No comments about How Noah Saved The Animals: Scenes from the Old Testament (Adventures in Art).

No comments about Ritual Art and Knowledge: Aesthetic Theory and Zoroastrian Ritual (Studies in Comparative Religion).

2 comments about Life Of Buddha.

1. I am not a Buddhist but I love this book. It's nothing less than a beautiful work of art.
   
   --Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God
   
   I also recommend:
   
   Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide



2. DGV continues to publish some of the most beautiful, affordably priced illustrated books around. The cover illustration here is not misleading--each of the 88 pages here is devoted to Satogawa, whose work relies on the dramatic and surprising use of color, as well as the concomitant sensations of motion and stillness, centeredness and disturbance. There's even something of a nod to Jacques Louis David in the depiction of King Bimbisaara's suicide. The colors and poses are at once traditional and postmodern, drawing as much on the thangka as the comic book. The text is terse and didn't receive much in the way of editing, but it really doesn't matter here. This is all about the illustration, and Satogawa's work doesn't disappoint.

2 comments about Matthias Grunewald (Art & Design).

1. Les experts nous disent qu'il nous reste 26 peintures et 37 dessins definitivement faits par Matthias Grunewald. Il y avait aussi le retable d'Isenheim qu'une foule revolutionnaire du 18eme siecle ne laissait pas intact et le panneau d'un autre retable qu'un voleur prenait du musee de Frankfurt au 19eme siecle. Et puis l'artiste lui-meme devenait inconnu jusqu'a sa redecouverte par Heinrich Alfred Schmid et Walter Karl Zulch au 20eme siecle. Quant aux documents historiques d'Aschaffenburg et de Seligenstadt, et a cause des recherches d'Alfred Schadler et Bernhard Saran, lequel etait-il des quatre maitres Mathis de la meme epoque? Qui que ce soit, et l'auteur nous en donne son avis, Grunewald etait pionnier du premier eclipse solaire peint avec realisme en Europe. Lui encore et le coloriste bohemien, le Maitre de Wittingau, etaient pionniers du tempera qui se faisait de juste assez de l'huile, pour peindre des couleurs vives un peu partout dans la peinture, et des subtilites.



2. Possibly 26 paintings and 37 drawings by MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD made safe passage. Others didn't. In 1789 revolutionary mobs went after his late Gothic Isenheim altarpiece. An altarpiece panel went missing from a Frankfurt museum 36 years after.

   Grunewald became unknown in art history. But he came back, thanks to Heinrich Alfred Schmid in 1911 and Walter Karl Zulch in 1938. In fact, records in Aschaffenburg and Seligenstadt, plus studies by Alfred Schadler and Bernhard Saran, have left us with 4 Masters Mathis to choose from!

   So was the artist Master Mathis, carver in Seligenstadt? Or was he Master Mathis of Aschaffenburg, also hydraulic engineer of the Klopp castle artesian well in Bingen? Or was he Master Mathis of Grun, carver, painter or sculptor in Frankfurt? Or was he Master Mathis, architectural painter and gilder in Aschaffenburg?

   Even with the author's answer, we've no record of Grunewald's journeymanship, apprenticeship, or pre-mastership. How did Grunewald paint the first European realistic total solar eclipse, in the Mainz small crucifixion? The only eclipse during his lifetime was on October 1, 1502. It was seen only in the Brandenburg marches, Lusatia, Mecklenburg, Silesia and southern Poland.

   And how did he come up with his tempera medium? It used little oil, for boldly spreading colors and subtle changes. That was only done by the colorist Master of Wittingau, Bohemia.

   Finally, his art had Bohemian, French, Italian and Netherlandish touches. Did the lack of colored center and the modulated local color in The mocking of Christ mean that he studied with Hans Holbein the Elder, the great colorist of Augsburg? Why was Judas standing alone, Leonardo da Vinci-style, in The last supper?

   Why was the Isenheim Calvary painted, da Vinci-like, in brightest light? Why did Christ turn out his palms, Raphael- and Verrocchio-like, to show his wounds in the Isenheim Resurrection? Where did the Isenheim central panel get the angel concert from? They were painted in France, as of Jean Pucelle's Book of hours. The roofless golden temple was like Melchior Broederlam's Dijon altarpiece and the Breisach minster roodscreen in Alsace. Why were there Hieronymus Bosch-like light rays from God in the Isenheim Incarnation?

   Horst Ziermann's book perfectly preps Ruth Mellinkoff's THE DEVIL AT ISENHEIM and Gottfried Richter's THE ISENHEIM ALTAR.

No comments about Art As a Way: A Return to the Spiritual Roots.

