2 comments about The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique.

1. This book is an excellent, easy to read and easy to carry resource for those interested in art, art history, and Chinese philosophy. It's particularly handy for anyone who wants to better understand Daoism, in general, and how it applies to Chinese painting, in particular.



2. This book has great pictures in it and if you ever need Chinese names look in this book! I do not paint but I write and I was writing a story set in China and I found many great names but as I was looking for names I was attracted to the pictures and started to look more at them than the names for my characters.

3 comments about Fresh Men: Young, Fresh, Sexy.

1. If you like sexy shaved young guys or love Freshmen magazine, you will love this book. It has lots of pictures of sexy gay guys and some writing. If you are a gay male this book is a must have.



2. You will love this book ... I would suggest to any of my friends to buy it ..



3. This book has much variety of young men staring longingly at the camera. All in living color to your great satisfation. Each picture captures the unique personal style of each model. I would certainly recommend it to anyone that is into young men.

5 comments about Ralph Eugene Meatyard: The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater and Other Figurative Photographs.

1. I first heard of Meatyard in a Lenswork interview with photographer Larry Wiese, and this casual reference aroused my interest. Rhem's well-researched account satisfied my initial interest, but then Rhem acheived something else as well. I gained an appreciation for Meatyard's work that I had initially avoided out of ignorance. Rhem brings to light the numerous influences that molded Meatyard and informed his work: influences as varied as Ezra Pound; Gertrude Stein; Flannery O' Connor; and Zen Buddhism. Rhem interviewed friends and family, combed through archival material and rare unpublished interviews with Meatyard.
   The end product is one of the finest art books I've personally ever read.



2. I have always been amazed at the work of Meatyard. I gained more respect for his work and understanding of the man behind the camera in the work published by James Rhem. To know the feelings of all involved in the creation of Meatyard's work adds a greater understanding of this complex man. James Rhem has gone the step beyond to make all who read the book understand the creation of the Lucy Belle Crater Series!

   EXCELLENT!




3. In James Rhem's book Meatyard's well-known Lucybelle Crater photographs are reproduced in the family album setting that the photographer himself planned they should have, but never got during his lifetime. The photographs are printed on black pages, with handwritten captions underneath; the images are arranged in groups, & the groups are themselves sequenced. For those who like Meatyard's photography, or acknowledge his significant position in American photography, this new presentation is reason enough to want this book.
   But there's a lot more being offered here. First, in an authoritative introduction, Rhem presents an overview of all of Meatyard's photography. This essay is a prelude to and a setting for Rhem's real (and groundbreaking) work: thoroughly researched, original & penetrating elucidation of Meatyard's Lucybelle Crater photographs.
   Personally I have had difficulty in understanding what the Lucybelle Crater pictures were about since first seeing them in an earlier version 25 years ago. From comments by friends & other photographers I realized that I was not alone in having this difficulty. We faced page after page of photos of two people, one wearing a hag's mask, the other a mask of an old man. These figures are posed most often against suburban backgrounds that are familiar and mundane. Some pictures are visually interesting, others dull. As you turn the pages the images accumulate, asking be "read". But how? "What's going on here?" was my nagging question. I knew I was missing something important about these pictures. What was it?
   Rhem's essay is valuable in answering that question. And what's striking is how he does this and how well he does it. Not with scholarly jargon (though he has the thorough-going mind of a scholar). Not with flights of imaginative "interpretation" based on his own subjective feelings and opinions. And certainly not by calling attention to himself as a critic, biographer or insider (all of which, by the way, he is).
   James Rhem works from a dense gathering of factual information about Meatyard--some unknown until now (thanks to Rhem's wide, and thorough investigations into primary sources.) This factual information provides the basis for a conceptual approach to the Lucybelle pictures that is both lively with anecdotes and rich with insights. Rhem has a sincere desire (you can sense it in his sentences) to tell you what he thinks Ralph Eugene Meatyard's photographs are about. He approaches the photographer not as a subject for a thesis but as a man whose pictures continue to have something important to offer us. Rhem has taken up that offer and made it his job in this book to understand and interpret it, using the considerable (and considerably generous) means that he's accumulated for that very purpose.

