No comments about The Northern Renaissance A&I (Art and Ideas).

5 comments about Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts.

1. I love this book.
   (Of course, I read all the Keith Knight cartoons first, then went back and read the book.)
   
   Lots of good information here. It's a wonderful resource in these times of massive budget cuts for the arts.
   The lesson is: DO IT YOURSELF (but get help!)
   
   This book will get you started, and teach you to allocate the few available resources and align with like-minded activist folks to get the job done.
   
   Should be required reading in every high school and college.



2. This book is wonderful; it's accessible, fresh, and inspiring. Its playful tone will appeal to young adult audiences. The illustrations are dynamic, the language is clear, and the structure is elegant.
   
   Having taught reading and literacy for many years, I am suspicious of books that teach "methods." (There is always a new method or 'miracle program' out there being foisted on teachers.) Methods almost always become stale and tired and eventually end up constricting learners and teachers. What I like about the Beginner's Guide is that in lieu of a "method" the authors present a sound philosophy in which they make a connection between art and community. This is presented in a charming and informal manner and without needless complication or fuss. The authors' philosophy seems to be based on common sense, a deep feeling for humanity, and an understanding of art as a vital expression of that humanity.
   
   The authors present their ideas in a clear and simple framework that can be used by artists, art students, and community members in any number of situations and for any number of purposes. It's difficult to imagine such a process becoming 'stale'; what you can do with this book is only limited by the energy and imagination of your community.



3. Great stories that provide models for meanigful arts programs. One reviewer here on amazon referred to the book being political and not arts centered. I found that to be way off base. What I got from the book is how art becomes a reponse to the struggles of different communities, and in turn helps to address those challenges. So, art is both an end in itself as well as a tool for articulating and facing the world. The drawings and the approach itself is grounded in how art is practiced with everybody, how art is powerful for everybody to engage in (not just those who get to call themselves "artists' and lead the "artistic life" of writing grants to arts councils). Keith Knight's comics in particular rock!



4. "Community Based Arts" is new slang. It basically means, how to get someone who is so far outside the political realm of reasonableness to be politically influencial by using art as the method of empowerment. Art? Not important. Political impowerment..according to the general message of this book is important. It really goes into the face of what art is, and has been for a millenia.
   
   Make no mistake about it. Schwarzman is a political activist that does not understand art, nor does he have a background in art.
   
   This book is NOT for artists that want to learn how to write grants, because there is NO practical information about how to do anything except to teach non-artists about using their political beliefs to be artistically inspired.
   
   If you are an artist and you need some REAL advice about how to get work and survive, then I'd go to the local arts council or to the web to other professionally oriented resources.
   
   If you are an artist and you need to seek new sources of inspiration then you should read Robert Henri's book The Art Spirit, published in 1923. It's a beautiful book, and it has inspired artists of many mediums since its publication.



5. This book can be used to formulate a grant, jazz up the funders, get students to learn about community work through comics, to teach college art students how to get out and get to work. I am so excited about this book because of how it outlines and lays out in simple forms the organizing process. They want you to be able to repoduce the processes. It's not high falutin art or theory gobbldigook. It is, on the other hand, a highly engaging funny cool and groundbreaking book about art. Comics of real artists doing real art. Great for artists, teachers, organizers, and people who work for social change.

No comments about James Bond: The History Of The Illustrated 007.

3 comments about Sketchbook-Hunter Green Spiral Bound-Landscape Format, 10x7.

1. I LOVE this book. I bought it to use as a journal and the pages are well bound and thick enough to write on both sides without the ink showing through. I highly recommend this book for art or journaling or both like I did! :)



2. The size and design of this sketchbook is perfect for tossing into the back of your car or truck, tucking into a tote bag, or slipping into an oversized purse. It also lends itself well to an illustrated journal, which is why I bought it for myself... two, in fact, as I'm sure I need to practice and polish very rusty sketching skills! Affordable, portable and (I'd think) giftable, though not recommended for water color. It's a sketchbook with pages that will not take much moisture (even dry brush), and I don't think Prismacolor markers would work either, as the colors would definately bleed. For colored pencil, charcoal, graphite or pastel pencils, though, it should be perfect!



3. Sketchbook is priced well and also has a cover that self-supports. No need for travel desk or other support.

1 comments about El Corazon De La Muerte/Altars and Offerings for Days of the Dead.

1. This is a great book for use in the bilingual classroom since it provides the same information in both Spanish and English.

3 comments about Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages.

