Art Technique Books

I've received and read the book, and enjoy the content. However, compared to many other books in the marketplace, I'm having a hard time comprehending where there is over $100 worth of value. It seems that everytime something is written by an academic and presented as a textbook, regardless of the content or quality, that the price is jacked up by 3 to 4 times what it is really worth. I'd suggest looking for a used version of this book unless you really want a pristine copy to show off to others.

This book is pretty comprehensive. I am using it for a basic photography class. It covers a lot of subjects, but none in great detail. The newer versions actually covers a bit of digital photography as well.

This was a required text for my Photography 101 class and well worth the price ($20 less here than at the college book store). This book covers all the basics of photography tog et you started and the information is clearly illustrated by accompanying photos. This will be one I'll definitely be keeping as a reference.

textbook needed for photography class. Its new and arrived on time. One can also be satisfied with the older edition of the book- especially for a beginner.

This is the book! If you are studying for the CPP test this is the one. It is comprehensive to a fault. The explanations of photo concepts are complete and easy to understand. The only problem is that the book is so big that it is falling apart. Wish me luck on the test!

I had to give this book 5 stars if only for the photos. This is a visually stunning book, especially from a photographer's perspective. The author tells you how he achieved each photograph both technically and asthetically (he explains why this makes a good photograph). He really teaches you by showing you and does not assume you know a lot about photography, which is perfect for me. He also gives you extensive lessons on using Photo Shop to enhance or even completely alter your photographs.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in getting the most out of their camera and learning some digital editing skills.

I had seen this book's pictures and notes on the photos it has before I bought it, now Im happy to find out that this guy writes very well and clear. The book is based on desing principles and theory more than other things. It helps the photographer to have a better idea of why and how images work and how they impact. The book its packed with info on all pages.

I highly recomend it

Great book! Loved the simplicity and extremely educative for novice photographers like me. Loved the clean and crisp language, very well composed book, just like the concepts it talks about.

Love it!

This is an instructional book that makes no pretense of being the last or only word on the subject. The author does a good job of illustrating the techniques and values involved in creating good photography according to established practice. At the same time you are reminded that the subject is artistry and that no rules exist.

What I like most about the book, even more than the attractive layout, is the clear relationship between the written descriptions of ideas and the examples shown. I've been an amateur photographer for decades and have "learned" most of the concepts in the past but I find this book a fresh look with new ways of viewing most of the basics upon which good pictures are made.

This was a great read for anyone interested in what makes powerful pictures. This is an organized discussion on the elements that make people take interest in a photo.

There is very little discussion of the technical aspects of photography and no discussion of megapixels or anything like that.

Hi,
I purchased this book for my 17 years young son who is preparing for design institute's entrance test. After going through the book I can surely say, " anyone who wants to learn Drawing must first read this book from cover to cover".
As this book rightly says " seeing is more difficult then drawing" and the book also teaches you how to observe.
I suggest this book for anyone who wants to learn drawing.

I purchased this book for my daughter, who is at art school. It is her required textbook and she uses it in unison with a companion workbook-also by Betty Edwards. We found the books on Amazon and the money that we saved was remarkable. My daughter enjoys the Edwards approach to art instruction and the workbook has also been a tremendous help. The workbook was not required, but I purchased it for her based on the positive reviews that I found on Amazon-with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. We are both very pleased and I highly reccomend both/all books by Betty Edwards/Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, etc.,.

This book does an excellent job at one thing only: it explains how to shift from drawing what you think you see to drawing what you see. And it does that well, providing some helpful practice exercises. As such, I recommend this book to beginners who want to draw well but who feel stuck at the third-grade level.

But for anyone who's gotten past that hurdle, I would avoid this book. The cover is telling. It features a drawing made by Edwards herself. It's realistic, but it has no life, no passion. It invites no curiosity or feeling. It's dead, and aesthetically unappealing as well.

