1 comments about A Little Book of Stained Glass (Little Books).

1. Like Hardings other books, this volume illuminates stained glass windows in several obscure locations as well as some famous sites. His penchant for the odd as well as the traditional is appreciated. Could be a much larger book, but then it wouldn't fit in the series. A great little gift!

No comments about Early Islamic Ceramics: Ninth to Late Twelfth Centuries.

No comments about Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm.

1 comments about The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi: Glory and Destruction.

1. As an art history major who lived and studied in Italy, and saw this magnificent church before the earthquake, this book provides an excellent history. How wonderful to have photographic evidence of it's prior beauty, and the video clips of the destruction. I visited the church again this October (1998), and it was so wonderful to see the careful restoration. This book will not dissapoint those of you who want photographic history.

2 comments about A Little Book of the Green Man (Little Books).

1. This is a great little book. The pictures are wonderful, the text is clear and concise. Most books about Green Men are more scholarly in tone, and maybe daunting for someone who is new to the topic. This book gives you just enough information and pictures, and leaves you wanting more.

   this book is a wonderful gift for anyone who like gargoyles and other medieval art. I especially recommend giving it along with the other books in the series.




2. One man's search for the truth and origins of the 'Green Man'. Even today people decorate and protect their gardens with symbols of the green man. I have one in my garden; with a hummingbird, of course. Green Man origins appear to be pagan, but the author has discovered images and expressions of the green man in ancient poems and old manuscripts, in Christian churches, Jain Temples, in May Day processions, associated with The Knights Templar, Celtic, Roman, Greek and Egyptian traditions. A common theme seems to be a fusion between man and the vegetable world. Some feel that the green man is the Old Guardian of the Forest or symbolizes the birth and resurrection of all life. Fascinating reading.

3 comments about Divine Mirrors: The Virgin Mary in the Visual Arts.

1. This book is the companion to a multi-year exhibition of (mostly) paintings at Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Most of the works are from the Renaissance, with a smattering of Medieval images and some recent. There are a series of essays included, most of which will not be electrifying to any beginning bible studies student. In fact, the lack of biblical scholarship in the discussion of Mary is quite startling.
   
   The biggest asset of this book is the catalogue section wherein they discuss the sociopolitical concerns at the time of the painting, the meaning of various images and symbols inside the painting, the religious beliefs of the artist, etc. This is truly revealing. And, of course, the sheer quantity of images is truly impressive, and would be difficult to find under any other circumstances.



2. I truly enjoyed this tour through Wellesley's collection of Marian art.
   
   The essays are clear, accessible and thought-provoking. Melissa Katz gives an accurate and broad summary of Christian history, with a special focus on the development and uses of art as well as the development of the Marian cultus. Her introduction is thorough, presuming little previous knowledge of Christian history. Orsi's essay is consise, thought-provoking, and helpful. The images are diverse and beautifully presented, ranging from ancient to (some) modern images of Mary as well as some other Western Christian subjects.
   
   I enjoyed this book enough to purchase a copy.



3. For me the real beauty of this book was not the illustrated catalogue of images in the Wellesley College collection, it was the excellent essay by Melissa Katz. Robert Orsi's essay was superb as usual, but rather short, and the other essays are so short (2 pages each) as to be almost unmentionable. Katz on the other hand takes her readers on a historical tour of Marian imagery that is also thematically related to the hours of her devotion. In this way, her essay is not only an overview of Marian imagery, but it is also an overview of the history of the Roman Catholic church, an overview of Marian devotional practices, and the social forces in Europe which shaped these two phenomena. My only criticism of her essay, which might be more accurately a criticism of the Wellesley College collection, is that there is very little information on Marian imagery and devotion outside of Europe.

No comments about Contextualization of Christianity in Africa: A Case Study of the Kpelle Tribe in Liberia.

No comments about Metalwork of the Islamic World: The Aron Collection.

3 comments about Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest (Campion Book).

1. Eventhough my studies do not allow me a great deal of time to read books of my choice, I could not deny the work of Dr. "Cliffy-baby" Edwards. His book, "Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest" was just that. It was, in every sense of the phrase, a creatively spiritual page turner. His language and content captures the reader's mind and by doing so, captures the reader's spiritual core. Once mesmerized by the life, work, and creative madness of the artist, the reader becomes smoothly inundated with the thorough biographical information that Dr. Edwards so eloquently puts to page. At the risk of sounding mildly educated, I had never realized the influence Zen Buddhism had on the artist until reading Dr. Edwards' book. I did, of course, realize the "oriental" aspect of Van Gogh's approach to painting but I never knew of his "Zen Buddhist" approach to living. Sometimes the samurai leaves the monarchy and spends his life in caves painting. Congratulations Dr. E. for a fine work indeed.