1. This is a fascinating and enjoyable survey of the approaches to and embodiments of beauty in the Middle Ages through the 13th century, which is when the Middle Ages gave way to the High Middle Ages (which culminated - or bottomed out, depending on how you look at it - in the Protestant Reformations). Great theologians and mystics such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux are dealt with, as well as lesser figures such as Hugh of St. Victor and Abbot Suger. Theology and mysticism, architecture and music, science, philosophy and even love poetry are brought together as Eco paints (no pun intended) a highly detailed exposition of the ways in which beauty shaped the lives of those in the medieval era.
   
   It is, in many ways, a tour through a land that is as strange as it is wonderful. The entire world - every created thing - was, early on, *seen* as a symbol that was to be read just as the Bible was read: with a sense that it existed not just as it was, but as something beyond itself too, pointing ultimately to God, for God had created it. Nature is understood to be what sociologists and philosophers would now call "enchanted": filled with mystery, depth, existential and metaphysical meaning. The rise of Aristotelian metaphysics (re: science and philosophy as a single entity - they weren't separated back then) is what eventually quashed this such that the world was no longer see as a cosmic spiritual thing so much as a created thing that could be studied as having its own laws. St. Thomas Aquinas, "the Angelic Doctor", did much to push this view and it eventually one out. The medieval era looks curiously modern in this regard.
   
   Although the rise of Aristotelianism may have done much to encourage the development of what is now called "modern science", there were other forces at work, particularly those of stone and glass: the medieval churches. In France, in the 12th century, a priest named Suger designed and oversaw the building of the greatest church of the medieval era: the cathedral of St. Denis. St. Denis is today known as Pseudo-Dionysius, a 5th or 6th century monk whose writings were written under the name of Dionysius the Aeropagite, the first convert of St. Paul. Denis/Dionysius's mystical writings on the light of God were heavily influential on Abbot Suger and as he designed the cathedral, he saw to it that the stained glass and windows allowed the light to filter into the building such that the very experience of the aesthetics would be like an ecstatic experience of God.
   
   This brought him into conflict with St. Bernard of Clairvaux, "the Difficult Saint", who is best known for his four-volume commentary on the Song of Songs. Bernard was unarguably the greatest and most influential figure of the 12th century, and he thought that the great burst of enthusiasm for aesthetics in Abbot Suger's cathedral was perilously close to idolatry. In a certain sense, neither figure won this dispute for the beauty of cathedrals has been with us ever since, without the highly developed sense of theological aesthetics articulated by Abbot Suger being understood by those who marveled in - and at - the cathedrals as "houses for God".
   
   And yet, the vision of beauty permeated theological and mystical writings that dealt with the vision of God and the resurrection of the dead. The very notion of beauty was found throughout much of medieval thought - which was oftentimes theologically rooted, but not always - and it is to Eco's credit that he can so deftly maneuver between theological and philosophical writings on the one hand, and their embodiment in architecture on the other. The vision of God was the summit of the medieval spiritual journey, and this even resulted in the painting of pictures of Jesus as being physically beautiful - a sign of no small level of devotion.
   
   This book is a fascinating read whose short length is by no means matched for its insight and familiarity with both primary and secondary sources. Students of history (whether sociological or intellectual), theology and mysticism, and art will benefit from the lucid work. Casual readers will benefit from it as well, and likely find themselves looking at light - and all that it brings to sight - just a little differently as a result of reading it.