The reason becomes clear as you read the book: Edwards advocates drawing only what you see. Edwards claims that you don't need to understand the rules of perspective, or know much about anatomy. You just switch off the part of your mind that interprets what the eye sees, and mindlessly copy the optical patterns, like tracing a photograph. But great artists do the opposite. They look for the essence of the subject and try to represent that essence artfully. Great artists achieve feeling in their work by controlling, shaping, emphasizing, composing, exaggerating, minimizing, focusing, balancing, etc. -- all skills that are beyond Edwards' aspirations.

The new edition provides a good, lengthy explanation of how to represent shape and lighting via shading. But her inclusion of this material serves to highlight her inconsistency in excluding the topic of perspective. If understanding the rules of shading helps you better interpret what you're seeing and better render what you want to show, then why wouldn't understanding the rules of perspective do the same?

If you don't understand perspective, you can't adjust the angle of a building to suit the composition better. You certainly can't invent imaginary worlds.

Edwards' use of the left-brain/right-brain paradigm strikes me as irrelevant, unproven, and inconsistent. As other reviewers have noted, it adds nothing to the usefulness of the book.

It's ironic, but the book leads me to suspect that the right brain is actually the problem, not the cure. It seems that our minds automatically and unconsciously process raw visual information, and present to our conscious mind an interpretation of what we're seeing. For example, when we see one similar object appear smaller than the other, in conjunction with other cues, we believe it's farther away. For the beginning artist, the problem is bypassing the interpretation (we know that both objects are the same size) and rendering on paper the raw visual image (the farther object appears smaller). It may actually be the right brain that performs this unwanted visual interpretation that the practiced artist learns to bypass, and the dishonored left brain that can see past the interpretation!

I agree with the author on most points, but she wastes too much time indoctrinating converts with her nifty science of brain processing.

I'm impatient with authors who inflate and bloat their books to reach a specific page count publishers prefer. The essential information gets buried in the unnecessary noise. Make it lean and mean and use the extra pages for a coloring book of the book's salient points.

I decided that I wanted to try to learn how to draw again. Years ago I picked up a couple of "learn to draw books" and was then convinced that you had to be "born with it" to draw. I recieved this book and the exercises convinced me that I could learn to draw. No one had talked about a "picture plane" before and I never experienced it before. I learn better with instruction, and this book gave me the confidence to enroll in an introductory class at SCAD. The instructor, Thomas Key, was absolutely great, and I have been drawing a picture a day ever since, even if it is just, "an apple a day". If it were not for this book I would have never enrolled in a drawing class. It opened my eyes to a new way of looking at things.

Okay, this is seriously one of the most brilliant books I have ever read, and I have Henry (who is also brilliant) to thank for introducing this to me. (Thank you, Henry.) Although this book has been around since '93, I suspect it's nowhere near as recognized as it deserves to be, but with time that will change, I hope.

The full title is "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art," and what Scott McCloud does is explain what we take almost completely for granted, not just about comics, which he convincingly raises to a fine art, but also about the way we 'see,' and think we see, the world around us, especially as it is represented in words and images.

It's an important book because he talks in deceptively simple terms about how we perceive reality. McCloud shows the reader, through the seemingly "childish" mechanism of comics, how we think about what we perceive. Therefore, it's an epistemological text, and those are always of tremendous interest to me. It's also a book about how creativity works, and that's a central theme to my research. I've spent most of my adult life dealing with 90% of what he encapsulates in 215 densely packed (and highly entertaining) pages. Did I mention that the entire work is written in the form of a comic book? No? Well, it is.

It purports to be about comics, but that is only the tip of the philosophical iceberg. It's a study of how to think about words and images, and how we have come to use them, not just in Western society, but also in the East. He calls this the "invisible art," the effect of the combination of words and pictures, and if you read this, you'll get a much better understanding of the term "closure," which is the phenomenon of what the brain does when interpreting the gaps between words and pictures (in comics, this gap is represented visually by the space between each frame of words and images). We make up a story in our minds to close this gap, and it's a crucial piece of the story-telling process, this 'silence' that leads the reader to decide what really happens.