   27 oct 2002




4. At last someone has written an extremely intelligent, well researched, and accessible book on Meatyard. Rhem takes on this complex and poignant piece of art, and reveals its mystery to us. As an artist, tired of reading badly written criticism and art-writing, I found this book to be a real gift. I've read most of the available writing on Meatyard and nothing approaches this. A must-buy.



5. This is a beautiful book: complicated, exhaustively researched, yet written to be accessible to the lay reader. Meatyard's work is gorgeous, comic, haunting, and virtually unknown except to photographers. James Rhem has done a masterly job of balancing scholarly rigor and critical transparency. In _Family Album_ he fills a void in the scholarship of photography. I look forward to seeing more work by this author.

5 comments about Fish Face.

1. This book has wonderful pictures but I think it could have been presented in a better way. The pages are small so the pictures are too small in some cases. Some pictures you can't see well because they are spread over two facing pages & get lost in the center. But I love the expressions of many of the fish, you can almost sense their personality. And I love seeing the incredible variety of fish.



2. Lot's of interesting and colorful photos. I gave it to my sister, for christmas, and our whole family sat around looking at the fish for hours.



3. Once again, David Doubilet shows his ingenious photography work. I really enjoyed Water Light Time, and Fish Face is proving to be a close second. Each image is carefully shot. It is wonderful to see close-up images of deep sea marine life and other creatures that one would not normally find on a casual snorkel excursion. There is a sense of humor to some of these photos, too, which makes looking at them even more entertaining. This is a perfect companion to Water Light Time!



4. we bought this book first at the monterey aquarium and have recently purchased it on amazon again for our montessori library. parents and children alike love looking at the pictures and marvelling at the wonders of the coral seas and barrier reef. buy this book. it's great!



5. Doubilet has done it again. As a vintage underwater photographer of 50 years I have devoured all of his books, as an inspiration. Undoubtedly he is the best underwater photographer in the world today and his use of light and subject matter are masterly. Fish Face is an interesting and difficult theme handled with great aplomb.I recommend this work to photographers and all those interested in the sea.

No comments about Harry Callahan: Eleanor.

4 comments about Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation.

1. This is book is beautiful. I had the pleasure to see the exhibition of Tomatsu's work at the Corcoran a few years ago, and several images were burned into my mind. Particularly the image of a bottle after an atomic blast, the cigarettes & bubble gum series, and an untitled piece with a big blob of reddish orange pigment splat in the middle of the frame. (I am writing this from memory and don't have the advantage to just flip thru the book at this moment to find the exact titles...) His work is very much street photographer - and he's good at evoking emotion. Think Robert Doisneau with an Asian flair for simplicity.



2. This is a high caliber photographic book. The images are stunning and the layout is easy to navigate. The text is informative and well written, but nothing compares to the visuals.



3. As I stumbled across the Shomei Tomatsu exhibit last August I had no idea how much his work would impact me. Everytime I look at this book I find something new. In this book, Shomei Tomatsu documents pre and post war Japan in the 1950s. He depicts startling images of westerization on Japanese Culture, and the effects of hiroshima. The everyday moments he captured speak in volumes and sheds a new light on an era that changed Japanese culture forever.



4. I saw the book laying in the library, between all the other photography books. 80% of the all the bookcovers doesn't look inviting enough to open it. This was one 20% that I took. Now all the books that looks inviting on the outside can really disapoint you when you open the it. I think that from the 30% that is left, 27% of the books are very disapointing on the inside This book is the uposite, what a wonderfull suprice. This is a book word it to open. The inside off the book is just how it should be first a lot of information and criticts about Shomei and her work. And that the work of Shomei, it's deep, tatsing, it's got a feeling a soul. She's got a great feeling about how to see a composition, to organize the contrast. And last but not least, the differsity she put in here work is amazing. From black and white, untill full clor and everything between there. From subkects of human beens untill abstract architecture and evreything between there. From very personal images untill very detached. From really close untill verry far. From very meaningfull untill very unmeaningfull. From a frozen image untill a fast movement image. Yeah, I think this a book is an inspiration for every artist in business.

