicitly graphic erotica (including those who might prefer to call it 'pornography') will not be disappointed in this book.

   Neret has an abiding enthusiasm and a curatorial talent, for he has assembled a wide range of examples of erotic paintings, drawings, and engravings. In addition he has a sturdy confidence in the rightness of erotica's goal for its admirers: the enhancement of sexual experience. So yes, at least some of this art will do the customary and expected job of successful 'erotica.'

   The approximately 170 plates are by European painters and printmakers. When color was used, it has been faithfully reproduced. The range of media and mood is wide, and the subject matter is consistently explicitly sexual.'Everything' is revealed at times. Threesomes, orgies, assorted combinations and recombinations are sometimes the subjects of these works.

   There are boudoir scenes from the 1700's ( paintings of French artist Francois Boucher; the golden and voluptuous paintings of Jean-Honore Fragonard (softly beautiful women: dreaming - attended by cherubs - or sated and asleep in appealing disarray) and an assortment of anonymous politically satirical aat the same time sexually explicit paintings. There are social and cultural satires and a series of explicit and graphic paintings "for the education of the dauphin" that Napoleon hung in his bathroom. (Only several survived). A 1797 Dutch edition of de Sade's "The Story of Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue" featured detailed and often gruesome illustrations - and some are included here.

   From Italy, Carracci's series of engravings, "The Loves of the Gods," done in 1602, shares similarities of mood and topics with much mainstream pornography of today, but Carracci named his exuberant couples after classical gods, and inserted edifying visual details into his scenes of frank and explicit sexual activity: the satyr's hooves, Bacchus' grapes, Achilles' warrior equipment, discarded in favor of Briseis, etc.

   Rembrandt (yes, Rembrandt) loved to paint women and evidently loved sexual subjects, for he did numerous erotic paintings, often of his wife and himself. His women (and his men) are real, often in a sort of sensuous and happy disarray, wrinkled and classically imperfect - and beautifully human. The attitudes of the lovers are unidealized, sensuous because so natural - and the drawings are lovely.

   English painter Thomas Rowlandson published a series of graphic and consistently and deliberately insulting caricatures of "the sexual practices of the English aristocracy" in the early years of the nineteenth century. Orgies, various sorts of sexualized cruelty, and an assortment of sexual embarrassments pervade his paintings. They were published then, and are reproduced here.

   This is a great little book. Art history enthusiasts will not be disappointed in this collection. More to the point, those in search of explicitly sexual art that succeeds at erotica's primary goal will not feel that they have wasted their money on yet more Art History.

No comments about New Media: An Introduction.

1 comments about Curious Boym: Design Works.

1. I love this book. It's a candid and uncensored portrait of the Boym's adventures in the international design community.

5 comments about Painter IX Creativity: Digital Artists Handbook.

1. I will take this class in the fall & as always I need all the help I can get ..... I am sure there will be something for me in this book....



2. I ordered this book because the title promised to show me some creative ideas of how painter can be used. I was hoping to find a book that would illustrate a lot of different ways to use Painter.
   Instead, I mostly found the authors pretty mediocre to bad paintings of people done from photos, in which you could always recognize the photo behind it. There is nothing creative about manipulating a photo with painter so that it looks more or less like a painting. Flipping through this book I was totally turned off by his so called "art". I didn't read much of it as the images didn't inspire me to want to know more. Just returned it and got "The Painter IX Wow Book". Way better!



3. The book goes in detail through the different options available, which is OK.
   What I think is not good are the sample "works of art". Sorry to say, but mostly the original photographs are more beautiful than the "art" created based on them. They are just smudged and distorted versions of the photographs. This makes it less interesting to read.Painter IX Creativity: Digital Artists Handbook



4. This book is incredible with much information and a bonus cd with extra brushes. After reading it I have signed up for Jermey's Creative Art Class in San Francisco. Leaving in a week and am very excited to get to do this in a class enviroment.



5. First of all, this is aimed at beginers and non-artists--that is, those who don't think of themselves as such. Fair enough, however, the approach for most of the book is to employ the technique of "painting over" a photograph in Painter. Not a bad technique, but just be warned that this isn't one of those book with amazing original compositions and step by stop guides on how they were created.
   That said, I think this is a good place to get many of the basics of the program nailed down. And as with all complex graphics programs, the best way is to start out with the basics and then experiment. No one book can really even begin cover the range of techniques and tricks that are possible.

No comments about Exploring Dreamweaver 8 (Exploring (Delmar)).

No comments about New Species: Contemporary Character Design Made in Asia.

No comments about Animal Silhouettes CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art).

3 comments about The Stop-motion Filmography: A Critical Guide to 297 Features Using Puppet Animation 2-Volume Set.

1. There are reviews pointing out that this book missed a few films but what it does include makes it one of the most detailed book on stop motion animation films. I grew up on Harryhausen, Danforth and the like ( I am a director/producer and originally wanted to be a stop motion animator) so this book is not only informative but nostalgic. Great resource.



2. Like the previous reviewer said; this book isn't complete, but it is full of incredibly obscure films. Pettigrew's research is scrupulous. He's interviewed all the concerned animators (the ones still alive) or people who knew them. So much is revealed about how tricks were accomplished and what materials were used. There's actually a lot to read about general film history, not just special effects history. One of the more impressive aspects is perhaps the fact that Pettigrew has waded through hours of pure crap in order to get to the stop-motion sequence to be reviewed. Some of the best animation in the world is contained within really, really bad movies. That's a heroic feat in itself. The only slight annoyance is Pettigrew's ratings of films and their special effects, which are very subjective. He constantly makes excuses for faults in his personal favourite films. Apart from that this will remain the ultimate book on stop-motion for quite a while, and is actually worth the hefty price tag. This book is a treasure-trove of information.



3. This HUGE (almost 850 pages) tome is the ultimate reference guide to the motion pictures that utilize the fine art of stop-motion photography. From the obvious (King Kong, Jason and The Argonauts) to the obscure (Winterbeast, Frostbiter), this covers them all. Almost. I did notice a few omissions, most notably the Lou Ferrigno HERCULES movies from the early 80's, both of which I believe employed this process. Also missing was Godzilla Vs. Destroyah, which used the process briefly, and Godzilla Vs. Biollante, which had test footage in this process (the book covers other films that stop-motion was only used as test footage for). It also misses a couple of movies that utilized footage from Planet of Dinosaurs (Galaxy of Dinosaurs and Time Tracers). But other than these minor gripes, the book is fascinating, full of great pictures of all the monsters you forgot about (remember the stop-motion creatures from Coneheads? Howard the Duck? Didn't think so. But you SHOULD.). A great buy at it's high price tag, and well worth every penny.

1 comments about Traditional Korean Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. 142 designs all in black and white. Most are too small and busy for goldwork embroidery although some are fine if enlarged. Each design has details of origin and date and what purpose it was used for.

No comments about The Complete Book of Celtic Designs (Design Inspiration Series).