1 comments about Monet's Garden: Through the Seasons at Giverny.

1. As a long time fan of impressionist art, Claude Monet and gardening, I found this book very informative. The setting is Monet's former home just outside Paris, France. The book details how the grounds were renovated under Monet's direction and how upkeep continues on the grounds today. Many of the settings such as the Lilly Pond are pictured and described in detail. This book is well worth the purchase price for Monet fans.

5 comments about Artist's Manual: A Complete Guide to Paintings and Drawing Materials and techniques.

1. I'm incredibly impressed with this book. Anyone with a twinkling of creativity could pick it up and begin almost anything. I found this in a bookstore and vowed I would own it. It's beautifully photographed and illustrated as one might expect, but often can't find in art guides. The text is right on the money. In my opinion it's the most comprehensive guide out there and it doesn't just cater to beginners, which is why I was so taken with it. I've been dabbling in the arts since I could walk and wanted something that might cover some of the mediums that I haven't experimented with yet.
   
   The chapters are divided into: Supports, Drawing Media, Painting Media, Color and Composition, Subjects and Themes, The Studio, Reference. I was especially impressed with the Reference section, as this was one of the first general art guides I'd found that carried health and safety info as well as a list of suppliers. The artwork examples in each of the sections are really well chosen. If I were an art teacher, I would make this text required reading material. It's intelligently written without being dry, boring, or patronizing. And never overly simplistic--a huge bonus if you're tired of pat-on-the-head guides.



2. I'm a true novice, a friend once said I like to "color". She may be right!

   I find this book informative (basic info for people like me who didn't go to art class in school) and inspirational. I love the art in it and the collage with art materials on the cover and throughout the book is stunning. A must even for us non-artists!

   I bought the book a few years back and still dig it out when I feel the urge to be creative. That to me is a sign of a good book! It is a book that I look at over and over again, and doesn't get "dated".




3. This is a good book to become familiar with a wide range of materials and basic techniques. Appearance wise, it is heads and shoulders above the competition.

   However, the text itself is more of a dummy's guide to art materials. Essentially, it gives enough information for someone to be able to communicate effectively with others on the subjects. It gives some basic instructions, which are perfect for someone with little background in the subjects.

   I would really give this text two scores, one on the body of content, and another on its helpfulness to amatures. The scores would probably be a 3 and a 5.




4. I received this book as a gift, but I have been eyeing it for a few months now. I have looked through this book a hundred times now in the few days that I've had it. It has all the information to answer all of your questions that you could EVER think to ask. With out this book I would barely know where to begin in my studies. It has information on supports and painting media covering oil painting and water colors and acrylic. It has information on drawing painting, everything you could think to draw with, there are techniques in this book for it! And even as wonderful as that sounds, it still gives information on how to go about choosing your subject, and where you should put your studio. I absolutely love this book. The pages are so crisp and clean now, but not for much longer.



5. This book gives good, basic descriptions of a wide variety of drawing and painting media and techniques. The photographs and illustrations are easy to follow. The organization is well thought out. However, if you are looking for a substitute for Ralph Mayer's ...... "The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques," this book will not have the technical depth you may want.

No comments about Painting indoors.

1 comments about The Success and Failure of Picasso.

1. John Berger is a critic with a real sense of decency: never too high-falutin, smart and responsible. He asks us to see beautiful objects, not in their staid isolation in the museum setting, but in the context of social history. It is obvious that Picasso was a genius. He saw and drew things that evoke wonders and passions. But is that all?

   The central essay here is "The Moment of Cubism." Berger paints a general portrait of a distinct era of possibility: artistic and social and political. The explosion of Cubism is but a moment in a larger moment of real revolution. Not just "ways of seeing" but ways of living, thinking, hoping. Berger reminds us that Picasso needed the times (Europe), he also, more specifically needed friends and support. After all, there were two who brought forth cubism; moreover, there were the likes of Cezanne.

   Berger asks the question that is overlooked in the constant reverence of Picasso's potency (echoing Benjamin Buchloh on the "ciphers of regression"): was Picasso genius throughout his career or was that moment (historical and aesthetic) the real genius?

