The Artbook Shelf

[MWBOOKREVW]

THE ARTBOOK SHELF

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Alice Acheson (publicity)
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1000, Los Angeles, CA 90049-1687

Two small, beautifully books based on the J. Paul Getty Museum holdings
would make excellent acquisitions for any personal or community library
collection. Nature Illuminated: Flora and Fauna from the Court of Emperor
Rudolf II (0-89236-472-6 $14.95) is a brilliant demonstration of the
calligraphy and miniature painting by Joris Hoefnagel, from the court of
the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The beautiful miniatures of insects,
fruits, flowers and other botanical images combine with the art of
calligraphy to produce a truly memorable work. An Abecedarium: Illuminated
Alphabets from the Court of Emperor Rudolf II (471-8 $14.95) includes
magnificent pages from the Mira Calligraphiae monumenta. Executed by an
unknown hand, the first of two alphabets consists of Roman capital letters,
the second alphabet is of Gothic lower-case letters. These alphabets were
embellished by Joris Hoefnagel employing symbols and heraldic objects
(masks, animals, plants, obelisks) to convey the power and greatness of the
emperor.

Gilding: Easy Techniques & Elegant Projects with Metal Leaf
Jane LaFerla
Sterling Publishing Company
387 Park Avenue South, NY, NY 10016-8810
0-8069-9554-8 $17.95 1-800-367-9692 1-800-542-7567 (fax)

With a basic understanding of the gilding technique and a willingness to
experiment, you can transform any conceivable object into one of refined
beauty, style, and elegance. Surround yourself with gilded frames, paper,
boxes, wearables, house-and-home items, dining-room fixtures, and
furniture. It's simple to do. All you need is a bit of patience, the right
materials, a few easy-to-use tools, and the inspiration of Jane LaFerla's
Gilding. Before long, discarded attic items and flea-market throwaways will
be seen in a whole new light -- or at least in a golden tint!. Gilding will
show you, step-by-step, how to surround your photographs with a small oval
frame that's every bit as beautiful as the picture inside it, turn a
flea-market lamp with mounted gold leaves on both base and shades thus
transforming it into the focal point of a room; use silver or copper to
transform an ordinary footstool into into a family heirloom; astonish
dinner guests with plates accented in gold, copper, or silver; and much,
much more!. Gilding is a unique crafts home reference book that will open a
whole new area of "do-it-yourself" creativity and artistry.

Suiseki: The Japanese Art of Miniature Landscape Stones
Felix G. Rivera
Stone Bridge Press
PO Box 8208, Berkeley, CA 94707
1-880656-27-2 $29.95 1-800-947-7271 http://www.stonebridge.com

Suiseki are small stones that have weathered naturally into aesthetically
pleasing shapes. Many suiseki suggests mountains, islands, and waterfalls.
Other resemble human or animal figures, or are prized for the colorful and
abstract textures and patterns. Collected in the wild, on mountains and in
streambeds, and then displayed in their natural state, these stones are
objects of great beauty. They are also sophisticated tools for inner
reflection that stir in all who see them an appreciation for the awesome
power of the universe. The Japanese have gathered suiseki for centuries,
but the art has only become popular in the West in the last decade,
especially among bonsai growers. Suiseki: The Japanese Art Of Miniature
Landscape Stones is the first to examine suiseki from a "Western"
perspective, and is both a general introduction and a detailed reference.
Included are 16 pages in color showcasing stones found outside Japan in
England, northern California, the American desert, and the Italian Alps.
The text emphasizes collecting strategies, and includes geology,
aesthetics, stone classification, and lists of sites and resources around
the world. It also explains step-by-step how to make attractive wooden
bases for displaying a suiseki collection.

In Focus: Carleton Watkins
J. Paul Getty Museum
0-89236-399-1 $16.95

Watkins is well-known for his outdoor photos: this volume is devoted to
his unusual smaller works, presenting over fifty images of photos and
including comments by scholar Peter Palmquist. This sampling from some of
the extensive Getty holdings on Watkins provides an excellent, well-rounded
selection of many of his notable works.

Creating a Life Worth Living
Carol Lloyd
HarperPerennial
0-06-095243-1 $14.00

Aspiring artists and entrepreneurs alike will find this a fine crash
course in career survival which creates a program to help individuals
fine-tune their dreams and mesh with reality. From experimenting with new
habits to refreshing one's creative energies with stimulating new thought
patterns, this provides a concrete approach for artistic encouragement.

Painting the Towns
Robin J. Dunitz & James Prigoff
RJD Enterprises
PO Box 64668, Los Angeles, CA 90064
0-9632862-4-2 $29.95 1-310-470-8864

Painting The Towns: Murals Of California showcases the best of an urban,
20th century art form -- the exterior building mural. With its origins in
graffiti, this phenomena has matured into a striking, large-scale public
art that is never far from controversy. Painting The Towns features color
photographs of 300 murals from all over California, statements by more
than 100 artists (including many important figures in the mural movement),
and a comprehensive bibliography with addresses of a dozen mural-related
Internet Web sites. Robin Dunitz and James Prigoff's informative text is
the result of years of experience and research as mural historians.
Painting The Towns is also available in hardcover (0-9632862-5-0 $50.00).

Saudi Arabia
Safeya Binzagr
Three Continents Publishers
3 rue de la Virgi, 1000, Lausanne 9, Switzerland
2-88001-076-4 $TBA

Saudi Arabia: An Artists View Of The Past is an unusual book providing the
reader with a vivid idea of the cultural heritage of a disappearing desert
civilization (mentally and physically adapted to its environment) through
the art of Safeya Binzagr. She has been perceptive enough to record details
of the traditional way of life in the desert kingdom before it finally
vanishes. The results may been seen in these pages, Saudia Arabia is not
only a superb artbook of paintings, it is also a benchmark publication that
will be of considerable interest to scholars and non-specialist general
readers with an interest in Saudi Arabian culture.

The Ukrainian Icon
Liudmila Milyaeva
Parkstone Press
Diffusion Liber T, dist.
Sherrie Murphy (publicity)
527 Corlisse Road, Richford, VT 05476
1-85995-241-0 $55.00 1-888-689-6044

Icon painting, the ultimate expression of Orthodox Christian art, reached
its zenith in the Ukraine between the 11th and 18th centuries. This
beautifully illustrated book spans the entire period, showing the
development of the style. The Ukranian icon is a surprising synthesis of
the traditions of eastern Byzantine art and the stylistic characteristics
of Russian icon-painting. The informative and articulate introduction of
The Ukrainian Icon explains the stages of development of icon-painting over
five centuries in the major centers of art (Kiev, Chernigov,
Transcarpathia, Galicia, and Volhynia) and discusses the life and work of
the masters of icon-painting. The 108 magnificent, full-color photographs
are supplemented with 40 black & white photos, all of which include
complete iconostasises as well as individual icons painted in the episcopal
and monastic workshops. There are also icons painted in rural environments
for home use, which are beautiful examples of naive art. Each painting is
fully captioned with a complete description of the provenance.

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