Scott McCloud combines semiotics (the discussion of the meaning of signs and signifiers), art history, rhetorical analysis (why it's so brilliant), cognitive and neurological research (another reason it's so brilliant), with an analysis of art and literature's influence on human social dynamics. The synthesis he reaches makes the invisible, visible, and will help the reader understand how comics evolved and where they come from. Hopefully, it will give the reader a new appreciation for the comics art form.

I have studied the theory behind virtually every aspect of what he's talking about, except comics, and so I know the sources he's relying on to get to the information he's condensed for the reader, and I also know you won't like those sources, but you will like this book because it's accessible in a way semiotics, rhetorical analysis, and the finer points of art history, are not. But if you read this book, that's part of what you'll be reading, and you'll be glad you did.

You don't wanna miss this lesson guys. Mccloud just forgo himself. A must-have book for all comic readers.

This is an important book that everyone should read. I would give it twenty stars if I could.

I've long been interested in both art and comic books (I have collected them for over 50 years). While the library shelves are full of wonderful books that explain what traditional artists are trying to do and why they succeed, I've often found the books to be pretty boring. In recent years, such books have gotten bogged down into abstruse language that is much less appealing than the art which is the subject.

But in those years, I've never seen anything that was very helpful in discussing the rules of comic art, except some books about pop art when that was popular that examined how the pop art was different from comic art. Naturally, I was blown away when I found that Understanding Comics is a far more comprehensive, thoughtful, and accessible book about interaction with art than I have ever read. Although the subject is ostensibly comic strips and comic books, it's clear to me that that Mr. McCloud has a deep and powerful understanding of all art. Some of his conceptual displays of where different forms of art fall in different dimensions of choice (degree of realism, abstraction, and message) are unbelievably powerful.

I hope that some art historian will stumble on this book and recast the history of art to explain and relate different styles to one another using this book's methods. There would be a lot more art lovers if that were the case.

Ultimately, the book's main benefit is to help the reader appreciate that comic art can be a higher and more effective form of art than either pure images or written words by requiring a mastery of more elements . . . elements that are more powerful in grabbing attention and conveying meaning.

Yet the book stays in humble form, a comic book. The powerful ideas sneak up on you as Mr. McCloud deconstructs the elements of comic art expression into chapters on defining what kind of art comics are ("sequential art" for short); explaining where various comics fall on the spectrum of reality, story, and abstraction; the way we fill in the spaces around the lines and between panels with our minds, allowing us to participate in creating the story and the experience; how time is expressed in various ways; the role of lines in creating our understanding and responses; how words and images can interact; a conceptual look at creating comic art; the effect of color; and a synthesis of the book in historical and conceptual terms.

If you want to enjoy both traditional art and comic art more, read this book. It's the Rosetta stone for non-artists in appreciating the images, stories, and messages that artists want to share with us through these media. You'll never be the same . . . and the change will be good for you!

Bravo, Mr. McCloud!

This is the type of book that looks at a genre and sees it's roots clearly in the basic structure of art and human perception. This is not a book about costumes and secret identities, but about how comics use the basic human archetypes and symbolic language to speak to us in metaphor. THIS BOOK WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO APPRECIATE ART, NOT JUST COMICS. Every art student should have this in their library.

As previous reviewers have mentioned, Scott McCloud is passionate about comics; part of the purpose of writing the book, it seems is to justify the argument that comics are indeed art. I found this a moot point, although his evidence was interesting. Another reason behind the book, it seems, is to explain the message behind comics: the epistomological leaps we take when we read them, the artisitic decisions made when they are created, and the evolution the art form has taken. This was not only the strongest and most interesting part of the book, but also much less preachy.

I enjoy comics, from 19th century broadsheets to the Sunday funnies and the occasional graphic novel. Until now, however, I never really thought about the conscientious decisions the artist makes between realism and meaning when drawing them. Similarly, I had never critically thought about the fundamental differences between Asian (especially Manga) comics and Western comics. McCloud has shed much light on these topics, and explains these differences and decisions clearly, without pretense.

