Product Description
In this book, photographer and artist Gary Greene captures an incredible range of architectural subjects, enabling artists to incorporate them into their own work while saving time and money.

A variety of homes, store fronts, railroad stations, barns, school houses, sheds, churches, bridges, towers and gazebos are included-with hundreds of detailed photos that capture the spirit and character of these subjects, ranging from weathered and rustic to unusual and charming.

Six setp-by-step demonstrations show artists how to incorporate the featured reference photos into their own work. Each demo focuses on a different medium, including oil, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media.

Gary Greene is a professional graphic artist, photographer and award-winning colored pencil artist.His work has been featured in The Artist's Magazine and American Artist. He is the author of five additional North Light Books, including two other titles in the Artist's Photo Reference series: Flowers and Landscapes.Amazon.com Review
Accomplished artist and photographer Gary Greene has collected a comprehensive gallery of color photographs of barns, houses, buildings, churches, bridges, and other landmarks and architectural details in Artist's Photo Reference: Buildings & Barns. The intense, rich saturation of the structures is captured in bright natural light and through views designed to work within and complement landscape composition. The book, which forms a unique pictorial record of a vanishing America, is flush with variations on general themes, such as classical revival, Tudor, and southwestern in the "Houses" section. Each reference section contains a complete step-by-step demonstration by contributing artists employing various media, such as a pastel composition of a stately white farmhouse set between a dreamy blue April sky and riotous red and yellow tulips, or an imposing Victorian mansion whose complex architectural details are precisely delineated in ink, watercolor, and colored pencil. Greene also describes how to go into the field and make your own reference photos without spending a great deal of money. This book will appeal to artists who enjoy painting and drawing rural scenes or who wish to infuse a bit of idealistic realism into their landscape compositions. --Mary Ribesky ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very good book to have if you're an artist
I have almost all of the photo reference picture books with the exception of Boats and Nautical scenes. I consider this book a very good one, because it gives you a wide variety of subjects to choose from, arranged in groups. For example, he will have photos of weathered barns, of houses of different periods, etc. Browsing through the photo reference books I'm sure of finding something that will inspire me. The advantage of these photos is that they were taken by an artist, with artists in mind and that makes a big difference when using them as subjects for a work of art.

Great Artists Visual Reference
Artist's Photo reference is a compilation of over 400 photos of architecture from barns to wharves which artists can use for painting or other graphic illustration. Included are 6 painting demos and examples of techniques to use when creating your very own masterpiece. I particularly liked it that the author addresses copyright issues and how to make photo collages to create your own graphic aids. This is a must for artists who like to use photos for more photo-realistic paintings and who do not have access to their subjects.

If you like this one, make sure to check out the other books in the series: Artist's Photo Reference: Birds, Artist's Photo Reference: Flowers, and Artist Photo REference: Landscapes. ... Read more

Product Description
A totally new World of Art survey of artistic achievements in Southeast Asia from prehistory to the modern period.

The pagodas of Burma, the temples of Angkor, the great Buddhist monument of Borobudur—these achievements of powerful courts and rulers are part of a broad artistic tradition including textiles, applied arts, vernacular architecture, and village crafts.

Covering Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and the Philippines, Fiona Kerlogue examines the roots and development of the arts of this distinctive region from prehistory to the present day. Broadly chronological, the book traces the different religions that have shaped the region's historic cultures—Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity—finishing with an exploration of the arts of the postcolonial period.

With nearly 200 illustrations, over 100 in color, a glossary of names and places, and suggestions for further reading, the book is a comprehensive introduction to the arts and culture of Southeast Asia. It will appeal to students, travelers, expatriates, and anyone with an interest in the region. 190 illustrations, 110 in color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A tall order with disappointing results
A somewhat parched production. Kerlogue far overstretches her abilities and consistently betrays a lack of intuition, personal engagement with her subjects, and intellectual insight. She lags behind other writers who have given us far livelier, more deeply informative books that are enjoyable to read. This author should stick to museum work. ... Read more

Product Description
Provides and overview of the origins, history and relevance of botanical illustration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Treasures of Botanical Art: a wonderful new book
This is a wonderful new book from Shirley Sherwood/Kew Gardens collections. It compares a botanical drawing a specific plant (say an Iris) done in the 1800's to one done today. It is fascinating to see both the similarities and the differences. The accompanying text is educational and easy to read. If you love plants and art, this is a good read and a good future resource ... Read more

Product Description
55 interviews with art dealers--from postwar giants like Leo Castelli and Betty Parsons to the art magnates of today--create a well-rounded picture of how the art world operates, how galleries work with artists, how prices are established, what it takes t ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Art Dealers: The Powers Behind the Scene Tell How the Ar
This book sheds real light into how New York based art dealers from the 1940s to the 1980s lived, worked and thought about art. There are many interesting anecdotes, opinions and brief biographies inside this book filled with short essays about some 25 dealers who hepled shape the world of art as it is still known today.