   (For more on Berger, read his two inspired novels: "G." and "To the Wedding.")

No comments about Marlene Dumas: Selected Works.

No comments about Fairies in Watercolour (Fantasy Art).

4 comments about Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art.

1. I collect art books and am particularly fond of Vincent Van Gogh, the fabulous Dutch artist of the 19th Century, who is probably the most popular of all artists--EVER (certainly my favorite!!). I have taken several art history courses with Van Gogh as subject, seen all the "Van Gogh" films, etc. I own many books about Van Gogh including a few I picked up in the Netherlands. What could anyone else possibly say about him that I have not already heard? The answer as it turns out is plenty. I had not yet read Debora Silverman's VAN GOGH AND GAUGUIN: THE SEARCH FOR SACRED ART.

   Silverman has taken a different tact in writing about the artists Van Gogh and Gauguin--who will linked together through eternity if for no other reason than the episode in Arles with Van Gogh's "earlobe" (not ear). Like many, I have wondered just why these two men behaved so antagonistically towards each other. I have heard about personality conflicts, differing life styles, and mental illness, but somehow these reasons have never resonated with me. The explanation for the Gauguin-Van Gogh conflict according to Silverman was owing to nothing less than their conflicting interpretations of the meaning of life.

   Gauguin was raised Roman Catholic and attended a Catholic boys school where he was taught the theology of bearing one's cross and dying to the material world to attain the transcendent good--paradise. Van Gogh came from a humanistic Dutch Reformed background in an era when this church was focused on the need for a consolatary religion in the face of EVOLUTION. Their conflict seems to have been a feud of a particular kind as both men attempted to understand the eternal truths, grapple with the new reality of science, and abandon their relgious upbringings.

   While Gauguin's paintings reflect the transcendent as "otherworldly" and point the way for later abstract symbolists such as Picasso, Van Gogh's works are tied to the sacred presence of the eternal in the natural world. In painting after painting, Gauguin flattens the canvas, uses paint sparingly and depicts scenes of misery and suffering, sin and redemption. On the other hand, Van Gogh focuses on the sacred nature of work and rural life--threshing, weaving, milking, and rocking the baby by the fireplace. Where Gauguin creates angels strugging with men and flying cows, Van Gogh paints wheat fields and grape vineyards filled with sowers, thrashers, and harvesters. Where Gauguin sees classical elements such as the three muses and a Greek temple and admires Delacroix, Van Gogh sees bridges, sailboats, looms, and walls, and adores Millet.

   During their short time together in Arles, Gauguin sought to influence Van Gogh--to have him paint from memory, flatten surfaces, and introduce overt religious symbolism into his work. Van Gogh did partially adapt some of Gauguin's techniques such as cloisonism (black outlines separating flat patches of color), but while Gauguin continued to tackle the sinful ways of man (and apparently sin quite heavily when he wasn't working) Van Gogh adapted Zenlike techniques reminiscent of Hiroshege and other Japanese artists who saw no boundary between the divine and natural worlds.

   Silverman writes beautifully (I read every word..this is a powerful book) and there are hundreds of drop-dead beautiful facsimilies of the works of Gauguin and Van Gogh. I think Silverman favors Van Gogh, and I do too so I was not disappointed (though she covers Gauguin quite well). She spends a great deal of time on style and technique, which I also liked very much. She is not merely pointing out technical differences, however, she is showing how their respective techniques were tied to their philosophical outlooks. Several "sets" of paintings by both men are discussed in detail--Van Gogh's Langlois bridge paintings (all nine are reproduced) and the Berceuse paintings (she who rocks the cradle); as well as Gauguin's repeated use elements such as the women of Brittany, cows, angels, and "the dead."

   This is a wonderful book and if you love Van Gogh and want to better understand his painterly ways, you must have it. It will enrich your life.




