3 comments about Mark Hampton: The Art of Friendship.

1. This is so wonderful-a nice permanent record of the all time great NYC decorator Mark Hampton. After all, decorating is the relationships that are created in the process. After years of fellowship and love this is the end result.
   
   I have suffered cancer and I cherish this volume as his legacy. I recommend all of his books as a memorial to such a great man. His daughter is carrying the torch now. Thanks Duane



2. I have given this special, exquisite book to several best friends and they have been thrilled. I am about to order more because it makes such a lovely little gift. I did also buy one for myself!



3. For those of us who love the wonderful watercolors of the late Mark Hampton, this book is essential. The watercolors in this book are of a very personal nature, whether interiors, architectural, or otherwise. I am pleased to own this book, and I will enjoy it as I do with the other two Mark Hampton books. Note that the price is somewhat steep (...), but given the way the other two books sell on the resale market for many times their list price, a good investment.

No comments about The Chinese Painter as Poet.

5 comments about Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective.

1. I first saw / read this book at my local public library. I knew than that I MUST have this book!
   VERY interesting, well written, educational, excellent pictures!



2. mr. parks' book is autobiographical in photo and text. the book reveals his journey to becoming a documentor of turbulent times during his career. this is a must purchase.



3. Buy this book and see the wonderful and varied career of Gordon Parks. See the world through this stunning photographer's eyes, and you will never see the world the same again. Then buy *A Choice of Weapons* and find out how this man came to create these masterworks. Everyone knows his genius as a photographer, filmmaker, and composer, but people may not know that he is a master memoirist as well. Put this book and *A Choice of Weapons* on your Christmas list!



4. Seeing the exhibit was the most wonderful day of my life. Getting the book was the next best day. I am not sure if another photographer so talented in all fields will ever appear again. Raad A Choice of Weapons also by Gordon Parks, it will help reinforce the Retrospective.



5. Please note that the cover that you show on the internet is incorrect. I am the photgrapher and what you show is the photograph that was used for the dummy book shown at the book fair. The photograph shown is an unpublished photgraph. Please look at the book for the actual cover.

2 comments about Gilded Vessel: The Lustrous Life and Art of Beatrice Wood.

1. I bought this for a very good friend of mine and she just loves the book. She met Beatrice once as both of us lived in Ojai, CA where Beatrice lived for many years. We have been to her house also. My friend just loved her and her particular style of art.
   
   Sincerely, Terry W. Chaffee



2. THE GILTED VESSEL is a beautiful book about an amazing woman and potter. Her life is more wonderful than any fiction and her pottery is exquisite. The only flaw is that it is too short; I want more.

No comments about Francis Alys: A Story of Deception, Patagonien 2003-2006.

5 comments about Alchemy and Mysticism: Hermetic Museum (Klotz Series).

1. What a wonderful resource! This book offers so many alchemical and hermetic diagrams and illustrations, it's hard to choose where to start. From the musical and mystical illustrations of Robert Fludd, to William Blake, this book has it all.
   
   Nicely organized by numerous categories such as "Light and Darkness," "Serpent," and "Divine Geometry." The only drawback is that the descriptions for the illustrations are sometimes difficult to understand. I'm not an expert on alchemy, and at times I became a bit frustrated since some of the concepts are not easily grasped.
   
   But perhaps it is not necessary that just our intellect comprehends these phenomenal drawings since many of the illustrations visually send messages our subconscious minds receive and interpret. For that reason alone, this book is a must-have for anyone seriously interested in learning and experiencing more about alchemy and hermeticism.



2. All the other reviewers have already said it: this book is absoluteley amazing and the price .. I feel almost guilty paying so little for it. This book is a treasure of the ages. I didn't know much about alchemy when I bought it (though the subject is one that has always interested me.) Reading it was a long, slow, contemplative journey. There's a vast wealth of information there, between the glorious pictures and the intelligent captions, the thoughtful text at the beginning of each section ... It seems alchemy is not merely a materialistic quest for profit by turning cheap metals into gold; the true goal of "philosophical" alchemy was to turn the alchemist himself into spiritual gold, in other words, to obtain enlightenment. It's a quest to find God, and many of its principles cannot be explained in words. Many of its secrets cannot be told except in cryptic hints and mysterious symbols, because discovering the key for yourself is part of the journey. Reading this book feels almost like taking a few steps down that road, and glimpsing from far away the great Light waiting at the end of it ...
   This is definitely a "must read" if you have any interest in metaphysical subjects.



3. Everyone else is saying what I would. This book is fantastic. Great illustrations, great captions, great information hard to find elsewhere! Get it!