2. An extremely important book that answers marvellously our prejudices against the Middle Ages. It explores in great details their literature and philosophy to show how people understood beauty then. He sees three phases. First the aesthetics of proportion in direct connection with the greek mathematical heritage and the biblical teachings about the wisdom of the creation by God who projected his own balanced vision and essence in every single creature. Second the asthetics of light which reveals a more sensorial and even sensual approach to beauty in the fact that light and colors are beautiful at first contact and felt as such without any reflection. Finally the aesthetics of the organism that sees beauty in the fact that a complex composition is the creation of perfect balance among all the elements that are themselves balanced in the same way at a lower level. The second great approach is that of allegorical and symbolical beauty. For philosophers and theologians beauty was to be found in the meaning of things and meaning was to be found in the allegorical and symbolical value of every element considered because for them nothing existed that did not represent the higher level of divine nature, divine perfection. Even a representation of the devil can be beautiful if it shows perfectly the ugliness of the beast in him. Yet Thomas Aquinas reveals his deeper sense of beauty in the fact that he provides this concept with a certain amount of autonomy. This autonomy had been in the air for many centuries but he is the first theologian to accept it as an important element in his evaluation of beauty. We find the same dilemma with art. At first art is nothing but what is produced by the manual work of people. But through poetry on one hand, and groups or corporations of artists on the other, the aesthetic value of artistic work is captured at least partly. Yet the book has aged a little bit over the last forty years or so. It does not consider enough the practical and material level of things. The existence of poetical tournaments in important pilgrimage cities like Le Puy in France, the constant use of music and singing (and the specialization of some monks in that field), the training of architects and sculptors in some abbeys to build the churches of their abbeys or their priories. It also does not see that some practices, like poetry, is in perfect continuation of what it was in the celtic, nordic and germanic traditions : the poet was on his way to becoming a druid, or singing epics was part of the know-how of a good warrior, or a celtic god was nothing but a good craftsman in one trade and a good poet and singer, etc. The global evaluation then is slightly defective. This leads him to concentrating on gothic cathedrals and neglecting the romanesque period that built thousands of little marvellous gems in villages with sculptures, paintings, etc. The romanesque period is thus undervalued and the gothic re-orientation is over-valued. The pesrpective is then defective. Finally he takes the present conception of art and beauty too much into account to assess the conceptions of the people in those days. Even when dealing with art history we must not, never, look back at things to assess them but always compare what follows to what has come before. In this case he should have compared medieval art - exclusively - with roman art et celtic-nordic-germanic art without forgetting that the chirstianization of the Roman Empire and the Germanic invaders also brought a complete shift from what was done for the free elite of a fundamentally slave-society to something that was supposed to be done for everyone within the church, the liturgy, but also mass events like pilgrimages, fairs and carnavals, or the famous Masses of Fools or Danses Macabres. It was, in our world, the first time ever the whole society was associated to cultural and artistic activities that were integrated in general social life not as an entertainment or a decoration but as something meaningful, even if we can consider the necessity for that meaning to be religious or articulated on a religious dimension as being a limitation. And these elements were quasi-permanent since situated in all the churches and taking place at all religious occasions, as well as non-religious occasions. We will then note that Troubadors were a regression when they were playing and singing only for the noble elite, though from Eco's point of view they were progress since they introduced a new conception that was closer to our modern conception of poetry. From the slave-owning elite, to mass christian pedagogy, and then to the new noble feudal castle-enclosed elite. From refined feelings going along with the barbarity of circus games, slavery and gladiators, to the massive culture of the Peace of God and God's arts and beauty going along with the barbarity of some warmongering local or not so local barons and other nobles, and then to the refined troubador music and poetry for the castle-protected nobles going along with the continuation of the religious oriented arts for the people abandoned by the poets and the musicians. Maybe the Middle Ages were looking for a uniformized society too much, but it is a selective elite practice that came out of it for the superior social class of the nobility. The Middle Ages is a period that tries to manage its contradictions in a balanced way hence shifting from one elitist contradiction to another elitist contradiction. Umberto Eco misses this last point.
   
   Dr Jacques COULARDEAU



3. Umberto Eco's best efforts are probably contained in this rather labyrinthine and meandering effort to codify Thomistic philosophy. Thomism doesn't have a philosophy of the "aesthetic,' a notion wholly alien to the medieval mind. So Eco has to kind of create such a notion from a plethora of Thomas' writings. Fortunately, Eco does stay on track, even if he creates and follows tangents widely, by staying focused on the contribution ART (vis-a-vis "aesthetics") offers to modern sensibility.

   Frankly, if one wants a better understanding of Medieval attitudes toward art, Emile Male's "Gothic" is incomparable. Male's work is a tour d'force and a "must" for anyone seriously interested in medieval art.

   Even Jacques Maritain's "Art and Scholasticism" does a better job of presenting Thomistic views on art and beauty. The same can be said of Josef Pieper, who has written many books on art and the scholastic mind.

   Eco, who made a name for inviting deconstruction into the Italian worldview, is better skilled at directing his attentions to that field than the medieval notions, concepts, and theories of art and beauty. If one wants a more concolidated assessment of the "philosophical" underpinnings of scholasticism's attitude toward art, simply read Aristotle. The scholastic view isn't much different, except that it is differently deployed in a manner consistent with Male's "Gothic."

   This book bored me.

2 comments about Ascending Chaos: The Art of Masami Teraoka 1966-2006.

1. Absolutely brilliant. Three erudite essays and a full showcase of reproductions of all Teraoka's work.



2. If you've followed the career of Masami Teraoka and love his work you will also love this book. There are plenty of his earlier works all the way up to the present. The text adds insight into the mind of the artist and his complicated and original process.
   The reproductions of his artwork are of good quality. It is truly a collector's item.

1 comments about 101 Great Samurai Prints.

1. Wow. Absolutely beautiful. 101 prints. Nice colors. Every prints have a little text that explain the prints (who, when, why, etc.).
   A must for all samurai fans.

No comments about Readings in Latin American Modern Art.

No comments about Maria Sibylla Merian: New Book of Flowers (Minis).