2 comments about Surrealism And The Sacred: Power, Eros And The Occult In Modern Art (Icon Editions).

1. This book reignited my passion for sacred mythology.Many questions I've been pondering for years were answered. I highly recommend this provoking book for all those with a deep interest in modern art and culture. Bravo!



2. Dr.Rabinovitch has created an exceptional work. She has combined art, religion, psychology, and the occult in a fascinating, hard to put down work. The text reads like a who's-who of the early 20th century. Her expertise and interest are apparent and are combined with a readable style.

2 comments about Clip Art, More, and Even More Clip Art for the Liturgical Year.

1. While some of the clip art is of good quality, it is difficult to find what I want within in. It is very limited.



2. I have used the liturgical clip art books from Liturgical Press for more than ten years. They are fabulous, clear, and cover a broad range of seasonal liturgical needs. The art items are presented in a variety of combinations and sizes, so if you don't have a copier that reduces, it helps. These volumes and also those by Placid Stuckenschneider are among th best any where commercially available.
   Ken Suetterlin, central Iowa U.M. Pastor

No comments about History of the Church in Art (In Art).

2 comments about It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God.

1. It Was Good is a collection of twenty-one artists and their very insightful essays on art. The book isn't just a "write what you want about art" sort of book. It covers various subjects in an orderly fashion. Some of the topics are: Beauty, Substance, Presence, Mission, Community, Essence, Identity. Every chapter is very well written, well laid out and inspiring.
   
   Color plates of some of the art help to crystalize the comments of the artist.
   
   This book gives real meaning and purpose for the artist today. The book clarifies what it is to live life giving glory to God through art, not because it is "Christian" art or art that preaches but rather because you serve the triune God your art can have meaning and depth. Makoto Fujimoro states, "Such a Christocentric perspective on the arts can also release our creativity from being enslaved to a particular form, or style of art." And that is just one fully laden sentence in a book of 355 pages!
   
   This book will make you want to get out your pencils, paints, paper and brushes and start expressing yourself through art again.



2. "It Was Good-Making Art to the Glory of God" brings forth many struggling topics and themes that Christian artists are challenged with. These essays are writing by some of the most important Christian artists today (i.e. Makoto Fujimura, Theodore Prescott, and Edward Knippers.) The book discusses issues looking at our fallen world with a realistic point of view. It teaches to face evil head on and to point towards the grace, the hope, and the glory, namely Jesus Christ. As God's children it explains our need for art in the church and in our communities. It also depicts the problems of Christian art, with topics such as GOOD, ("The efforts of most artists who attempt to present a picture of `good' tend toward dishonest, sugary sweet propaganda. They ignore the implications of the fall and paint the world as a shiny, happy place." -Ned Bustard, "Good"), EVIL, and IDENTITY. It is hard being both Christian and artist. It seems no one understands you in the art world and no one understands you in the Christian world. This book praises our gifts of creativity and imaginations, in which we learn to integrate both our faith and art, and return these gifts to praise Our Father. "It Was Good..." should be essential to your book collection. I once had a discussion with a friend of how we can meditate on a single passage for hours. These essays have been so inspirational that I have spent some nights restless, because I could not wait until the next day to work on my own art. It is such a blessing to know, in this generation (so full of narcissistic and meaningless art,) that this book is out there to help other Christian artists. I personally feel doubly blessed because I am still an undergraduate in art school. I feel a great comfort to apply and develop these ideas into my own critiques. But this book goes way beyond the ordinary art school critique and grows toward my relationship with God and towards his people.

5 comments about In a Spiritual Style: The Home As Sanctuary.

1. An inspirational book that can help make your home a more peaceful place to live, work, and meditate in. I enjoyed looking at the photos and reading the text. I would ceretainly recommend buying a copy.



2. This is one of my favorite books to look through. There are so many full color photographs of different altars and sacred spaces. I get so many ideas from this book. Its one of those books that you just pick up now and again for inspiriation. The author truly has the creative spark. My favorite are the photographs of the authors santeria shrines. The Orisha must be pleased with what the author has created for them. Ashe to Laura Cerwinske!