Avid readers of comics, aspiring comic artists and purists may find McCloud a bit pedantic - for the novice such as myself, I was fascinated, as a whole new world has been opened to me through his explaination. Why the four stars then? I took a star for his argument about comics as "art". I suppose there are those who believe comics are not art (or are "low" art at the most); while I disagree with this (and side with McCloud), I thought the argument was out of place, and ultimately moot. Still, a recommended read.

I have found the Amazon reviews to be very useful most recently in selecting books and other items, so I felt obligated to try to write something about this book that has not already been said. Mr. Busch starts out by stating that his book is additive to the very extensive manual in that it not only will describe all the functions but how you should use them, when and why. To some degree he partially succeeded for some functions but not without providing the following stumbling blocks:
(1) Instead of taking a subject and completing it fully in one place with pictures that are easily seen on the same page, he defers to describing something later in another chapter....which then refers to another chapter.....(and in at least one case the reference was entirely wrong.) In other cases the circular reference gets you back to the starting point without all the necessary information. I am talking about big subjects like focusing, exposure, bracketing. Even though it appears that there is a portion of a chapter related, it takes bouncing around from one place to another to get it all.
(2) There are not only multiple typos but there are outright errors that will throw anybody off the track. When someone takes the time to read these books it would seem the auther and/or publisher would welcome corrections.

(3) What irks me more than anything is the arrogance of the author and publisher in sending this book in our direction without any means of us to notify anybody of substantive errors, typos, suggestions and yes, even quesions. .....whatever. There is no address for finding David Busch. His blog does not allow comments from us commoners as far as I can tell and there is no way for us to get an errata sheet showing any subsequent corrections. I wrote every company listed in the book as being responsible for the publishing and printing of the book and received no answer in over 2 months. It doesn't have to be this way. There is are publishers that not only provides a website to update any book, but admonishes its customers to go to the website before starting. The also provide a continuous errata sheet so that the book remains useful.
In the future, I will try to avoid books in which a customer service contact is not provided for the purpose of corrections, suggestions, questions, etc.

Great book; I read every page and am now a better user of my new D300.

IF your buying a D300, I'd spring for Dave's book and just forget reading the manual inlcuded with the camera. The book is sooo much easier to read and follow. The nice color images of all the menus, settings, and examples(these are most useful) help accent the knowledgeable text. The price is well worth it (it's only $20 thruough amazon). Highly recommended.

I pay heavy attention to negative reviews before buying a book. I read the 3 negative reviews of this book, bought it anyway, and am glad I did. If you are considering buying a D300, just do it - it's a great camera. And if you buy a D300, this book is the best out there for getting you up to speed fast. The other books/video previews I've seen are a rehash of the manual. This book doesn't just tell you what a setting does, it tells you why and when you should use it. It also provides a number of different configurations for different shooting settings (studio vs. sports, etc.) - invaluable.

For the negative reviewer who whined and moaned that the author mentions a subject briefly and then mentions he'll talk about it in greater detail in another chapter? Dude, it's a literary device called a "cross reference". I'm not sure why your panties in a wad, but get over it, for Pete's sake. The other whines, moans and gripes I read are equally invalid and anal.

This is a great book - D300 owners should not hesitate to buy it.

Excellent book to supplement the instruction manual that is supplied by Nikon for the D 300.

This is an interesting book, filled with beatiful photos and first hand explanations of how they were taken. It is well written and interesting reading for any photographer. However the photographer used a small truck load of lighting equipment for almost every shot, so it is not of much instructional use to a photographer who does not posses, or is willing to rent, an almost unlimited amount of flash lighting equipment for every photographic session.

This book has a very simple layout, a picture on the right side and a description of the shot on the left. While it doesn't provide a high level of detail, it does demonstrate the wide range of challenges the author faced getting the pictures completed. Sometimes the challenges are technical, sometimes it is working with models and sometimes he is just lucky. It is not a step by step lighting book, but it is an excellent resource for seeing how an expert dealt with all types of problems to get an excellent image.

Initially I dismissed this book but its grown on me. Like other reviewers I felt the title was misleading "Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters"
Now that I've say down and started reading it. Its now one of my favourite books.

