2 comments about Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

1. 2003's "Hudson River School" is the catalogue, in hardcover, of a remarkable exhibition of art by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. The book contains a brief introduction to the Hudson River School genre of nature scenes and landscapes, popularized by a group of American artists in the mid-19th century. The catalogue itself offers color plates of 57 paintings by a variety of artists, including, among others, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, William Bradford, and John Kensit. The sections are organized by artist, with a brief biography and commentary on the paintings in the plates.
   
   As the selection includes those paintings from each artist owned by the Wadsworth, readers may not necessarily find the most famous examples of each man's work. However, the selection on offer is wide ranging and superb, featuring early American landscapes mixed with others from Europe and South America. The collection is easily worth the attention of fans of the Hudson River School and highly recommended to them and to students of that genre.



2. Loved it. The large color plates make me want to acquire more on the Hudson River School. KC

4 comments about The Intimate Landscape: A New Look at the Origins of the American Barbizon Movement.

1. THe Intimate Landscape not only provides a good review of an important period in American art, but provides insights into the work and minds of greats like George Inness, an artist who I would love to learn still more about. My only criticism is that the reproductions are a little dark.



2. "The Intimate Landscape" is "co-titled" "A New Look at the Origins of the American Barbizon Movement" and thereby purposefully connects the landscape paintings of a group of 19th Century American artists (mostly East Coast) to an established category of painting in France. Fair enough. The research on these Americans--William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin and Alexander Wyant--is well done and their lives and works well-described. As is probably true with most books on painting, it would have been nice to have had more illustrations. But those provided in this work are representative and well enough printed, and this is a small, specialized work after all.
   Anyone interested in the evolution of American landscape painting will find this a valuable reference book.



3. An enthusiastically and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, and academic American Art History collections, The Intimate Landscape: A New Look At The Origins Of The American Barbizon School by Estelle Riback offers an expertly informed and informative history and analysis of the work of American artists William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, and Alexander Helwig Wyant who were the late-nineteenth-century progenitors of what was to become known as the influential American Barbizon school of art. Breaking with previous American and European art traditions, these four original, gifted, and innovative artists opened a new movement in the development of American landscape painting, preparing the way for an eventual emergence of modern art in American salons, galleries, and popular culture.



4. "The Intimate Landscape" is a detailed look at the Barbizon School of art. Barbizon art was mainly landscape paintings from which impressionism eventually sprang. After a brief introduction on the Barbizon movement and what made it different from the Hudson School and other landscape artists author Estelle Riback introduces the reader to four of the most important American Barbizon artists. Each of the artists, William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, and Alexander Helwig Wyant, get their own chapter with a detailed analysis of their influences, history, style, and the legacy they left behind.
   
   "The Intimate Landscape" is an excellent analysis of the American Barbizon movement and a recommended read for anyone interested in the Barbizon School.

3 comments about Oil Painting: Develop Your Natural Ability.

1. Reading and doing the lessons in Sovek's book is like having a year of art school. I know, because I went to art school.
   Check that, reading and doing the lessons in Sovek's book is BETTER than a year in art school. I am not kidding.



2. I have purchased many oil painting books which unfortunately are long on theory but short on sound practical advice. Charles Sovek's book guides the beginner through many structured projects in which the essential building blocks of good painting technique are mastered. No book I have come across offers this instruction in such a clear concise manner. Living in a country which offers few oil painting courses, this book more than makes up for the lack of live classes. I highly recommend this book to budding oil painters.



3. i ve learnt an approach to painting which is practical and has caused great improvement. if the exercises are followed as laid out in the book there is a lot to be gaine

5 comments about Color Theory Made Easy: A New Approach to Color Theory and How to Apply It to Mixing Paints.

1. This is a good referance material for comprehensive study of colors. I find it very useful when I have to use complementary colors and choosing colors from different brands. The author did in deepth study on how to mixing different colors with various outcome. It helps me a great deal to choose the colors I want to use in my paintings.



2. Because watercolor colours name's aren't the same as acrylic and oil, it just doesn't make sense at all to me, and to say "made easy" I didn't think so, but i'm sure it's a great book for watercolorists!



3. Combined with Michael Wilcox's book, "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green," this book will help make sense of the enormous number of colors available to the watercolor artist today. Many watercolor artists recommend specific colors just because they've been using them for years, or they confuse the issue by trying to talk about staining versus non-staining, opaque versus transparent, granulating versus non-granulating. Those are all important qualities to know about a paint, but even more basic to that is what color it is and how it will mix with other colors. If you understand the color theory presented in this book and in Michael Wilcox's book, then you will be quite capable of creating a wide range of quite satisfactory colors from just a few well-chosen basics. (Not that you have to stick with just a few basics.)
   