2. I recently heard the author of Van Gogh and God, Dr. Cliff Edwards, speak about Vincent. At this particular gathering, he also showed wonderful slides of the artist's work. As a result of that encounter with Dr. Edwards and Vincent Van Gogh, I bought Dr. Edwards' warm and accessible book, Van Gogh and God. While reading it, much like the disciples who spoke to Christ without recognizing him on the road to Emmaus, I felt my heart burn within me while Vincent's life opened up before me like a lotus flower. I especially connected with Van Gogh's insistence that he was "not an admirer" of biblical subjects (to paint). Apparently he felt that paintings such as The Nativity and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane avoided getting to the "reality of things" and gave him "a powerful feeling of collapse instead of progress." To paint biblical material must have felt inauthentic to Vincent as he journeyed on his spiritual quest. Lois Lowry in her book, The Giver, addresses this very issue of authenticity. Jonas, the hero, lives in a community where sameness and conformity are valued. Jonas sees things differently, though, and is chosen to become the one who acts as receptacle and transmitter of the community's collective memory. Jonas receives these memories/stories from the Giver, someone who currently has the task of holding memory. One of the questions the book raises in the reader's mind is, "When does a story become MY story?" People in Jonas' community lived without authenticity because the locus of memory was institutionalized within an individual. I couldn't help but think that Vincent, striving for authenticity, wanted to show that those sacred memories (institutionalized in the Church and in biblical paintings) gave him "a powerful feeling of collapse instead of progress." For a story (either word or image) to have meaning, it must first connect with an individual's experience. Vincent Van Gogh, like Jonas, saw things differently. Both struggled in a world that would have preferred their acquiesence to the status quo. Dr. Edwards convincingly shows that Vincent imaged God outside the parameters and conventions of the Church. Dr. Edwards suggests that "[p]erhps such profound power revealed through one's life task was a more accurate description of the divine than the word 'God.' " Another powerful image is "the child in a cradle as best evidence for God." As Dr. Edwards points out, "Vincent experiences God in the concreteness of his own most intense and significant personal history." We all do. Vincent found meaning in his life's work, his care and concern for the prostitute Sien, her daughter, and newborn son, and also in nature--wheat, flowers, olive groves, cypress trees. To image and paint a Christ that has no personal connection is, again, to live inauthentically. It would appear that Vincent would have none of that. One of my favorite parts in Dr. Edwards' book is in the Preface. "[M]ost Judeo-Christian scholars...[take] the unyielding position that religion must be expressed primarily as hearing and obeying, and cannot be expressed significantly as seeing and creating. Dr. Edwards shows how Vincent navigated those waters. It gives hope to those of us who have felt stifled by the Church's insistence that memory/story resides within its embrace.



3. The author misleads the reader by perpetuating two myths about van Gogh's religious life 1) that he was raised Calvinist and 2) that he was Buddist. If the author had taken the time to research van Gogh's biography, he would have found that van Gogh's family rejected Calvinism entirely, particularly the notions of sin and limited salvation, for a more liberal theology, favoring universal salvation and the belief that God dwells within us all. The author continues his false representation of van Gogh by arguing that he became a Buddist after he left the Christian ministry. This is based on one simple painting that van Gogh made for his friend, Gauguin, with his head shaven like a Buddist monk. Although van Gogh was thoroughly fascinated with Oriental culture, he never visted the Far East, never studied Buddism, nor did he show any real understanding of its basic ideas. In fact, all he learned of Asian culture and religion came from what he saw in the Japanese woodblock prints that came into Europe in the late 19th century and also what he garnered from reading 19th century French novels. Mr. Edwards only clouds our understanding of van Gogh with his own personal interests. For example, his discussion of van Gogh's famous work, "Crows over the Wheatfield," reads "The painting itself enters the mode of being of all things in their impermanence yet transformation, becoming a koan that poses the Zen Master's question: 'If you call this wheat you cling to it; if you do not call it wheat you depart from the facts, so what do you call it then?'" (What does this have to do with van Gogh?) The reader is best to stay away from this book entirely.

No comments about The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (Art).