4. This book is fat and loaded with color plates of pretty much every major example of medieval/renaissance alchemical artwork. It seems impossible that such a book would be so inexpensive! As such it is an invaluable reference guide. There are textual explanations of each plate included in the book, some more detailed than others, though the text won't help you understand the emblems or the subtext if you don't already know about it. I would recommend anyone interested in alchemical imagery to visit the Alchemy website (...) and check out anything else online by Adam McLean.



5. Hot off the shelf from some wizard harem this "brickbook" consisting of about a 1000 full-color illustrations on over 700 pages of glossified paper from the Renaissance & Enlightenment eras' for the most part, but going back to the early post-crucfixion days of the prevailing Mystery Religions and into our terrifying millenary day with a few examples of Modernist/Post-Modernist Art such as Duchamp's work & the playwright August Strindberg's cosmological photographic exposures to the night sky; several references to Fulcanelli as well as Theosophical Architectural drawings...around 30 pieces from the AURORA CONSURGENS (14-17th cen./see CGJung's writings) are celebrated herein, they are some of the most intriguing works I have ever seen!; all variety of outtakes from myriad illuminated manuscripts & Medieval incunabula fill these pages; but it is mostly the Renaissance Hermetic texts of the Alchemists and Mystics (hence the title) that is represented in the finest detailed prints; from Anastasius Kircher's beautiful cabalistic diagrams to the mnemonic palaces & Hermetic/Alchemical graphics of Robert Fludd, H.Khunrath, Jacob Bohme, M.Maier...the names go on in a never ending procession of Renaissance & Enlightenment Artistic brilliance. There is no other work ever printed in the last few hundred years, at least that I have ever even heard of mythologized by bibliophiles & collectors or Antiquarians that warrants comparison with such a high-quality work as this is and for such a trifle of a price! For the sheer bulk, much less the quality prints that one gets from Sir Benedikt Taschen's wondrous press (which is unequalled in the Art world!) the price is practically nil as even a lesser book consisting of half the number of the same works would go for 10 times what Mr. taschen's offering it to the world for!...and only Taschen could ever come up with a second volume to match it! I & many others I suppose have fantasized for hundreds of years perhaps for a book like this to be published at under a 1000 dollars say; for it is definitely a luxury item for poorer students & scholars both independent and academic to be able to afford such a sublime effort and product as this, for which I thank Taschen press from the bottom of a bookish passion for all they have done in just the past decade or so. The work defends itself, nay it has no need but only should be championed by anyone who appreciates and admires history itself. This book is a lens by which one can focus in on lost eras whose words cannot be trusted nearly as much as these illustrative works; it's a catalogue of dreams, maps of lost and/or forgotten utopian ideals, charts of spiritual aspirations and records of strange initiations; a massive book of riddles in pictograph, for which the puzzle-subject is one's very own microprosopus-being whose final assembly means heaven reached or paradise achieved; & at the least intellectual delight/enlightenment, & gnosis at best. The artwork is perhaps from the most sublime genre of them all, the human tradition at the heart of all scientific endeavor & religious searching; it is no less than an journey into both inner & outer space, whose realms the artists' believed an iron lung was not necessary in order to explore, and which many mystics & theologians of contemporary times as well as philosophers & scientists of the past are inclined to agree. The book should give "Occulture" a whole new rightful respect for it's rich past filled with sheer artistic brilliance and depth of knowledge, and I need not mention those aspirations which are the highest humankind can ever aspire to in any age that are herein depicted and portrayed in the most profound ways imaginable that many dragons herein seem almost ready to take flight in many a reader's enriched mind...ouroboros, the snake that eats itself revolves furiously and only ceases and stands still when the book is opened so that its admirers may better perceive its classical serpentine symmetry...such is the magic that is just barely contained in this museum catalogue from the deepest recesses of humankind's time here in these terrestrial & celestial spheres in the immense spaces, sublime in all the terror they hold for such miniscule beings, ("Aliens of Universal charity" as Constant said) aspiring to so large a consciousness which is charted in the finest infinitesimal details in this atlas of human history.

3 comments about Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Further Treasures from the Smithsonian Museum).