2 comments about Readymades: American Roadside Artifacts.

1. A great photographer is one who sees the beauty in the banal and everyday aspects of our surroundings, and frames and shoots so that these things are brought to our attention. And so it is with Jeff Brouws. "Readymades" is a collection of subjects that are so much a part of America's cultural landscape that they are barely noticeable; 60's tract homes repainted in bright, hot colours; pick-up trucks with dents, primer touch-ups and replacement panels; ruins of the 20th century - drive-ins and gasoline stations; farmyard buildings; neglected freight cars and trailer homes in various states of abandonment, ten-pin bowling buildings and accompanying signs, roadside and inner-city signs advertising goods and services long forgotten, and even an artifact of the current age - storage units - which already have an aura of desolation.
   
   My favorite series is of the "Partially Painted Pick-Up Trucks". Deeply American; all of these vehicles indicate a gritty, blue-collar life, yet there is something in them that is inexplicably beautiful and noble. The ghostly and forlorn aspect of the abandoned drive-ins and gasoline stations bring to mind the questions - "who worked here"? and "did this place really mean anything to anyone"?. "Do they ever think of it" and even "where are these people now"? "Dead? - and does anyone care"?
   
   Books of this type are quite often large and unwieldy (big pictures usually equals bigger visual impact). This one is small (15cm x 23.5cm x 2.5cm) and much easier to handle, but this does not reduce the value of the photography; the power of the images has been retained. For its genre, the book is exceptionally good value (particularly for the current price on Amazon); 272 pages, including over 220 crisp, sharp images. The essays accompanying each section are short and enjoyable, being as they are personal reflections by different contributing writers who have some real connection to the subjects, and - thankfully - there is no tedious discussion of photographic technicalities or of the merits of urban photography. Overall, this is a thorough exploration of the range of Jeff Brouws' work. After this, I would strongly recommend his "Approaching Nowhere" - a much larger book in terms of size, but a closer and deeper examination of the American landscape.



2. Yet another roadie book but `Readymades' is a cut above the usual photographic selection of what can be seen along the nation's back roads. For a start the book is landscape, just the right shape for images that are basically horizontal. Secondly the photos are divided into sections rather than loosely hung together by state or date order. Thirdly the choice of material is refreshing, for example, tract housing, freight cars, trailers or storage units (no kidding).
   
   This is Jeff Brouws second road book, his first, the excellent `Highway: America's Endless Dream', was more the traditional photographic road book, a mixture of everything plus a selection of interesting black and white images from the thirties and forties. I like the formal arrangement of `Readymades'. By having each of the eleven chapters devoted to a particular theme he "presents the subject in the most factual terms possible" as Diana Gaston says in her intro. The chapters are tract housing, signs, abandoned drive-ins, farms, pickups, abandoned gas stations, boxcars, signs two, trailers, bowling and finally storage units.
   
   Partially painted pickup trucks are just that, twenty-five of them are all taken side on and nicely framed within the image area. Twenty-six abandoned gas stations (in black and white) are one to a page and just the sort of thing Robert Frank would have stopped his car for back in the fifties. Freight cars, again one to a page and neatly framed, are an amazing colored selection of various shades of rust and railroad livery. Perhaps the most unusual chapter is storage units, hardly the sort of thing to capture the creative eye but here they are, eighteen shots including a stunning one taken in West Virginia in 2001 showing three power station cooling towers in the distance, the storage units in the middle and a parking lot in the foreground. The photos of these units remind me of Lewis Baltz and his photos of the industrial parks in Irvine, CA, simple oblongs just placed in the landscape.
   
   `Readymades' is a refreshing look and presentation of the vernacular everyday and I think it might well turn out to be a classic photo book of the decade.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

5 comments about George W. Bush: Portrait of a Leader.