2. Although a non-scholar, I have a keen interest in art history and thus was delighted to receive a copy of this book as a holiday gift from my daughter. The subtitle indicates Silverman's thematic objective: To examine "the search for sacred art." She provides her reader with a brilliantly written narrative during which she shares a wealth of information about Van Gogh and Gauguin, of course, in combination with hundreds of illustrations (many in full-color) which are skillfully correlated with the text. Here is how the material is organized:

   Part One: Toward Collaboration [two "Self-Portraits"]

   Part Two: Peasant Subjects and Sacred Forms [eg Van Gogh's "Sower" and Gauguin's "Vision After the Sermon"]

   Part Three: Catholic Idealism and Dutch Reformed Realism

   Part Four: Collaboration in Arles

   Part Five: Theologies of Art After Arles

   Part Six: Modernist Catechism and Sacred Realism

   Silverman carefully identifies and then eloquently explores all manner of comparisons and contrasts between the lives and art of Van Gogh and Gauguin within an historical, theological, and anthropological context. Hers is a magnificent achievement.




3. a work of genius and a pleasure to read. this book is essential for any museumgoer and the general reader with any interest in either artist. revealing the mutual respect and support between two very different men, with outstanding illustrations and insightful prose. i cannot remember any art history book so erudite and approachable.



4. "Christ alone -- of all the philosophers, Magi, etc. -- has affirmed, as a principal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d'etre of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist, hardly to be conceived of by the obtuse instrument of our modern, nervous, stupefied brains, made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made... living men, immortals. This is serious, especially because it is the truth." Vincent van Gogh wrote these words in a long letter to Emile Bernard, his close friend and painter. He wrote them in Arles, where was working particularly hard, at the end of June 1888. The greatest artistic achievements where still before him, as well as unexpected illness and pity death. Debora Silverman exhibits to us another great event of Vincent's life: short and vehement artistic friendship with Paul Gaugain, that inspired Vincent much and may be even more costed. They knew and write each other for some years. They spent together same weeks in Arles working and fiercely discussing many artistic topics. Unexpectedly, in a while of serious depression Vincent decided to punish his comrade. With dark intentions in the mind he even picked up a razor. But his own illness won. Next day Gaugin found him laying unconscious, all in blood, with one ear cut. Silverman asks how possible was this strange and strangely fruitful friendship. She explores complicated cultural and religious background of both the painters. "I was intrigued -- writes in the Introduction -- by how Gauguin may have assimilated from his seminary training certain mental habits and attitudes toward the visual that were profoundly discordant with those I had identified in van Gogh's formative period in his Dutch theological culture, and I suspected that these distinctive mentalities had implications for the form and content of their work". There have been no similar studies up now. Religious life of Vincent van Gogh have been explored only very recently by Tsukasha Kodera (Vincent van Gogh. Christianity versus nature), Katheleen Power Erickson (At Eternity's Gate), Cliff Edwards (Van Gogh and God) and others, but never in relation to the southern France Catholicism, in atmosphere of which Vincent spent his recent years. Catholic background of Gaugin himself is even less known. Their mutual cultural and religious interferences, and their own personal achievements of this field finally received an abundant and complete description grace to Silverman research.

5 comments about Clown Paintings.

1. This is scary stuff and should be kept out of the hands of innocents. It is corruptive, corrosive and full of "CLOWN PAINTINGS", people. Clowns I tell you, clowns!
   
   Need I say more?
   
   I'm off in my jalopy now, away and away and away from those dastardly, red-nosed purveyors of horror.
   
   L.A.E.



2. I am a clown lover. Clowns have always amazed me and grabbed my attention. I love them not because they are funny or clumsy, but by their beauty, pureness, and happiness/sadness contrast. And this is what this book shows, the esthetic and humane sides of the art of clowning. Lovely colorful crying/laughing clowns!
   
   'Clown Paintings' is a very extensive and interesting collection of clown paintings. Diane Keaton is crazy about clowns and many of the paintings are from her private collection. The book also presents a very rich collection of personal beliefs (short texts) about clowns from various famous authors, directors, writers...
   
   The quality of the printing is very very good, the hardcover is really wonderful (without the paper covering), and the price is insignificant for such a piece of art.



