Art Architecture Photography Books

I can't speak for the captions for the photographs in this book. However, I'm sure anyone looking to purchase this volume is mostly looking for a visual item anyway. I'm also betting that many people won't even bother to read many of the captions and will just enjoy browsing through all the great photographs.

Dorling Kindersley, the book's publisher, has a well deserved reputation for making books so fully illustrated that they've single handedly revolutationized the publishing industry, especially for reference, travel and history books.

This book, at over 1000 pages and probably even more illustrations, is a huge bargain now that it's out of print. Maybe at full retail one should balk at inadequate captions. But at these prices, this is a steal and makes a perfect gift for almost anyone, from pre-teens to adults of all ages.

As a foreigner, I found this book is very useful to get a broad review of American history and culture.

The pictures in this book are great. However the captions are wrong often enough to make the book dangerous as a resource for students of American history.

I'm a photographer and was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful book this past Christmas. It has some wonderful pictures from various decades, some brought tears to my eyes. Even my husband couldn't put it down...

America: A Celebration is a weighty display gathering over a thousand photos which capture the patriotism and peoples of America, from candid photos of individuals to everyday shots of people in cities across the country. Photos are from the Hulton Getty picture Collection and others, and provide a powerful visual examination of the nation.

A beautiful volume exploring a very diverse collection of religious facilities - small and large, urban and rural, contemporary and traditional. A great primer on design possibilities for Judeo-Christian religious facilities.

The only variant it may be lacking in is ultra-contemporary mega-churches. . . but then, few of those are really pretty to look at.

Over the span of my professional career, I have focused on religious architecture. Having done extensive research on the topic over the course of my career, this book stands out as the finest compilation on this building type. The projects and religious organizations are diverse. What they all have in common is the quality of design and the search for appropriateness in architecture for worship.

As an admirer of all kinds of architecture, a real estate writer and a somewhat recent protestant convert to the Roman Church, I found this book intelligent and appealing at many levels. I have a deep love for orthodoxy and traditional architecture which I have learned in the Catholic Church, but I have also been graced with looking beyond trans-historical spaces to find God and communion in the ACTIONS of the liturgy, the GATHERING of a community, the silence found in open SPACES, modern or not. Andy Warhol may have said it best once that "the best thing to have anywhere is space," and to fill it with art or icons seemed sad---paraphrasing. I now understand what he meant. Gothic Cathedrals served a purpose for educationa and catechism with many pieces parts and light and art. But those days are gone in a fast modern world where we seek the simple. In this book the venerable Crosbie shows sensitivity and respect for each faith and each style. The photographs are stunning, the plans and cut sections are clear and easy to read and decipher; the art direction and clear crisp layouts let the building breath and pray and speak for themselves without heavy academic comments. I may not have liked 100% of the structures, but so little is written about new, working, and smartly done houses for worship this is a Godsend. No pun intended. I highly recommend it to the spiritual enthusiast or student, liturgists, architects, or those who like modern or contemporary structures.

This book has some very nice pictures in it, but it is lacking a lot. Its really disorganized into a art deco mismash. The art deco movement was so huge, its hard to place into an entire book, but there are somethings I would have liked to see in here. Some of the buildings in Los Angeles which has some amazing art deco architecture. The author completely skips over designers like Russell Wright and Walter Von Nessen. There there are things that plain just don't fit in here, there are many Moderne buildings, which is close, but not exactly deco, there is a random page on 1930's fashion and a whole section of 1980's art deco reproductions. I don't want to see reproductions, I want to see the real thing! I wish more would have been put in about buildings in America, but I understand this book was published in the UK.

"In the Deco Style" was first published by Rizzoli Publishing in 1987. In the nearly twenty years since it was published, a technological revolution has taken place in art book publishing. Today's art books are bigger and brighter and of a much higher print quality. There are many nice color photos in this book but on the printed page, they come across as comparatively dull and muted. If you want to see the difference that twenty years can make take a look at "Art Deco 1910-1939". In that book, the colors are warm and the photographs almost jump off the printed page.

This book was written 15-20 years after the Art Deco revival of the late 1960's. For its time, the book does a very good job of describing the Art Deco movement with all its many different schools. However, an additional two decades of scholarship has taken place and we now have a much more nuanced understanding of the time.

If you are an seriously interested in Art Deco, this book is very fine purchase. It is reasonably priced and there are many interesting photographs. However, if you are new to the subject, purchase "Art Deco 1910-1939", the single best coffee table style of book on the subject.

Carleton Watkins is an overlooked figure in the history of American photography--Artistically we could not have wanted for more in someone recording the "wilds" of the West. Beautiful photographs of San Francisco and the Northwest's industrial beginnings, and timeless representation of Yosemite's natural wonder.

Carleton Watkins's fifty-some year career has left him recognition as one the greatest American photographers of the nineteenth century. The photographs shown in The Art of Perception clearly show why. Without saying Watkins was ahead of his time because of the sophisticating and arresting images he produced with a camera, it can be said that few, if any, of his contemporaries could rival his work. In the Art of Perception, the reader will have the privelage to be psychologically compelled by the world from the visual standpoint of this obscure individual. In this book, Watkins's innovation as a photographer shows the developing western world while at the same time creating an unparalleled visual experience for the viewers through more than one-hundred of his best photos, including some never-before seen or reproduced. Essays by Douglas R. Nickel also explain some of the subjects and objects that Watkins researched and photographed.

Travelling through the western United States, Watkins captured some of the most breathtaking pictures of Yosemite, San Francisco, the Sierra Nevada, and more. In my personal opinion, it is almost impossible to dislike any of the pictures collected in The Art of Perception. I must admit, however, that I have a personal taste for landscapes and documentary style photos of young America's development, especially ones as lush in detail as Watkins's are. More than anything, I loved the photographs that Watkins shot showing nature alone, untouched by any progression of America's buildup. As the viewer, it is impossible to prepare for the overwhelming rush from the elevated sensation of visual contingency created by Watkins's vision. Watkins's work not only captured my attention for these simple facts, but also educated me in the importance of the man as a very important historical figure in recording the growth of young American and as an innovator for the way we view photography today.