Formulaic Padding
This is a mere formulaic padding of the prior edition of this book.There are a few new chapters.In some cases, these chapters address dealers who have come into prominence since the 1985 edition.Other dealers given equal attention were added for reasons that shall remain mysterious, as they address players never known or soon to be forgotten.The original chapters related to figures such as Sydney Janis and Leo Castelli have some historical interest.The new chapters tend to be shorter and tend to suffer from a narrow focus on the personal background of the dealer and the editors' apparent effort to prompt the dealers to speak to art world issues that may have been new or compelling in 1985 (e.g., the "new" role of auction houses) but which are certainly capillary today.The upshot is that I learned quite literally nothing about the contemporary art market. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

where art history and philosophy intersect,
you will find books such as this one.A Ph.D. is not required to understand it, but it will give you an intellectual workout, as it is not a beginner's handbook. You need to have read some art history (beyond the "what, where, when, who" level), and some art criticism, to see the rationale behind its chapter headings. It is also not a book about works of art as such, but about the special terms and concepts used in current interpretive writing on the "fine" arts (primarily arts of Western European derivation, but the contributors are sensitive in handling the cultural bias of their sources). ALL of the authors are distinguished authorities on the topics they discuss. I think it is a strength of this book that they do not share a homogeneous intellectual background, or ideological bias, and also that they are not all the same age, but made their greatest contributions at different points in the recent (roughly, between 1970 and 1990) "crisis" of art historical writing. The most useful feature of this book, to my mind, is that it provides carefully argued contextual analysis of critical terms which either 1) have a long history of use (and therefore need unpacking before we can grasp the "unconscious"--sometimes contradictory--values they impose on the works to which they're applied), or 2) have been recently introduced to enable an informed critique of traditional art history.The cumulative effect of the various essays is to demistify some of our more cherished assumptions about the value of art: its timeless messages, its inspired origins, its spiritual uplift, its higher expressiveness/beauty/perfections. In other words, if you hope for a "feel-good" treatment of art critical standards, this is not your book. And yet, if you can accept that making and using works of art are social activities, and like the other products and customs of human societies, are constantly in flux even as they depend for their existence on inherited techniques, formulas, and ideals, then this book will provide a wonderful "relief map" of the intellectual foundations of current art history/art criticism.

Learning the rules of the game
Most of these essays are written by extremely prominent art historians and critics, such as WJT Mitchell, Homi Bhaba, the late Michael Camille, Jas' Elsner, and Nina Kallmyer. Each writer explores a "charged" term currently used in art criticism, such as "representation," "social art history," "ugliness," and "beauty."In each essay, the writer explores the meaning of the term by applying it to a single work of art.Though the essays vary in difficulty, each is ultimately very rewarding.Highly recommended for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of art criticism.An absolute must for journalists, art critics, and students.

Beginners Beware
This book does present scholarship that uses and (sometimes) defines a variety of themes and approaches to art criticism, but most of the writings are highly esoteric, randomly selected, and not always focused on the visual arts.If you don't already have a solid understanding of concepts like "Post Modernism" and "Commodity" don't expect any clear answers here. This is less of an explanatory textbook-type work, and more of a compilation of modern critical writing.Pre-requisite: PhD.

Good book for exploring criticism topics
If you interested in reading about particular themes in contemporary art. This book covers a whole slew of art crit terms.

Each individual term is explored by its own essay. Each essay is written by a different author (mostly in the 80s and 90s). These essays are around 14 pages long, so these terms are explored rather in depth. The writing is so thick in this book it takes a good chainsaw to hack through 'em. But the effort is well worth it.

Here's the terms explored: Representation, Sign, Simulacrum, Word and Image, Narrative, Context, Meaning/Interpretation, Originality, Appropriation, Art History, Modernism, Avant-Garde, Primitive, Ritual, Fetish, Gaze, Gender, Modes of Production, Commodity, Collecting/Museums, Value, Postmodernism/Postcolonialism, and Figuration

My favorite essay so far is the one on Simulacrum.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in art criticism. It provides some interesing viewpoints. ... Read more

Product Description
Art in Theory (1648-1815) provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive collection of documents on the theory of art from the founding of the French Academy until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Like its highly successful companion volumes, Art in Theory (1815-1900) and Art in Theory (1900-1990), its' primary aim is to provide students and teachers with the documentary material for informed and up-to-date study. Its' 240 texts, clear principles of organization and considerable editorial content offer a vivid and indispensable introduction to the art of the early modern period.