3. I love this book. I'm always looking for clown or circus books. As a Clown lover, I share the same passion as Diane Keaton. This book is a great addition to my personal Clown collection. It feels like this book was published just for me. Being a Clown myself and a Clown artist of fine paintings and sculptures,(www.clownartist.com), I appreciate the works by the different artists and what they communicated. These Clowns evoke a myriad of emotional feelings.
   I agree with Diane Keaton about how much we have in common with a clown. We have all felt the emotions that we see on a Clowns face.....CLOWN'S EYES SEE TRUST AND ACCEPTANCE. A WORLD OF FRIENDSHIP...GIVEN AND RECEIVED. A CLOWN'S VIEW IS DIRECT...LIFE IS SIMPLE, UNENCUMBERED...SOMETHING HURTS, HE CRIES, SOMETHING PLEASES HIM, HE LAUGHTS, SOMETHING PUZZLES HIM, HE FROWNS, SOMETHING TOUCHES HIM, HE RESPONDS. LIFE CAN BE THAT SIMPLE...FOR A MOMENT.



4. With Clown Paintings (2002), idiosyncratic actor, author, and director Diane Keaton has produced the kind of offbeat creative work that is sorely lacking in American culture today. Clown Paintings is just what is appears to be: a slim compendium of presumably amatuer clown paintings which were happily discovered at swap meets, jumble sales, bargain bins, and thrift stores. What makes Clown Paintings surprising is that Keaton treats the sixty - six paintings as oddball if serious pieces of work, and pointedly avoids treating them as banal, ironic objects of kitsch or high or low camp. Created roughly over a period of thirty years, all of the paintings were made by unknown artists, and many are unsigned, further obscuring their etiology.

   Keaton and Los Angeles gallery owner Robert Berman each contribute a brief but fascinating essay. Keaton, a well - known comedian herself, perceives clowns as perpetually bright - eyed innocents and eternally hopeful beings that are easily wounded but fundamentally incapable of learning from negative experience or their own mistakes. Noting that clowns were acceptable enough subjects for Picasso, Beckmann, and Matisse, Keaton believes that clowns images "expose the human experience at its most transcendent on one hand, and on the other, its most tragic." Berman, who thinks "one clown painting alone may look like a silly indulgence," dreams "of a gallery full of clowns, floor to ceiling, walls of clowns - so powerful that the viewers would be overwhelmed."

   Keaton has asked a broad range of mostly - American comedians to comment on the subject, including Woody Allen, Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Ben Stiller, Chevy Chase, Sandra Bernhard, and Jerry Lewis. Not surprisingly, most of those solicited find both clowns and their painted images appalling, frightening, repulsive, or subtle metaphors for psychopathology. With few exceptions, these short commentaries are insightful and touching rather than merely glib or clever. Based on the written selections, it appears clowns are rarely if ever a neutral subject. Like garden gnomes, clowns seem to be "loved by millions, and loathed by millions more."

   What Clown Paintings only barely touches upon is the clown as an archetypal trickster figure, a psychopomp, a mythical straddler of at least two conflicting states, a figure perpetually at the crossroads, a subversive, borderland creature who manifests in dreams, childhood memories, literature, popular entertainment, consumerism, world history, and in the gray area of symbol and metaphor. Clowns are and have been everywhere and nowhere at once throughout history, like witches. As with all numinous images, they both reveal and conceal simultaneously. Are clowns predominantly good or predominantly evil? Trustworthy or innately figures of suspicion? Well - intended or conspicuously devious? Social outcasts or masters of their fates? Where does the man end, and the clown artifice begin? Are clowns partially transvestite figures? Or gussied - up memento moris? Like glamorized, inverted modern Medusas, clowns and clown images are capable of eliciting at least a brief fit of paralysis in their audience or viewer.