   What I found particularly valuable in this book is that the ideas *work.* I am not so sure about his theory about *why* they work, but the fact is that they do. The information in this book both overlaps to some extent and is complementary to Mr. Wilcox's book, so I highly recommend that you get both books. Between the two, you will have enough grounding in sound, applicable color mixing procedures that you will be able to confidently mix any two colors you want and have a very good idea what you will get as a result.



4. I just finish the book. i am not a painter but this book gave the basic, and more, theory on colors and how to use them.
   I study graphics and design in computers and today I can select colors and understand why i was selected them.
   this book belong to all of those that want to know how to understand colors and how, for instanse, to make a deap design or how to manipulate your color in the artwork.
   use this book!



5. This book teaches correct color theory and gives a great deal of useful information. The scientific explanation of cyan, magent, and yellow being the primary colors is very convincing and makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of practical information in this book. I don't know if there are any better color theory books, but at least this book is a good one and not a waste of money like Quiller's book, "Color Choices."

No comments about Representing Place: Landscape Painting and Maps.

1 comments about Painting the Allure of Nature.

1. 
   I've always been captivated by the beautiful realism of nature art, but the majority of books I read that covered detail-style nature painting focused mostly on opaque media, particularly oils and acrylics. While I do enjoy both of these media, I've longed for a good book that captured the meticulous detail and inherent beauty of nature, in watercolor. This book is exactly what I was longing for.
   
   If you love meticulous detail and realism in nature painting, and the soft, flowing feel of watercolor, but never envisioned putting them together, hold on to your paintbrushes! Susan D. Bourdet captures the incredible details and textures of nature with watercolor, while also embracing the soft, free-flowing beauty unique to this amazing medium. Better yet, in Painting the Allure of Nature, she shares her mastery of both subject and medium, to take the reader on a step-by-step journey through various techniques and breathtaking projects, one right after another.
   
   The chapters in this book include:
   - Materials, Preparations and Choosing Pigments;
   - Ideas from Nature;
   - Background Techniques for Nature Painters;
   - Painting Flowers and Leaves;
   - Painting Birds;
   - Painting Nature's Textures; and
   - Putting it All Together, Step by Step.
   
   I found the chapters on backgrounds and textures to be particularly enjoyable as they really show the uniqueness of the medium, and how it can be harnessed to create incredible, realistic nature paintings. If you're interested in capturing the realism of nature with watercolor, this is the book you've been looking for. It is definitely one of the better books on the subject. I can't recommend it enough.

1 comments about Rodin on Art and Artists (Fine Art Series).

1. The nineteenth century French sculptor, Auguste Rodin reveals his keen insights on sculpture and art in general in this short and highly readable volume.

   Rodin discusses beauty and nature as well as the art of the past, the Greeks and the Renaissance. The student will get an idea for how Rodin worked as well as what he believed to be the role of the artist and the goal of true art.

2 comments about Oil Painting Techniques by William F. Powell.

1. I was given a very good recommendation to this book, and found it to be quite a valuable resource, showing how to create textures and the many different applications of oil medium. Powell shows many Painting knives techniques.
   It's a great book for those new to and exploring painting knives.



2. I have mixed feelings on this book. On one hand it's small and very to the point, with lots of color photographs which explain things better than lots of words. On the other I think there is not enough coverage of the knife techniques and too much coverage of the demonstrations. For example there are no exercises for practicing the knife techniques, which is something I got out of another book "Learn to Paint With a Knife" that I found extremely helpful. The hardest part of learning to paint with a knife for me was to put down paint over wet paint. This book dedicates just a few sentances on the subject, which were not enough to help me at all. More than half the book is demonstrations, like "this is how to paint a rock" "this is how to paint a cloud" etc. I am sure it's good pratice to learn how to paint these but I feel it's a cookie-cutter approach and when the reader wants to paint something else, like a building or a still life for example he will be lost. Why do these books always use a mountain for the big demo at the end? In the end it just seemed a little too much like Bob Ross for me. Search google for the author and if you want to paint like him (he does very nice work, just not my style) then this book is for you. If not, I still recommend this book for the color photos and because it's not expensive.

5 comments about Stranger On The Earth: A Psychological Biography Of Vincent Van Gogh.

1. Pure, unintentional, Freudian-style hilarity! This book is what happens when modern psychology ignores modern neuropathy. I was laughing until tears streamed down my face when I read the passage that states that Vincent's early work, (i.e. the Potato Eaters) was his superego rebelling against his mother's "Dutch cleanliness" and her refusal to allow the infant Vincent to smear feces on the walls of his nursery which then affected his pallete choice as an adult. Brown, yep. OK, I'm about to start laughing again . . . (whew!)

   Vincent van Gogh was extraordinarily adept at introspection, and through reading his body of correspondence a student of psychology may glean an idea of van Gogh's state of agitation and alienation, and I recommend that a van Gogh scholar, or anyone with a genuine desire to better understand and empathize with van Gogh, read his correspondence instead of this book.

