2 comments about A Light Touch: Successful Painting In Oils.

1. This is a one of the best books on oil painting that I've seen (though probably best for an intermediate level painter; it's a little short on basic 'just getting started' information). Both the author's advice and the demonstrations are helpful and done in a professional but friendly way.

   The best compliment I can give it is that I've actually looked for the author's paintings to purchase.




2. First rate demos. Good graphics. The artist-author is a premier realistic Plein air painter.

3 comments about Paintings in the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries.

1. This book has excellent reproductions and is a treasure to be had. It is however very heavy and you will need a nice desk or table to rest it on so you can browse the many pages and enjoy them. This is not an art history book so for students looking for many discussions you won't find that here. It is a collectors book and also makes a wonderful souvenir for those dreaming of visiting Florence or for those who have already been there. It is a great way to view the vast collection of a world famous museum in the comfort of your own home and to learn the names of different artists and view the works they created. I would not trade this treasure of a book for anything. It would make a fabulous holiday gift for the art lover in your life.



2. This is a beautiful book. It contains pictures of all the paintings you will see at both galleries and much more. It is a treasure to keep to remind me of our trip to Florence.



3. This is a spectacular and gorgeous book. It's truly the next best thing to visiting the museums themselves. If you've ever gone to a world-famous museum and wished you could have a copy of every painting there, then this is a dream-come-true book for you. It's pricey but worth every cent. This is the sort of book that will appreciate once it goes out of print and I'll bet it'll be worth several times its price in a few years.

2 comments about Tver Icons: 13th-17th centuries.

1. Good history-book of old Russian town Tver in good icon-images



2. This an excellent book for the iconographer or for someone who is very interested in this subject. There are several enlargements which enable the iconographer to see details. The generous images are larger than those of many books about icons, and in my opinion, the images are beautiful. The text is also quite interesting, discussing this school which has perhaps been underestimated. I would like to give it five stars but for the four or so out of register images. Perhaps these are only in my copy. Well worth the money!

No comments about Self-Portraits by Women Painters.

No comments about New Perceptions of Old Appearances in the Art of Samuel Bak.

5 comments about Zaftig: The Case for Curves.

1. Every comment is a fat woman looking for an excuse to justify her weight. In the olden days, food was scarce, so weight implied wealth, health, education, and status.
   
   Today, food is plentiful, so obesity implies poor genes, poor education, laziness, or poverty (since healthier foods and diets tend to demand acccess to more expensive and complex recipes and ingredients).
   
   Men are most attracted to the most women who offer the most benefit to the species at any given time. These days, its thin and athletic.
   
   This book is a lie, a fabrication intended purely to perpetuate a fantasy and make a bunch of guilty and self-conscious fat people feel better with themselves.
   
   It would be far healthier for you folks to simply acknowledge and accept reality: you are not desirable. Deal with it.



2. As an artist, I really appreciated this book. As a woman, I really appreciated this book. Curves are certainly more interesting to paint, draw or sculpt than angles and sharp lines. I bought this book because I decided to do some soul searching; to change my body image. I think that if a large woman studies these images enough, it will positively reshape her ideas of beauty and self worth. There is one section called "The Cult of Thinness." It is the most provocative chapter in the book, because after you look at the large woman, you'll be smacked in the face with a classic image of Venus, who really looks more like a man, really.
   
   I will agree with reviewers that some people are thin and can't gain weight if they tried. However, they don't need a book. Media fetishes them and without fat acceptance movements, women will never be thin enough. I really feel sorry for any person, large or small, who has been through alienation or abuse because of appearance though.



3. Simple and tells it like it is- or how it was and how it could be. A work of Art in and of itself, it was a joy to see how the fuller figure can be viewed as something beautiful.



4. Beautifully bound, beautiful captions, and of course beautiful art work. It's hard to make a better purchase than this book, I'm glad I bought it instead of a wieght loss book!
   My only quarrel is that the pieces mostly show full, plump women who don't fit the definition of "fat", and there are few black women, although the author seemed to be trying to focus on classical paintings, so it can only be expected since it is no doubt difficult to find classic works of art where the subject is a person of African descent.
   But overall, I love this book and flip through it's pages often, it's a great mood lifter. Believe me, this is more likely to make you feel good about yourself than any diet pill claims to.



5. This book has prints of paintings, drawings, etchings, sculpture, photographs, and advertisements featuring curvy women, some highlighting their bodies, and others their faces. The prints are beautiful, and some of the best art in the world is featured. I especially love Rembrandt's Bathsheba (from the Louvre) and Reni's Cleopatra (from the Pitti, I just saw it during my stay in Florence). I do wish that the pages with the prints had the titles, artists, and locations of the works right there. Instead, the titles and artists are listed in an index at the end, and there is no mention of where these artworks are, so that if one is interested in seeing a painting or sculpture in real life, one can pursue this. But on the plus side, the book is easy to read, and very enjoyable visually.