   Despite their apparent obviousness and bluntness, these paintings, which underscore several American traditions, proudly maintain their mystery, even when their dignity seems to be faltering. Regardless of the viewer's discipline or angle of approach, their secrets remain inscrutable and thus safe forever. Curious readers willing to give these pieces their time will be adequately rewarded, for, ultimately, Clown Paintings is an eccentric, funhouse - mirror meditation on the strangeness of being human.




5. This book has changed my life for the better! For many years I have had a fear of clowns, in itself an emotional wall put up to deal with my inability to embrace the inner child. My girlfriend on the other hand loves clowns and has been begging me to come to terms with my emotional problems. I used to hide behind the hunstmans rifle in a misplaced attempt to deal with my emotional shortcomings but now things are getting better, and in no small part thanks to this book.

   Diane Keaton is familiar to all as a talented Hollywood actress but few will know that she is also a patron of the arts. This book showcases her collection of clown paintings and they are accompanied by the comments and stories from many famous celebrities. The pictures distressed me at first but somehow the warm words of Diane Keaton and the humourous comments of the celebs made me keep coming back. Before long I recognised these paintings for what they truly are, an insight into the very essence of the clown. I see that often behind the greasepaint and oversized shoes there often lies a fragile and passionate soul. In particular a picture in the book entitled 'Let Down' moved me and provided my breakthru moment. It features a clown with his unicycle backstage, just about ready to enter the big top. But his wheel is flat and he cannot go on. A small tear gently rolls down his cheek, making the white and red makeup run a little, as he casts a heartfelt glance at his clown comrades running into the arena. A beautiful, poignant picture which the famous director Alan Smithee summed up as 'moving beyond belief'.

   Buy this book and you will not regret it. Beautiful pictures appreciated by beautiful people.

1 comments about Watercolours in a Weekend: Pick Up a Brush and Paint Your First Picture This Weekend.

1. I needed more experience with landscapes in watercolor, so I bought this book. The paintings that you learn to do in it are beautiful and exciting, but not too difficult. Step-by-step instructions are given beginning with the pencil sketch you will need on your watercolor paper and then proceeding to the first wash. Each lesson teaches something new.
   
   The book begins with the usual material needed section, and then proceed to teach the basic painting techniques step-by-step by having you do a simple painting of ex: a simplified tree using wet-wet and then adding the trunk using another technique. Wet on dry is then taught in a 3-step exercise of a cloudy sky, lake and hills (nothing detailed---the book teaches everything in small exercises (paintings).
   
   Next, 2 exercises in the use of masking medium and lifting medium.
   Next, there are 2 pages on each subject of composition, choosing warm vs cool colors, perspectives. A few color mixes are suggested that can be safely used for landscape subjects.
   
   The rest (majority) of the book is then dedicated to step-by-step painting projects-- the first several paintings teach you the basics of painting different types of clouds and skies. Next---Water--sunlight on water, reflections in water, moving water, waterfall, rough sea, moody sea. Each of these lessons are taught by following step-by-step directions to make a small painting
   
   Next, mountains and lakes, then, trees and foliage--winter tree, foliage, tree shapes, trees in a setting, autumn trees. Next, a 6-page class on painting a scene of a road surrounded by trees with sunlight beaming through the trees--- as you progress in the book, the paintings you do become more detailed, building the beginner painter's confidence in a stepped method.
   
   Next, Buildings and textures--linear perspective, light and shade--again, a step-by-step painting to do--simple but beautiful. Next, simple brickwork, with a step-by-step instruction to achieve an interesting end- product of a stuccoed wall with bricks showing through a hole and cracks on the stucco.
   
   Next, windows and roofs, then a 6-page class on painting a farm scene-- the sketch to have on your paper is shown, making everything easy and fun.
   Next, reflection--puddles on a farm track, buildings reflected in a flooded field, reflected boats, and a denver mill.
   
   Several more beautiful paintings are taught in a stepped method, including winter landscape with a snow-covered tree, shadows on snow, low tide coastal scene, etc..
   
   This is an outstanding book for beginner watercolorists. I was impressed by the simplicity of the paintings that you do, but at the same time, something you can be proud of and build on for the more complicated paintings.

5 comments about Creating Impressionist Landscapes in Oil.