   This book fails to lend any original - or even modern - insights, it is entirely too subjective, mired in neo-Freudian and occasionally, Jungian, conjecture, it lacks Gestalt, and works to distort and narrow the reader's perception of Vincent's gift as it related to his sustained neuropsychiatric state.

   But, if you want to laugh (and laugh and laugh and laugh) at one scholar's attempt at deconstructing art and epileptiform neurological affect via Freud's ridiculous personality-based suppositions, read this book.




2. I really liked the perspective of looking at Van Gogh from a psychological view point. However, the first chapter is very dense with names of paintings and their deeper meaning. The author does much better in the subsequent chapters trying to discover Vincent the man.
   A must read for anyone trying to understand Van Gogh!



3. Many biographies and abbreviated collections of Vincent's volumnous and passionate letters to his brother Theo have been published in recent years. The only one that I can recommend though is "Stranger on the Earth : A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh" by Albert J. Lubin, which provides a fascinating insight into Vincent's life and work. The author examines Vincent's fragile personality with a sensible balance of clinical observation and human compassion. The title "stranger on earth" is an apt description of how Vincent apparently felt about his life. I read this book cover to cover in a few days (a page-turner) and came away with an appreciative sense of Van Gogh as a complex personality driven alternately by great passion and great depression. A tragic yet very human story.



4. Unlike most any biography out there, this book yeilds new insights to the man and his art.



5. The elegance with which he, Stone, makes manifest the life of this magnificent artist is breathtaking at times. This is not just the work to which all biographical material on Van Gogh is measured, but one of the biographical novels by which all other biographies and biographical novels should be. It is imposiible to not get sucked into the narrative and feel what it was like to be in the company of men who are poised, with their gifts, to change the way we look at the world and ourselves. Nor is it possible to not come away sympathisizing, or even feeling a kinship with the deeply troubled genius whose art bares witness to the human soul. I suggest you read this book if you are interested in anything regarding creativity. Period.

3 comments about Watercolor Workshop (PRACTICAL ART).

1. This is a truly outstanding book to learn watercolor painting from. All of the step-by-step paintings are beautiful and inspiring, and very clearly explained with great step-by-step illustrations. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to learn watercolors at their own pace and have a choice of what he/she will be painting in a lesson. It's a beautiful book. Two of my favorite paintings to learn are an English garden scene with a fence and a scene from a canal in Venice. The colors are all outstanding. The cost of this book is cheaper than a single art lesson, but includes many lessons. I think both the beginner to the more advanced student can learn plenty from this book, and it does not intimidate you as some other instruction art books do. It makes it fun.
   
   A new DK book by the same author, Watercolor Workshop II is coming out April 30th, 2007. I plan to buy it as soon as it comes out based on how good Watercolor Workshop has been. Its a great book, inexpensive, and very inspiring without overwhelming the student.



2. I have been reading a lot of basic watercolors books and this book is by far the best one I have read. It has many, many step by step illustrations for each lesson. It is NOT a book of the author's artwork which will leave a beginner frustrated and lost. I am working on lesson one easily and I am enjoying learning. Better than taking a class with a lot of other students. This is a definate HOW-TO book for beginners as well as advanced. Just perfect...



3. If you dream about painting in your spare moments, perhaps overlooking a placid lake in the middle of a magical kingdom...then this book may cause to you wonder why you have not purchased that portable easel. With this book, paint and outdoor scenes you can begin to create magical worlds on canvas. If your art teacher sent you to the library during art class, the step-by-step instructions could still bring out the artist in you.
   
   Topics include: Paint, paper, brushes, brushstrokes, color wheels, color mixing, color blends, washes, painting effects, how to build a painting, composition, sketching, focal points, outdoor painting and specific scenes like cherries in a tree.
   
   Projects:
   Ballet Shoes
   Cherries
   Tuscan Landscape
   Geese in the Park
   Peony in a Jar
   Boats on a Canal
   Field Gate
   Street Scenes
   Chair by a Window
   Cliffs and a Beach
   Portrait
   
   As someone who was sent to the library, I must say this book has been helpful. I can only say I have an extreme longing to buy that easel and head for Whidbey Island. I know a beach there...with a long walking trail. Suddenly a weekend vacation is sounding like a painting escape. If you love to travel, this book could be an entryway to memories of your vacations.
   
   I am very excited about this particular book since recently my kitchen became filled with items decorated in Cherries and I've been imagining a border around the top filled with cherry art. The designs shown in this book would be very compatible with such an idea and all the instructions make painting seem a dream. Having the book first allows for exploration and adaptation. Once you have the book, you will know what else you need to begin a new hobby.
   
   Throughout you will find inspirational paintings, exercises, step-by-step projects and a desire to leave the house for long summer days of artistic expression. Once you learn the techniques, the possibilities are endless. If you have been looking for a book on watercolors, this is the best one I've found recently.
   
   ~The Rebecca Review