1. It amazes me that even one person can like this president. He has done nothing but bury this country into the ground in which it will take years to recover from. This is what a customer wrote in the positive reviews on this book. I am trying really hard not to laugh and cry at the same time.
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   "I applaud the great leadership abilities of our President and I am sure many Americans will join me. Among the achievements that are behind him (and I am sure that there is time left during the presidency for many more):
   - Has made healthcare affordable for all Americans
   - Has created millions of jobs with joblessnes at record lows
   - Has won the war on terrorism
   - Has brokered lasting peace in the Middle East and Far East
   - Has made all countries in Middle East embrace democracy, with
   some of them already prosperous democracies in a short span
   - Has secured the trust of both the aisles of the Congress to
   legislate policies beneficial to all Americans into law
   - Has made cheap sources of energy available to Americans
   that we can all use into the foreseeable future
   - Has made American economy strong at least for the rest of this
   century
   - Has made budget and trade deficits a thing of the past
   - Has made America the leader of the free world after a period
   when we were thought as a pushover by terrorists
   - Has restored America to play its destined role as the leader of
   the free world
   I am sure there are many more that can be added to this list. Let us all wish our President continued success."
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------
   WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!? Are you kidding me? Every single one of these so called achievements are so obviously false. It makes me wonder if these supporters of his actually have any common sense at all. What is it that they see in this guy? Makes me sick to think that half of America voted for this guy(twice). Thankfully, we only have a few more months of this garbage to take.



2. I don't believe George Bush is a good leader. I think he'd be hard pressed to achieve mediocre. But having said that, reading this book touched me...Bush supporters, for whatever reason, try very hard to create a decent person out of the pieces of George Bush. The authors' use of soundbites, and quotes taken from speeches created by slick PR men. They spiced it with a bunch of staged photo ops and dished out a Potemkin Bush to pin their respect and hopes upon. This is truly touching in its naivete. Who can't sympathize with the authors and their desire to make the President a better man than he is. They want so much for him to be the kind of leader they hoped he would become, that they imagine hints of this in the most trivial and staged of incidents. And I wholeheartedly agree, in a way. I would much rather have a President of whom I could speak proudly, a man I respected for his intelligence and ability to see through the political pettiness and indeed take the course best for America. That's the president I want, that's the president they want. Neither of us have him...but the authors are trying to build one out of sticks and straws. For a long time, I prayed that George Bush would grow with the office. It never happened...but that's not something for those on the left to smirk and joke about. It's a shame for all Americans. And from this book, we can see how deeply those on the right have been wounded by the President's lack of integrity, leadership and ability, to the point where they will hallucinate a leader where none exists. It's sad, on all sides.



3. People who hate Bush will hate the book. People who like Bush will like the book. 'Nuff said.



4. This book was a wonderful read. I am just glad the left-wing cowardly traitors that are reviewing this book, that they certainly did not read or for most of them - did not have someone read it to them, are not leading this country. These liberal cowards would have invited our enemies to attack our country; as long as they did not kill any innocent unborn babies - that right belongs to the pro-choicers. Anyway, real Americans with faith will enjoy this book. Thank God for a President with convictions, morals and values. Oh yeah, I keep hearing about how stupid, unintelligent, or ignorant our President is. I wonder how many of these traitors are Yale and Harvard graduates. Thank you President Bush for not allowing these cowardly Americans to destroy our country.



5. Portrait of a leader? The name of the author of this nonsense should be enough to set off a very loud alarm. Karen Hughes is not by any stretch of the imagination an objective journalist. She was, in fact, instrumental in getting this moron elected in 2000. If I could have rated this book "negative five stars" I would have done so. Knowing what we now know, "Portrait of a Leader" will be remembered as a curiosity and nothing more. It does have value, though. Anything that tries to portray our half-witted president (the "First Fool" as I call him) as a capable, intelligent commander-in-chief, is going to be chock full of unintentional humor - and this book is no exception. Truth be told, it's an absolute scream. For a more realistic look into the career of this disgusting president, please read, SHRUB: The Short, Happy Political life of George W. Bush by Molly Ivins and Lou DuBois. It's alot funnier - but for all the right reasons.
   