3. As you browse throught this book you will feel inspired in many ways; you will be inspired spiritually of course but also at looking at the world in a different way. In this book the differences between religions are erased, the belief in ancient dieties mesh with contemporary reflections of Jesus, Buddah, Hindu Shiva and Shakti figures, African fetish figures or sculptures are intermingled with Burmese textiles and Mexican altars , complete with crosses adorned with milagros are juxtaposed on other pages with devil wood carvings and images of death in the form of calaveras (skeletons). There is even a section on Santeria altars where the text explains the origins of the religion as coming with the slaves from Yoruba to Cuba and spreading throughout the Caribbean. The book is organized with a text and accompanying pictures of the history of sacred design and the meaning of santuary. If you look at the table of contents you will see that the author explores gardens, rooms and shrines, altars , art and artifacts. The text is less than spellbinding but the pictures are magnificent. The author takes you into several artists homes and naturally they are some of the most spectacular. If you are into wood work from New Mexico than you are in for a real treat. There is nearly a two page spread of renowned santero Ramon Jose Lopez bedroom that shows his "chapel" where he sleeps. The bed has six panels, featuring various saints, a room divider with more hand carved panels of saints, many styles of crosses, including an altar made of wood in form of a pyramid where each level is lit by candle light and colorful retablos. It is a sight to behold and helps explain the inspired beautiful work by Lopez. In general this is a book that opens up the possibilities for creativiy to flow and create your own santuary. Having a mini altar myself that continues to grow and having seen some impressive homes where sacred places exist , this book helps to borrow ideas from or develop some new ideas. The gardens featured range from simple, rustic places to elaborate arts of work complete with sculptural panels and life sized sculptures looking as though they are dancing in the garden in their inanimate state. The colorful pictures seem to reveal something new each time you look at the book, it as though the spirits reveal themselves when the time is right. A fine book for browsing after taking a break from the task at hand, this book will inspire you and elevate your senses as you look to the heavens and give thanks for all the beauty around you.



4. I found this book inspiring. Many different icons and symbolizations are represented from various sects of religion so I believe it has broad appeal. I witnessed glorious worlds beyond my own which to me is the very essence of opening a book in the first place. The photographs are lovely and each time through I have noticed something different in detail from the time before. Serenity flows from the pages.

   We were inspired by another book, Holy Personal by Laura Chester, and built a 10' x 12' meditation room in our back garden. In A Spiritual Style has only affirmed our desire to transform our interior living spaces into sacred, meaningful places of comfort and self-expression for our family as well.




5. Beautiful to browse through, but steeped in a sort of spiritual narcissism which I found distasteful. The writing is disjointed and overall, the book poorly organized. A disappointment.

3 comments about Windows to Heaven: Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics.

1. If you have ever worshipped at an Orthodox church, especially an older one, the aesthetic nature of the experience impresses one as so different from the Catholic and Protestant counterparts. Icons epitomize this Orthodox predilection for sight and sound, as opposed to written texts, as the vehicle of the Gospel. They are "theology in color." Icons are also one of the biggest points of contention between Orthodox and non-Orthodox believers. This little book combines Scripture, personal journaling, history, theology, art and liturgy to portray in a sympathetic way the nature and function of icons in Orthodoxy. The authors try to show how from an Orthodox perspective icons are not merely church art but a means of moving from the material to the spiritual world, and how such a movement can enrich the Christian lives of Protestants and Catholics. In between introductory and concluding chapters, the bulk of the book devotes one chapter each to five important Orthodox icons--Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity, the Vladimir Theotokos, Theophanes' Transfiguration of Christ, the Dormition of the Virgin, and the Sinai Pantocrator. This popular book is no substitute for the scholarly likes of Jaroslav Pelikan's Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (1990) or Leonid Ouspensky's Theology of the Icon (1978), or for the short and very readable primary texts On Divine Images by John of Damascus (675-749) and On the Holy Icons by Theodore the Studite (759-826), but it is a welcome addition to the growing literature that introduces Protestants and Catholics to the Orthodox tradition in a non-polemical (if uncritical) manner.