Harrison, Wood and Gaiger have collected writing by artists, critics, philosophers, literary figures and administrators of the arts, some reprinted in their entirety, others excerpted from longer works. A wealth of material from French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Latin sources is also provided, including many new translations.

Among the major themes treated are early arguments over the relative merits of ancient and modern art, debates between the advocates of form and color, the beginnings of modern art criticism in reviews of the Salon, art and politics during the French Revolution, the rise of landscape painting, and the artistic theories of Romanticism and Neo-classicism.

Each section is prefaced by an essay that situates the ideas of the period in their historical context, while relating theoretical concerns and debates to developments in the practice of art. Each individual text is also accompanied by a short introduction. An extensive bibliography and full index are provided.

For more details of our book and journal list in Art, visit http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/arttheory ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Charles Harrison: An Anthology of Changing Ideas
This book was in perfect condition when it arrived. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of fine paintings from around the world spans several centuries of art and features the works of such masters as Rembrandt, da Vinci, Raphael, Renoir, Cassatt, and Gauguin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

kentucky fried
As an artist I was hoping for a bird reference showing not only varied anatomy and birds from various angles but instead I get pieces of a bird without a complete picture. Not real helpful.. ... Read more

Product Description
The standard artist directory containing biographical and pricing information for over 250,000 international artists.Includes thousands of artists not listed elsewhere, with pricing on oils, watercolors, drawings, sculpture, etc.Over 30 major art reference books are cross-referenced:Bermans, Mallett, Cummings, etc.Special section with 1,000 Old Master artist signatures and monograms.2,256 pages.Hardbound, Smythsewn. ... Read more

Product Description
Modern Art and Modernism presents a selection of texts by the major contributors to debate on this subject, from Baudelaire and Zola in the nineteenth century to Greenberg and T. J. Clark in our own times. It offers a balanced section of essays by contributors to the mainstream of Modernist criticism, representative examples of writing on the themes of abstraction and expression in modern art, and a number of important contributions to the discussion of aesthetics and the social role of the artist. Several of these are made available in English translation for the first time, and others are brought together from a wide range of periodicals and specialized collections. ... Read more

Product Description
This book takes a bold look at public art and its populist appeal, offering a more inclusive guide to America’s creative tastes and shared culture. It examines the history of American public art – from FDR’s New Deal to Christo’s The Gates – and challenges preconceived notions of public art, expanding its definition to include a broader scope of works and concepts.

• Expands the definition of public art to include sites such as Boston’s Big Dig, Las Vegas’ Treasure Island, and Disney World
  
• Offers a refreshing alternative to the traditional rhetoric and criticism surrounding public art
  
• Includes insightful analysis of the museum and its role in relation to public art

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent book for an important area of 21st century art
This book is a required read for anyone interested in contemporary art, pubic art, aesthetics and/or the history of modern/contemporary art. It is very well written and highly readable and provides both insight and substance for both the novice and the expert alike. The approach taken by Knight is an insightful and significant one. This book gives an important reevaluation of public art as not just a place/art of monuments and site based works but as a key and active aesthetic ground in which the varied interest (public/private), functions (monument/aesthetic statement), audiences (general population/art world), and cultural frames and references (popular culture/ fine art), make for aesthetic and cultural proving ground. One of my most important realizations from reading Krause's book is that rather than being a kind "no persons' land," which is neither important for the art world nor for the public, public art is one of the most important categories of art production today. And for this insight alone the book is well worth the price and I intend to use this book in several of my graduate level college studio art classes. I recommend it to one and all.

Worth reading
I enjoyed this book thoroughly and intend to make several personal "Art Pilgrimages" as a result!

Provacative and well-presented
Knight provides a crucial study reevaluating the parameters and function of public art.In language that is accessible for a broad audience, she employs a methodological soundness and real insight.Knight, widely acknowledged for her studies on popular culture, situates art within the ubiquitous world of contemporary spectacle.Within the first pages, she introduces the complex framework that has risen around this subject.Rather than sidestep the slippery terrain that encompasses function, aesthetics, and reception, she advocates the critical involvement of the viewer as an essential component. In so doing, she navigates precarious territory by steering midcourse between the tastemakers and the cultural consumers.She qualifies with the following, "My populist perspective seeks balance between the hypercritical and uncritical nodes; to reorient our appreciation for artworks already absorbed into the canon, highlight the viewer's role, and suggest and expanded terrain for public art."
Her study proceeds after a useful review of American public art to examine different responses and modes of interaction, from Christo to Scott Burton, from Lightning Field to Disneyworld.Throughout, she constructs an invaluable network of viewpoints from the most significant theorists and critics of the past and present (John Beardsley, Malcolm Miles).With its compendium of relevant dialogues, its resistance of pretentiousness, and its critical consideration of the terms inherent to the medium, Knight's study is a compelling and vital resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.