1. I really like this book because it is teaching you how to paint impressionist style.
   It shows how you can any photo turn in to masterpiece of your own and not how to make a copy.
   Yes, It's not step by step how to book for absolute beginners and those who want an instant results without working on it...like painting by numbers. You have to know your colors and how to hold a brush and what are you doing on the canvas.. There are no miracles, you have to work on your painting to be good and practice a lot. Wihout no masterpice...:-)
   I will recomend this book for people who ready to do that..



2. I was disappointed that a book whose subtitle is "How to Master Impressionism -- Step-by-Step" didn't have much down-and-dirty how-to advice. There's never a definitive "This is realistic landscape painting, and this over here is impressionism" juxtaposition to explain exactly HOW impressionism might differ from traditional or realistic landscapes. Not sure about the "contemporary realism" review, since I'm not familiar with that as a specific term, but I'd have to agree that some sort of modifier on the "impressionism" label might be appropriate here.

   There are a great many paintings by Whisson showcased, and most are quite nice, with a few even breathtaking. Most are done on a very small scale, the 10x12" range.

   What few step-by-step demos, or even partial demos, there are are rather pale. Many "compositional plan" examples are merely ghosted-back visuals of the finished painting with a grid superimposed and little explanation as to composition or positioning choices. Most "tonal plans" (value sketches) are just b&w photos (badly screened, imho, so you can't see the patterns well) of the finished painting. Some of the all-the-way demos seem to be done after the fact, as in he started with a finished painting he wanted to demonstrate, and then did another one, this one being photographed as he did it. The results don't match. We are rarely told the why behind choices made.

   The use of color is almost ignored entirely.

   He does stress sketching, which is great! But if he were to redo this book, I'd advise him to do actual demos, explaining all the way as to his specific reasons for doing everything, and how this demonstrates impressionism. He should go into composition, into value determination, and most especially, into color.

   The value of this book is the many Whisson paintings showcased and the inspiration derived from same. For "how to" value, I would recommend trying to find another book.




3. The visual demonstrations are certainly helpful but Colley's
   techniques are not fast tricks and gimmicks.

   He emphasizes the importance of good draftsmanship (drawing)
   in his art. A whole section is devoted to showing the
   relationship between preliminary sketches/drawings and the
   finished painting in his work as well as in the work of
   Monet and other Impressionists.

   He encourages the reader to practice drawing as much as
   possible in order to grow as a painter.

   I admire Whisson's compositional skills, taste, and artistic
   integrity.




4. If you are looking for techniques to learn how to paint en plein air, this book is a valuable find. Colley is able to capture the envelope of light that Monet and others sought by employing his bravado brushwork and traditional training. The photos of his paintings draw you in. One can actually feel the raking sun and smell the fresh air. However, Colley's technique is NOT Impressionism, it is Contemporary Realism. Impressionism is about learning to see color, color that other people cannot see unless they are trained to see it. It is known as full-color seeing (check out the books by Lois Griffel and Susan Sarback to learn how to see color). Colley's emphasis is more on value than color. Also, he uses large brushstrokes and completes his paintings in one session (or almost). Most of the French Impressionists worked on their paintings many, many sessions, building up thick layers of paint (Renoir was an exception to this in his iridescent period; he used thin transparent color juxtaposed with thick opaque dabs). I am not saying that one has to place little touches of color all over the place to be an Impressionist nor does one have to work on a painting more than one session. There is a great deal of freedom to develop one's own style. I am just saying that the emphasis in true Impressionism is on "observed" color. Whether you are a beginner or an accomplished artist, I am sure that you will love everything this book has to offer. Colley is a brilliant painter!



5. Due to the author's great and simple instructions and step-by-step demonstrations, I was able to come out with two Impressionistic paintings from reading this book. For someone who is impatient, the author has kept in mind to keep the instructions more visual than verbal. I recommend this book immensely to other oil painting beginners who wish to make their own French Impressionist masterpieces. I hope Whisson will delve into other styles of oil painting because he has a winner in this book.