Art Architecture Photography Books

This is a beautiful catalog of the work of a unique American architect. (I'm not an unbiased reviewer -- I live in a Walter Burley Griffin home.) Mati's photographs are beautiful, and he is to be congratulated on his perserverance in completing this photographic record when he did. Some of the houses are disappearing due to developer fever -- it's truly a shame that Americans lust after oversized cookie cutter McMansions, and don't recognize the heritage that is being discarded. Viva Preservation!

This book is well researched, well designed and well executed. The photographs are entirely in B&W and are beautifully reproduced here. Walter Burley Griffin and his most talented wife Marion Mahony are still fighting their way out of the shadows of Frank Lloyd's Wright's "presence"..however this book greatly enhances our knowledge of the legacy the Griffin's built here. Bottom line, Walter and Marion were a powerful architectural team and Illinois/Iowa both house an unbelievable collection of their prairie school gems. I would highly reccommend this book as a starting point for anyone interested in exposing themselves to the Griffins are their influence on Frank Lloyd Wright and the prairie school. FYI the first 1/3 of the book is text and the rest photographs.....I just wish the book was bigger and longer.

Do you sometimes think to yourself when you're doing a project, "I wouldn't mind doing this for a career." Then the one question you must definitely ask yourself is, "What procedures must I take in order to develop a career out of my talent?" This book can get you started in the right direction.

Opportunities in Arts and Crafts Careers offers you a clear understanding about the various careers available, the skills needed, and how to get started. I wanted to read this book to find out if it would help out fellow woodworkers who would like to pursue a career with their skills, and if it had information for them to get started in one. I've found that not only does it provide information for these two avenues, but also an understanding of the history of the craft.

I extremely recommend this book for those who would like to seek a career in the arts and crafts. Elizabeth B. Gardner has performed an exceptional measure of research, in order to write this book with the facts provided in it.

Excellent advice on how to pursue careers in the arts and crafts fields and professions. It is practical and fun to read especially since so many opportunities in these fields are discussed. The histories of these fields are very good as are the processes involved. It makes one want to pursue one's interest in arts and crafts!

This book is a valuable guide for students considering a career in the arts. Each career path includes a brief history, a description of the actual processes involved in the work and discusses training options and job potentials. A particular strength of the book lies in including some of the more unusual crafts like book binding, stained glass design and weaving.

I applaud Elizabeth Gardner for authoring Opportunities in Arts and Crafts Careers. This book is a very engaging and accessible reference to a multitude of careers that are too often overlooked by students, their teachers, parents, and counselors. The book covers a broad scope of career opportunities including fine art, applied art or design, and craft. The result is a career reference book with great collective strength.

Régine Thiriez, an independent scholar who holds a Ph.D. in art history and is currently an associate research fellow in the East Asia Institute in Lyon (France), preparing an inventory of China photography, presents a substantial body of important new research on photography in China from the early years in the mid-19th century to 1860 as well as Qing dynasty China's reception of European technology. Her study, Barbarian Lens: Western Photographer's of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces, explores the Western involvement with the ruins of the European-style buildings constructed for the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) in his summer palace of the Yuanmingyuan, the "old" summer palace outside Beijing. The Yuanmingyuan was sacked and burned in 1860 by a French and British expeditionary force. Only the European part of the garden, constructed of brick and masonry, left substantial ruins. Standing mysteriously on the overgrown grounds of the half-abandoned site, the ruins exerted a powerful pull on European memories of the humiliation of the Emperor of China, and the shameful part played by Western armies in the destruction of the incomparable garden-palace and the treasures kept there. Such are the troubled feelings invoked by photographic images of the ruins. Placing the extant photographs in their historical context, Thiriez makes available to the interested reader and China specialist alike unprecedented primary research on the beginnings of photography in China, the identities and careers of the mostly little-known men who produced photographic images, and the complex relationships between photography and Western penetration of China. Barbarian Lens contains a wealth of scholarly information, presented in clear and succinct detail. Individual chapters focus on the practice of photography in Beijing (beginning in the early 1860s), the tragic encounter of China and Europe in the destruction of the Summer Palace, the amateur and professional photographers of the ruins, as well as the overlapping personal, political, and photographic ambitions of men in the Qing Imperial Maritime Customs, Western diplomatic missions, and other various undertakings. The volume is amply illustrated with more than 50 images-most of them previously unpublished-and includes extensive appendices on such subjects as the pioneering French Mission Palais d'Été studies of the European palaces. Perhaps the most impressive appendix is an exhaustive 24-page list of all the photographs of the European ruins identified by Thiriez to date. It tabulates photographers, photographic collections and sources, cataloguing information on the individual prints surveyed, the most likely date of the photo, additional reprints or rephotography of the same images (a very thorny problem in early photography), and the importance of the photo to the study of the place. It also cross-references the images, showing how they complement each other through the years. The appendices, notes, and bibliography supplement a richly rewarding text and generously make available the result of a decade of painstaking research in an almost unknown and unstudied field. In a volume that presents a complex, fascinating, and sometimes horrifying story of destruction and recovery, Régine Thiriez's contributions to the history of China photography and the fast-growing field of Qing dynasty historical studies are invaluable.