1. This is a fine catalogue in general, but the description of the art of Carlos Alfonso creates a strange impression of this great artist's work. After reading the description you'd think that his paintings give off a sense angst and even powerful agitation. After seeing the great Carlos Alfonso show at the Freedom Tower in Miami during the Art Basel Miami Beach 2006, I can say that the effect is one of sublime beauty and fantastic imagination. That he
   uses images like daggers and other imaginary-occult symbols certainly does not mean anything about violence and it seems silly to suggest it does. Alfonso was simply a great artist, who happened to be Cuban, thus the images from Santeria and the like. I suspect what lies behind the misreading of his art as hugely angst-ridden
   is a crypto-political point about his status as an Cuban exile. All great artists are alike in taking the accidents of life and making them something more. Crypto-politics almost never have produced great art. Alfonso had a health problem and had suffered from political viscisssitudes of our time, but the angst this might have created are not the source of his art. The Freedom Tower show, as well as the Hirshhorn show in Washignton DC a few years ago make this very clear.



2. How do you highlight 200 years of Latino art in the United States and Puerto Rico in a book from a world renowned collection? Well you don't do it in a 108 page book from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Having visited the said museum it is a pity that this small book is an offering they produced to represent the vast collection. The book uses the term "highlights" but it is just not enough. It is like a variety of crackers offered in a fine restaurant; it'll hold you over but not satisfy your hunger. The collected pictures are beautifully presented accompanied by very short analysis of the piece and usually a paragraph about the artist. If you like looking at a few nice pieces than this book will do.This book is like fast food for the art aficionado. Since the represented art is in various media it results in a disjointed but varied whole. Most of the featured artists in the book are contemporary but there is the occasional misplaced unknown colonial artist or noted 19th century santero Felipe de la Espada that just doesn't fit or do justice to the subject. There is a lack of continuity and thematic cohesion with the book. When the book is thread together it is when the art of New Mexico artists are featured , most notably the works of santeros and wood carvers, George Lopez, Gloria Lopez Cordova, Luis Tapia, Horacio Valdez, Jose Benito Ortega, Ramon lopez, George Lopez, Felix Lopez(yes, it a long family line of Lopez santeros) and Patrocino Barela. Again the problem here is that they are placed between other media like oils, acrylics, fiberglass, woven cotten rug, colored pencil, granite and silver prints for a resulting weird representaion. The book has no chapters and unfortunately it could have used them. This book just scratches the surface and falls short. This book is for someone just beginning on their quest for knowledge about Latino art. Possbly from this point you can depart to finding out more about some of these artists but this book is only a starting point. If you are looking for a Latino art appetizer than this book is for you, otherwise look elsewhere to satisfy your appetite.



3. This is a great source book of contemporary art productions which includes contemporary Latino artists. The selection of art represented is varied and the text gives readers sufficient background for understanding the works. Very colorful and clear photographs of the works are each full-page sized with a full page of text next to each to help capture the image and short biographies and artistic interpretations of the artists at the turn of each page.

No comments about Op Art.

5 comments about Men Together: Portraits Of Love, Commitment, And Life.

1. As a 21 year old gay man, it is heartwarming and touching to see a such a beautiful coffee table book dedicated to portraying gay men positively and humanely, in addition to giving me hope that a long-term relationship can exist in a circuit/club/Abercrombie gay world. The stories of men who have been together for 10, 20, 30 + years are not only inspiring, but well written and accompanied with stunning black and white photos. However, while there was a considerable effort (and a good one at that!) to include a range of HIV positive and negative couples and while there were are three black men and possibly one Latino, I would have liked to have seen more gay men of color. I know there are Asian, Native American, and more Latino gay men in committed relationships, so it would have been nice to have them represented. Overall, it's a wonderful book and contribution to the GLBT community and worth buying--if anything, I just wish it were longer, so that it could include more diversity.



2. Althouh I'm gay, I still believe in love, married and family. This book show that these things are possible for gay couples. Some people always think of gay men as feminine-type of guy who like to act as women and running for every good-lookig guy on a street. This book will give readers more understanding in gay people.



3. I gave this book to my mother when my partner and I decided to have a commitment ceremony. Mom was having trouble understanding and didn't seem to recognize our commitment to each other as equally valid to straight marriages. After she read the book, she sent my partner a HUGE bouquet of flowers and a card telling him she was so pleased that he was going to become an "official" part of our family!



4. My partner and I are two of the subjects (or is it ONE of the subjects?) of this book. Andy Jones has shown great perception in his interpretation of the interview that we gave and his pen has told 29 very different stories with charm and wit. David Fields black & white photography is stunning and dramatic.



5. Like one of the other reviewers on this page, I grew up without positive Gay role models, and it took decades for me to learn self-respect. This book reminds us that well-adjusted Gay couples can be found throughout our culture, something that's important for young Gay people to learn and for older Gay people to remain aware of.

   I'm lucky enough to be acquainted with one of this book's subjects, Steve Langley of Washington, and I have a lot of respect for the choice he and his partner have made to be included. It's a beautiful book.

No comments about How to Grow as an Artist.