disappointing

Ms. Knight's `Public Art' is very disappointing. She sets out her agenda/bias in the preface, "I contend that art becomes most fully public when it has palpable populist sentiments - the extension of emotional and intellectual, as well as physical, accessibility to the audience - not a pretension toward such." She uses terms like "accessibility" (which is a loaded term) assuming there is some kind of shared understanding of the meaning. She goes on to slam art "elitists"; equating them with, "...centurions standing guard over and imposing their culture on others." She defines elitistsas having a "need for professionalism...and standards of quality..."

Ms. Knight seems to be arguing for a T-ball mentality - everyone should play - when it comes to public art. I find it strange that the people who make a case for populism and accessibility in the arts would never apply the same criteria to own profession. Ms. Knight is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Emerson College. If a position were to come open in Ms. Knight's department, would it be elitist to ask that the applicants had an upper-level degree, teaching experience, that they actually studied art history, that they could even write? Would her department hire, or even consider a person who had none of those qualifications? I don't think so.

I think the book would have been better if Ms. Knight would have stuck to analyzing the public art scene and not try to impose her agenda on the subject.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

OK for ARTISTS, but CD-Rom images need TLC (VERY rough, albeit hi-res, scans)
Flipping through the BOOK, I was impressed: nice selection of images, sharp and crisp (kudos to the graphic designer of the PRINTED material). HOWEVER, and this is a BIG 'however', if you are an artist needing to use the CD-ROM "hi-resolution" images for repurposing to digital medium, beware and be prepared to do a lot of work.

The INITIAL SCANS were done INCORRECTLY: it appears the "scanner" did so at a "canned" lo-res bitmap format, THEN "re-interpolated" the images to 600dpi and SAVED as BITMAPS! In this "process", all the precious data (and clarity) of the original line-artworks' curves and delicate detail was LOST, reduced to rough and jagged "drawings".

IF the images had been scanned at a higher dpi and brought into a VECTOR program, such as Illustrator, the art could have then been saved as a TRUE EPS (Encapsulated Post Script), a format that is infinitely scaleable with perfectly crisp edges (whether you were wanting a 2' X 3" 72dpi JPEG or a 10" X 12" 300dpi PSD or TIFF), as opposed to bitmap images, which are NOT scaleable, and, especially,virtually unworkable (if the initial scan was of low (or "canned", usually around 150 to 200 dpi on home scanners) resolution.)...

I have had to REBUILD (using Adobe Illustrator) EVERY IMAGE I've needed from the CD, a tedious procedure NOT for the amateur or faint-hearted.
Though there are folders of TIFF, JPEG, GIF, EPS, etc., every image within is the SAME BITMAP, just "renamed" (FOR REAL. I'm not kidding.).

I will still use the book as reference, but have resigned to SCANNING them directly from the book myself (to get at LEAST a semblance of a REAL hi-res image) until I find a better source. I've been in this biz as a professional for almost 30 years, and am AGHAST that someone in PROOFING at Dover didn't CATCH THIS major flaw before it (the CD-ROM) went to production...Tsk. Hmmm... I AM looking for some new contract work, if they're interested. :-) ... Read more

Product Description
From Paleolithic cave-painting to postmodernism, Art Theory For Beginners is a concise and entertaining survey of the major historical and current debates on art. Painters, theorists and philosophers are all included to show how the idea of art has developed over the last 5,000 years.
Art is a visual representation of a range of concepts, stories and emotions, including curiosity, humanity, political statements, and the Self. Art Theory For Beginners examines and explains the development of the different ways in which people study, interpret and appreciate art in its rich variety of forms.

Art Theory For Beginners is a clear and entertaining introduction to the complex questions that stem from the simple idea of 'art'. ... Read more

Product Description

This bookoffers a concise, useful introduction to the indigenous visual expressions created in the Americas, Africa and Asia. It emphasizes the idea that Non-Western cultures have history, that known events occurred, important people lived, and that the arts changed through time. A global perspective on art covers Andean, Mesoamerican, Native American, African, Indian, Chinese and Japanese art, with additional coverage of expressions in Southeast Asia and The Pacific Islands. For those who appreciate visual expressions andthe language of art—especially as it pertains to key areas of Non-Western cultures.