Amazing buildings, beautiful photographs, interesting texts, very good book.
The research and selection done by the authors is extremely relevant to understand and perceive what was going on in social terms in this side of Europe during the 1960s and 1970s, and how that had created an immediate perspective in built environment via architecture. Besides that, future was very much happening those days in countries like Slovakia. There was a pure belief in a better and more sophisticated history that is clear in the extraordinary and defying designs shown in 'Eastmodern'.
It would be close to perfect if it would be a hard cover edition. Nevertheless it is simply a pleasure to flip through the pages of this unmissable book.

Even if you wanted to, you can't ignore socialist realism architecture in post-communist countries. So often, buildings in this style stick out incongruously, making it hard for the viewer to decide if it is aesthetically pleasing or not. Therefore, it's a good thing that a talented photographer has done us the favor of making these kinds of buildings seen in the most flattering ways possible.

I love these photographs. They are taken by Hertha Hurnaus, a photographer who is creative and has a definite artistic eye. The pictures make me feel more generously about a style that I often dislike but because where I live, I spend a lot of time around.

There is also the Eastmodern website that has pictures in its gallery section. www.eastmodern.com

That's right, this is Christ's life and gospels portrayed as if it were for a special millenial edition of Vogue. Quick summary: lots of dramatic stills of beautiful, androgenous, young adults playing the roles of Christ, Mary, the Apostles, Judas, etc. in contemporary settings like a garage (aka, the manger) or a ghetto in the USA.

Even if you are staunchly anti-christian, the images have their own evocative appeal. Re-envisioning the monopoly of renaissance icongraphy into contemporary media and form is an interesting premise (which the book jacket alludes to) but the images smack too much of hipsterism and model-pretty allure to stand as a serious enough retelling of an old story. It does, however, reinvigorate and loosen the stodgy fixity that bibil ical references often have for many folks. (I realize these last two sentences may sound a bit at odds with each other but the book does bring up contradictory feelings). The book may bring up questions of blashpemy but I think the textual support helps substantiate the photographs which otherwise would appear as mere stylizations passing for something more meaningful. There's quite a bit of frontal nudity which may offend many Christians and prudes but as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, and I only paraphrase, "For what does a person who has never experienced temptation really know?".

Like Renaissance artists who transposed the Jesus-story to Florence, the famous French Photographer Bettina Rheims (* December 18, 1952, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, descendant of Amschel Moses Rothschild) and Serge Bramly (* January 31, 1949, Tunisia, now french philosopher and scientist of art history) tried to ignore the visual traditions, largely that of the Renaissance, willing to create a new modern iconography by turning the subject to photography. A little bit irritating, because the project is fluctuating between serious art and stylistic kitsch, influenced by quotations of art-history and, on the other hand, influenced by modern advertising camerawork. Illustrating the 'Xmas-scene in the stable to Bethlehem they try an optical translation into our present: Jesus is born in the location of an automobile repair workshop illuminated by the pair of headlights of a small transporter van. Instead of a donkey a cat watches the birth, mother Maria sits easily dressed not on straw but on a cement bag, in place of shepherds some garage-mechanics hurried in, who present daisy-flowers to Mary, taking care not to stamp into the puddles of oil on the floor. Of course it is an impressive, strange attack on our figurative conception traditions, which can be forgotten not easily. We see the naked-dancing Salome with the bloody head of the Johannes on the tray; we see Mary Magdalene with legs spread, breasts exposed and stiletto heels; we see locations in the Hospital Cochin, others on the isle Mallorca - and after all (or at first?) we are shocked by Jesus hanging on the cross as a naked young woman, clad only in a loincloth - seen on the book cover; but if you are looking inside, you will notice, that the woman is crucified on the left cross of three, the middle-cross is empty, on the right side you will notice a man. But please consider: Jesus' crucifixion is a symbol for every human being, women inclusive. Nevertheless it provoked just enough outrage in Europe. However I think this project shows an acceptable way of searching for a new kind of modern iconography. Between all infuriated sacrilege-sensitive souls of the political correctness-wing you can find some amusing stories of art-reception: The models, actors and musicians, posing for the great last evening diner-scene - they a few weeks later established a music group with the name "12 Apostles". Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly linked gravity and irony, majesty and triviality - maybe this is the sort of esprit, which can only prosper in France ...

The cover of this book will make some outraged at first but I strongly recommend they read the text and then view the photos again. Unlike some photographers who use modern religious images to purposely provoke Christians this book is provocative yet very respectful of religion. The ancient telling of Christs life is beautifully shown in the setting of today with thought provoking images ranging from angels to his birth.Good view.