   Tom Degan
   Goshen, NY

3 comments about Eternal Ganesha.

1. Gorgeous, this book provides a breathtaking glimpse of a beloved deity who transends the linguistic, economic and political differences of the Hindu people. Not only it is worthy of any art book collection on the coffee table, it is filled with delightful stories and can serve as a wonderful resource for students of world religions.



2. This book makes me feel lle Im right there at the Ganesh Festivals in India. From the making of the enormous statues they carry down the roads and release into the Ganges, to the candid faces of the people, the dancing, the lights...Its really a beautiful book that bring pleasure to me and my family. I truly hope someday I get to see this in person in India! Its a lovely conversational coffee table sized book. There is also much reading inside. Truly amazing and what great price! Thanks Amazon!
   
   ***Reviewed by Chizzle's wife:
   
   Shishya Gauri-Pahari Sitaya Das



3. Ganesha, revered elephant God of Hindus, is a universally familiar icon around the world. Gita Mehta's book is a succinct pictorial compilation of the significance, mythology and modern evolution of Ganesha. We learn the gamut -from conceptualization, abstract reduction to iconography and commercialization. Vivid color photographs, majority from Mumbai and Maharashtra, depict wood, ivory and stone idols, and forms derived from plantains, paintings and stained glass.
   
   To the Hindu eye these illustrations are beautiful and evocative. Literalists will nod in agreement as they read time-honored stories about how Ganesh derived his elephant head and his snake belt. Symbolists also will find sufficient material -from the curvature of the trunk representing OM (the Pranava Mantra) to the multimorphic body symbolizing unity in diversity. Mehta quotes Cicero, Amartya Sen and the Manchester Guardian to enhance her interpretations. I find them interesting and thought provoking. She does not provide source citations. She decries the recent trends towards garish commercialization and ridiculous mechanization of the idol, - an anathema to "A Perfect Ganesh," in the hearts and minds of many.
   
   This is a 129 page coffee-table sized, profusely illustrated, lovable volume about Ganesha, a universal Hindu god. The prose is highly readable and not at all ponderous. I find it mythologically balanced and symbolically intriguing. Hindu readers, and perhaps others also, will find this volume uncontroversial and endearing; this will be an excellent nugget source for educating the young. I believe that John Joseph Campbell would have found the pictures, text and interpretations appealing. Both Hindu and non-Hindu readers would have benefited from a bibliography and index, currently missing in this volume,

5 comments about FSA: The American Vision.

1. I bought this to have a permanent, nicely bound book of historic photos of the United States and I was not disappointed. Straight from government archives, these are photos from government-employed photographers who were assigned to go out in the Depression era and photograph what they saw. Today, we should be grateful someone had the foresight to do this. The photos are disturbing, beautiful, stark and moving. What happened to these people and families? Like the photos, so much dust now...but recorded forever. A brilliant book.



2. Sure their vision was a bit romantic, but anyone who appreciates what the FSA photographers, under Roy Stryker's direction, did will also appreciate this book. Never before and never since then (pace, Robert Frank) has the country sat for its portrait. It would have been nice to have the numbers in the Smithsonian's Prints and Photographs Department, where the pictures are kept. The nation may have sat for its portrait, but the pictures belong to you.



3. Un libro fundamental para entender una parte importante de la fotografía norteamericana.



4. This book have done a great job by putting this all together by project/Date base and indicating where they went. It has answered alot of my questions on the FSA photographers.
   I am pleased the book used mostly unknown photographs.
   I have already raving about this book



5. The FSA book is a wonderful look at an ear gone by. And the works of Dorothea Lang, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Theodor Jung and Carl Mydans in the early years is well worth the price of the book. But to continue going forward is remarkable. But the things that make this a wonderful collection of photographs is that it is not just the most famous works by the photographers of the FSA but the ones that have not been published in some 70 plus years or not at all. Projects like this come once in a life time. For any photographer who enjoys photo essays this book is a must and if you are interested in history of America this is a book that will leave and impression on you. If you want to see great photographs this book is for you, if you want to see them by great photographers than this book id definitely for you.