1 comments about Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Postmodern Culture.

1. Anyone who's heard Steve Scott's brilliant new wave record/ CD, Love in the Western World, will notice that I named this review after a song on that album. Steve also often names his pieces after his songs or vice versa, which is the first thing that makes this book great; the interconnectedness of all things Steve Scott, for whom life and art and faith are not disconnected pursuits. This book, like his music, like his poetry yells that they don't have to be. If that isn't good news for the artist, I don't know what is.
   
   This book sort of picks up where Crying for a Vision (Stride Books, England) left off, but really both books are a jumble of essays loosely organized around a common theme, and not very "booky" at all. Having said that, House will still be over many reader's heads, and they'll naturally be tempted to put it down. I don't advise that: instead jump around. Skip the way deep histories in the first two chapters and dive in later. "A Jar of Dead Flies" ran in some version in now defunct True Tunes magazine. Part of "Am I Really Here or Is it Just Art?" appeared in HM magazine (just celebrating 20 years--see my magazine guide to get it from Amazon), which is to say they really are independent essays.
   
   "Am I Really Here" relates to Scott's poetry over tape loops album, The Butterfly Effect, which it would be very cool to read and then listen to respectively in an arts/ reading group. House is full of bits like that (the last two essays are projects) that could be discussed over a cup of joe (or a pint of Guiness), with each member of the group bringing examples from their own or other's art (it would really open up the part on post-modernism to thrash it out in a group).
   
   Christianity Today had an article on how traditionally Catholic and various stripes of Protestant colleges are regaining their original vision, which sort of means that how they reinvent themselves is up for grabs. I can't even imagine what might happen if someone used House as a textbook. Imagine reading a book about art by someone who actually made art. Steve Scott's now and then chapbooks, The Boundaries, are being collected into one volume by Stride, and Crying for a Vision is due to be reprinted.
   
   Steve's CDs are also (sometimes) available through RadRockers.com (search under Scott). The 77s were his back up band on Love in the Western World, which RadRockers called " a deliciously creepy, way before its time alternative rock classic, with similarities to David Bowie, Roxy Music and the Police...Lyrically deep and brilliant, with vocal inflections similar to Lou Reed." His other rock collections are Magnificent Obsession and Lost Horizon. His other albums are more experimental, like The Butterfly Effect, or Crossing the Boundaries, which was part of an installation with visual painter Gaylen Stewart, Empty Orchestra (the literal meaning of Karaoke), and More Than a Dream (odd reversions of Scott rock songs). So for an art book by an artist, check out Steve Scott.

3 comments about Michelangelo: The Frescoes of Sistine Chapel.

1. I am extremely dissatisfied with the quality of this book.
   The pictures are all pale, desaturated and sometimes out of focus!
   
   The layout of this book is something to be desired as well. All Michaelangelo frescoes are "widescreen", so pretty much every single picture span 2 pages. So how I am supposed to enjoy the picture with the book's fold in between??
   
   Creation of Adam, the most famous fresco is never even given in full size.
   
   What a pathetic book with such an outrageous price!



2. If you have an interest in art, or in Michelangelo in particular, this book should be part of your collection. The reproductions are remarkable (photos were taken after the Sistine Chapel ceiling had been cleaned), and I can't imagine a better book on the subject at this low price. I was amazed when the book arrived, because it is a substantial book for the price, and the photos are just beautiful. I visited the Sistine Chapel this summer, and ordered this book when I got home. I would highly recommend your having this book before a trip to Rome. Most of the images are far away when standing in the Sistine Chapel (the ceiling is high) so it's hard to see detail when looking at the real thing. Looking at these photos beforehand will give you an even greater appreciation of Michelangelo's genius.



3. This was a wonderful book at a really good price. The pictures are quite good, showing a lot of detail and clarity. The narrative is enjoyable as well. This book will make you want to go to Rome and see the real thing up close! (This is also a good book to read along with Ross King's "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.") Great for your coffee table or art history collection!

1 comments about Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century.

1. This book is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of visual hagiography and narrative throughout the high Middle Ages. Hahn's writing is lucid and clear, and her research and insights are impressive. Hahn's discussion of how imagery and narrative of saints' lives combine to impact the audience/viewer is scintillating, and her research is first-rate. For anyone interested in a serious, but very readable, discussion of hagiography and saints' lives, or anyone interested in how Medieval Christian art was made for and recieved by the religious viewer, I highly recommend this book. Five Stars and kudos to Hahn for an excellent book.

No comments about Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium.

No comments about Ranchos De Taos: San Francisco De Asis Church.