Especially as I am into strobist blog and use Nikon speedlights. There is another Joe McNally book on the way "The Hot Shoe Diaries" and I will certainly be pre ordering it. If its anything like as informative as Dave Hobbies DVD Set.(Honestly once you've seen this DVD everything about off camera lighting just clicks together. Its mind blowing) I'll be very pleased.

Education, entertainment and impressive imagery. Joe educates us with lots of advice and by giving us explanations of how he created some of the images in the book. He entertains us with war stories from his career and he certainly impresses us with his imagery. One could easily imagine this book as a PowerPoint presentation. For each two-page spread we get a bullet item that relates some advice, an image to demonstrate this advice and the story behind the image. For some images we also get a fuller explanation of some aspect of photography (i.e. lighting) that pertains to the creation of the image.

This book is not a substitute for a book focusing solely on lighting or one on composition, exposure, the use of color or the like. It is also not a business practice manual. It's light on all of these but inhabits the tough middle area where it has some value in all of these and other areas. I did come away with the realization that the work to create the images in this book was usually more laborious than Joe let on as he made it look easy. I attribute this to Joe's talent and experience and that for him it would indeed be much easier to do this than if we tried this ourselves in the real world. I'm okay with that as this book doesn't pretend to be a thick textbook book on some aspect of photography or a detailed autobiography. In all, it was an entertaining, educational and inspiring read.

This book became one of my favorite all time photography books from the moment I picked it up!

Joe McNally is truly a legend. This book showcases some of his greatest work, and on the page opposite each photo he tells a story to go with it. He also gives the most basic description of the technical side of the lighting.

If you are looking for highly technical step by step detailed instructions on how to reproduce each photo,this book is not for you. You have to have a firm grasp on the technical side of photography, especially lighting, before you can appreciate this book. But if you are already lighting like a pro, this book can help you see how a "superstar" pro would have taken the shot. More than step by step instructions, this book gives you insight into Joe McNally's career and how he achieves the photos that are truly a step above the rest of us.

The biggest thing I got from this book is inspiration to think outside the box and go for the real wow photo instead of being satisfied with good. I loved the funny stories revealing how he talked subjects into letting him get the shot he wanted as well as the stories on solving technical problems on the fly with less than conventional methods.

And the pictures are amazing. I have flipped through this book over and over, studying the technical aspects and soaking up the inspiration.

I highly recommend this book for any professional wanting inspiration and a little guidance on how to step up their work a bit!

This is the only book on screenwriting I have read thus far, and, frankly, it would take a lot for me to read another. I have gained invaluable understanding of the screenwriting process with this book. I reference it continuously and am not disappointed. I find McKee's advice to be straight forward, easy to understand, and adapt.

I'm sorry but I find it almost insulting that someone would stand up on an orange box and preach about a subject that he knows NOTHING about. To me that's the definition of a scam artist.

I have dozens upon dozens of screenwriting books and most of them are mediocre at best. The problem: Most are also written by people who haven't sold anything! How do these publishing companies keep allowing these non-screenwriters to publish books about screenwriting?

Ask yourself this: If you are trying to put together a model airplane, would you read the instructions by someone who has never done it before? If you were trying to rebuild a carburetor, would you read the book by the dude who knows nothing about cars or carburetors?

No, you wouldn't! (I hope.)

After wasting so much money on these wannabe snakeoil salesmen who are selling books about writing and yet have never sold anything, I've learned to stick with ONLY those who have been successful. After all, many of us who are aspiring to make it as writers don't want to read about other wannabe's 'theories' on how to make it as a writer, do we?

I've found two successful screenwriters who are worth reading: Blake Snyder and Cynthia Whitcomb. Their books are exceptional and worth reading several times over.

My advice: Instead of wasting your time reading books by people who TEACH and DON'T DO, find books only by people who have actually done it and are successful. Why read anything else? Doesn't make sense, does it?