   The book is divided up by topic (subject or artist), these being: Fashions in Body Type, The Cult of Thinness, The Goodness of Zaftig, Eve, Venus, Other Goddesses, Women as Symbols and Personifications, Cleopatra, Bathsheba, Hilda, Rembrandt van Rijn, Pieter Paul Rubens, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Boris Kustodiev, Aristide Maillol, Gaston Lchaise, Reginald Marsh, Pablo Picasso, An Opulent Age, Opera Divas, The Stage, On the Beach, Youthful Plumpness, Motherhood, Confidently Voluptuous, and Women's Bodies in Other Cultures.

   As an aside, which is more just a comment than a criticism: with all of its pictures celebrating size, it must be admitted that most of them are of fair, white women; women that have pale skin and women of "other cultures" are fit into the last chapter, and they are mostly other cultures through the European gaze (Italian, French, Swiss). While St. Paige argues that most people and most cultures have preferred heavier women to thin ones, can we also not argue that many people prefer paler people too, as evidenced by the images in the book. But I'm glad that there is an attempt to put people of colour in the book.

   The author puts a lot of emphasis on the idea that women are naturally curvy, and that thinness is freakish. While I agree that women tend toward curviness, not all women can be a size 20 either, just like not everyone can be a size 2. And the argument of "naturalness" doesn't sit well with me, as it has been used to justify many unpleasant things. I am not a zaftig woman, but I appreciate the beauty on these pages.

2 comments about Yosemite: Art of an American Icon.

1. The problem that many Yosemite, Bridgeport, Bishop and Mono Lake Paiutes have with this book is that many of the Yosemite Indians are misidentified tribally. Before the book was published some of our Paiute historians contacted the Autry and Amy Scott with documentation concerning the ancestry of important Mono Lake Paiute people. We adivsed the Autry and gave them the Charlie family's 1928 California Indian Applications. Instead of identifying them correctly they went with Craig Bates book Tradition and Innovation as the source of the Indian ancestry in the Yosemite area. The problem with using Craig D. Bates book, Tradition and Innovation, is that it is full of errors. The book, in the Yosemite American Indian biography section, has Young Charlie as a son of a "Yosemite Miwok chief". In know as a fact this is incorrect. I know many of the Charlies and they are NOT Yosemite Miwoks, but full blooded Paiutes. We Paiutes who are descendant of the Charlie family would like to know where is the original source that states that Young Charlie was a the son of a Yosemite Miwok chief. Every piece of documentation, probates, land sales and 1928 California Indian Applications of the whole family the Charlies are documented as full blooded Mono Lake Paiutes. Daisy Mallory was a full blooded Yosemite Mono Lake Paiute, yet her baskets are not identified on page 109. The George Wharton photo of woman sitting with a gambling tray, page 95, is not identified. She is a Paiute. Helen Coats grandmother is not Lucy Telles, her mother Hazel, was an orphan adopted by Lucy Telles. Where and when was it identified that was a "Miwok family" by Martin Mason Hazeltine on page 93. Who identified it and when was ever noted that this grouping was a Miwok family? No one should ever use Tradition and Innovation as reference material for any type of genealogy of the Yosemite Indians because many of the Yosemite Indians in that book have incorrect tribal identification or they are implied. All of Young Charlie's and his families tribal governmental documentation states they were Mono Lake Paiutes and NOT Miwoks. We have done an extensive family research and there is no evidence that before the non-profit Southern Seirra Miwuks went federal recognition there is any proof that Young Charlie was a ever a son of a Miwok chief. Edwin Charles is not from the same family as the Charlies.



2. This a an excellent compilation of the history and beauty of Yosemite and it's art. Amy Scott is a bright voice in the art world. I highly recommend it.

2 comments about Bosch: Masters of Art.

1. About three-quarters of this volume is dedicated to full-page color plates -- many showing details of larger works. (I'm writing about the hardcover version.) It's worth while to get this one used for the great plates even though it is but a survey of his work.



2. When I first saw the art of "Geronimo Bosch" I must have been 8 years old. The morbid way of expressing himself got stuck in my mind forever. You love him or hate him; I became a mesmerized after I had the opportunity to see his life work. The incredible detailed features in all of the creatures in his paintings made me give him the name "The Dali of Hell". The surrealism is so real that each individual creates its own story by every painting and makes you wonder if his imagination does not come from the nightmares of a madman. It is lack of education not to have had the change to lose yourself in this book and its incredible works of art.

No comments about Painting Class: Oil (Painting Class).

No comments about Oil Workshop (PRACTICAL ART).