Customer Reviews (2)

Good overview
While this book doesn't go in too much depth, it covers a ton of different cultures' artforms. It is enough for the non-art person to understand but still satisfy a passionate art lover (at least in my case). I bought the book to study for the NYSTCE CSTs in visual arts and I thought it was helpful in that regard. It covered a lot of areas in a short amount of time and gave me an understanding those non-western cultures.

easy reading
I thought this book was a great text book.The chapters were orgaized well and so was the information in them.I also thought that the information was easy to follow.One suggestion,the chapter numbers on each page were very hard to read becasue they were almost stuck in the binding of the book, I would suggest puting them on the bottom or top right hand and left hand corners. ... Read more

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Product Description
Like her contemporary, Mary Cassatt, Morisot is famous for her portraits of women and children as well as her quiet family scenes. Excellent sticker images of 16 of her finest works include On the Balcony, At the Ball, The Cradle, The Mother and Sister of the Artist, Julie with a Doll, Eugène Manet and His Daughter in the Garden, and Little Girl Reading.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

too small
The Dover Fine Art Stickers books are very small: about 6"x4", containing 4 pages of 4 stickers each. The stickers are okay in appearance, but are small, each less than 3"x2", and when peeled away from their backing sheet do not have a great deal of adhesive power. ... Read more

Product Description
Designed as a supplementary text for beginning art courses, this brief, inexpensive text introduces issues that are typically overlooked in standard art survey texts, such as the role of the museum in creating the canon, ways to understand art of other cultures and outsider art, and the difficulty many beginners have in understanding art, especially contemporary art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good supplemental text for art history courses
This short and very readable book helps the intelligent but uninitiated reader come to terms with works of art that can be confusing, or even intimidating.Art can be daunting if it comes from a culture different from our own, is the work of "outsider" artists, or -- as with most contemporary art -- is deliberately obscure, or "difficult," in some way.The authors don't attempt to supply pat answers to the questions "is this art?" and "what does this mean?" but they help the readers to frame additional questions that can lead them to their own better understandings of these objects.

I definitely will assign this book in my course on writing and critical thinking for art history majors.This summer term, I also plan to experiment with using it as a recommended, supplemental text in my art history survey. ... Read more

Product Description
Bogue provides a systematic overview and introduction to Deleuze's writings on music and painting, and an assessment of their position within his aesthetics as a whole. Deleuze on Music, Painting and the Arts breaks new ground in the scholarship on Deleuze's aesthetics, while providing a clear and accessible guide to his often overlooked writings in the fields of music and painting. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sexy Intelligentsia
Deleuze's work is complex and often difficult, especially for the reader who comes with an interest in art, music, and literature but little familiarity with (or perhaps tolerance for) late-twentieth century philosophy.

In this study of Deleuze's writing on music and painting, Ronald Bogue distills the essence of the philosopher's decades-long interest in these disciplines. This is no "Deleuze for Dummies"--some familiarity with Deleuzian concepts is assumed and expected. As with similar texts (Harari's _How James Joyce Made His Name: A Reading of the Final Lacan_, for example, or Rochlitz's _The Disenchantment of Art: The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin_), _Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts_ tells us probably as much about Bogue as it does about Deleuze.

This is useful, however, because Bogue has read widely and with comprehension not only in Deleuze but in the whole network of related subject matter touching on his concerns--Jacob von Uexkull, Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths and Alois Riegl among others. Additionally, Bogue's consideration of Modern music is exemplary for its clear-sighted and vivid engagement with difficult (what Adorno might even call radical) music. Take as an example this brief segment from the discussion of Messiaen's spectacular _Catalogue d'oiseaux_: "...Messiaen never approaches an individual bird's song in isolation, but instead juxtaposes it with the songs of other species and situates it within an evocative sonic landscape....Such pictorialism might suggest that Messiaen's aesthetic is purely mimetic, but the actual results of his practice belie this suspicion." He goes on to discuss the piece's motivic development and the composer's modal style.

Deleuze is at his most brilliant in the writings on Messiaen and Francis Bacon, and Bogue's book allows easier access for readers without the necessary time or desire to wade through thousands of pages to find what they're looking for. Of course, the ideas about music and painting are inextricable from the other ideas in those pages (there are, after all, 'a thousand plateaus', and it is not impossible that the reader may feel the need to explore further to obtain a more complete understanding--which is, after all, not such a bad thing....)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century we could do worse than immerse ourselves in a study of Deleuze. For the student of music and art, as well as for those interested in expanding their knowledge of one of the great thinkers of that long, dark, and now late century, this is a valuable book. ... Read more