2. WINDOWS TO HEAVEN: Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics is a collaboration between Elizabeth Zelensky, a Russian Orthodox lecturer of history, and Lela Gilbert, who appears to be a convert from Protestantism to Orthodoxy.
   
   The subtitle doesn't really match the book. While it does try to communicate the truth of icon veneration to Protestants ("they aren't idols", etc.), this effort is very brief, no more than a couple of pages. Catholics hardly need an introduction to iconography, since it is part of their own tradition, but the authors could have clarified how the Orthodox Church rejects the innovation of statuary.
   
   What the book does, however, is lay out the origin and symbolism of five common icons: Rublev's icon of the Trinity, the Vladimir Theotokos, Theophanes' icon of the Transfiguation, the Dormition of the Virgin (minus the "Jew trying to profane the Virgin" addition), and the Sinai Pantocrator. Hence the book will be of great interest to not just Protestant or Catholic inquirers, but anyone interested in iconography, even Orthodox themselves.
   
   The writing is somewhat odd. On one hand, the work has meticulous footnoting as if it were an academic work, but Gilbert's "personal stories" are sappy and amateurish. The work doesn't follow the usual post-Soviet standards in writing also "Kiev" instead of the preferred "Kyiv", and the typesetting leaves much to be desired.
   
   Nonetheless, if the five icons discussed in the book dazzle you and you would like to understand them better, WINDOWS TO HEAVEN is worth reading.



3. Once in awhile, a book is produced that is unpretentious in its thesis, gentle in its handling of the source, and appropriately communicating the heart of its message with respect to all parties.
   
   "Windows to Heaven: Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics" is such a book. Written by Zelensky, an Orthodox Christian and Gilbert, a Protestant, this book seeks to teach non-Orthodox Christians about the importance of icon traditions. They explain what an icon is and is not, dispelling myths held by many Protestants. The book does more than just to educate about the difference, but provide information on how Protestants can appreciate icons as well.
   
   Many Catholics will find the material familiar, but Zelensky does bring a more Eastern approach that many Catholics may appreciate: nice, inexpensive and rewarding book.

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.

1 comments about Zen Mind 2008 Calendar: Zenga Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection.

1. The pictures and quotes in this calendar make it a wonderful and useful piece of work. This calendar looks wonderful no matter where it's hung.

3 comments about Buddha & Christ: Images Of Wholeness.

1. I had a chance to thumb through the book on a recent trip to a bookstore. Having devoted a considerable time towards the study of religion, theology, and theosophy, I was pleased to see a worthwhile endeavor by Robert Elinor. In the end I came away with mixed feelings.

   Visually the book has an academic appeal, and certainly it betrays the labor that has gone into it. Illustrated books like "Buddha & Christ" have a way of sparking off the latent curiosity in the free thinker as only visual aids can do. Unfortunately, I was not much impressed by the text, not because it was not written clearly, or that it flouts the rules of grammer, but because it misses the organizing principle that could have shed a bright light on such a topic. I am confident that such a work is on the horizon.

   Often, mainstraem biblical historians, and scholars of religion are leery to admit that there was a common nursery for Judiasim, Chrisianity, Islam, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and Zorasterianism, to mention a few. In many cases, the leeriness comes from unwillingness to admit that Judaism predates Moses, Chrisianity predates Jesus, and Buddhism predates Gautama Sakayamuni by millennia. This is to say that much as they strive to show us the conspicuous parallels that exist between the various religious traditions or philospophical/theosophical traditions, scholars fall short of describing the elephant in toto. This, in my opinion, is the least forceful aspect of the text. Yet, overall, I believe Mr. Elinor's effort moves the quest forward, however slightly.




2. Bravo! The organization of powerful text together with beautiful images, draws clear, thoughtfully orchestrated parallels between two fascinating religions.



3. Bravo! The organization of powerful text together with beautiful images, draws clear, thoughtfully orchestrated parallels between two fascinating religions.

No comments about Andrea Mantegna: The Adoration of the Magi (Getty Museum Studies on Art).