Regarding Robert McKee, the guy hasn't 'done it' so why bother with him to begin with? If his 'theories' are so fabulous then why hasn't he been successful? Theories sound nice on paper but unless they are workable and something you can actually be successful with, they're worthless.

I just feel sorry for all the people who have been duped by McKee and who think the guy knows what he's talking about. Being that blinded could easily set your career back a decade or more. Beware of the snakeoil salesman. He can make you believe you are on the right track when really you are wasting a ton of time.

Fantastic content and narrative! McGee's book is awesome however the Audio CD really brings it all to life. Candidly, I'm surprised Robert is also so talented narrating the audio - this is a must-have purchase, even if you've already bought is book "Story".

Mckee's book is famous and hardly needs someone like me to review it. This is the bible of screenwriting. With that said, there are a lot of basics in here that advanced screenwriters always follow, but are beyond. It is a quick and interesting read that you will benefit from. After reading it, pick up the film Adaptation and laugh out loud.

I've read a lot of fiction help books, but most of them are geared at the mechanics and tricks of fiction. None of them, in my opinion, philosophically tackles the concept of story telling and how stories work. Instead, they give tips and techniques like "put in rising conflict" or "make your characters likeable"
In STORY, Rob McKee tells us, from a conceptual, historical & technical view, what story is, how it works and how to make it work. He writes with authority and depth. It is clear that the man has put a tremendous amount of thought into the subject and that he genuinely cares about good story telling.
I have gained a lot of insight from this book. Almost every paragraph has something to take away from it. I'd definitely recommend this book, to both prose and screen writers.

This book is very helpful at opening up ones mind to alternatives by asking questions. Not just a few questions, but question everything. Questioning leads to knowledge, and knowledge leads to wisdom.

Asking the right questions encourages a curious and open mind, analyzing issues from multiple viewpoints, thinking through questions and answers, doing needed investigation and intuitive and non-intuitive thinking. These key elements are the basis to sound critical thinking.

Asking the Right Questions has been around for many years and is still doing well. This says a lot for how many people have benefited from it. It is currently on the 8th edition. I read the 7th edition which came out in 2004. I liked the comment from the authors at the end of the preface which says they are constantly improving the book using advice and recommendations from students and others to make it better. Practicing what one preaches is an excellent sign of quality.


The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

did not come very quickly--wasn't even sent out until about 5 days after I placed the order. in very good condition though.

This has got to be hands down one of the best books I have ever read. I picked this up for a class I was taking and it really opened my eyes. People see the words "critical thinking" and assume it means something negative. This book teaches you how to use your brain to look at things from all angles and points of view so that you can make more informed choices and decisions!

This book is a must have for every rhetoric class! Easy to read and understand, best tool for a student.

I strongly agree with the author on pg 13, that "by the end of the book, you should know when and how to ask these questions productively (elaborated through individual chapters):-

1. What are the issues and the concclusions?
2. What are the ressons?
3. Which words or phrases are ambiguous?
4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions?
5. What are the descriptive assumptions?
6. Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
7. How good is the evidence?
8. Are there rival causes?
9. Are the statistics deceptive?
10. What significant information is omitted?
11. What reasonable conclusions are possible?

Of course, a compilation of good questions doesnt qualify it to be a good book. Indeed, the samples and stories well illustrate the principles and concepts behind. The discussions on various fallacies are marvelous, including:-

Ad hominem: An attack, or an insult, on the person, rather than directly addressing the person's reasons.
Slipperly Slope: Making the assumption that a proposed step will set off an uncontrollable chain of undesirable events, when procedures exist to prevent such a chain of events.
Hasty Generalization: A person draws a conclusion about a large group of based on experience with only a few members of the group.
Causal Oversimplification: Explaining an event by relying on causal factors that are insufficient to account for the event or by overemphasizing the role of one or more of these factors.
Confusion of Cause and Effect: Confusing the cause with the effect of an event or failing to recognise that the two events may be influencing each other.
Neglect of a common cause: Failure to recognize that two events may be related because of the effects of a common third factor.
Post hoc: Assuming that a particular event, B, is caused by another event, A, simply because B follows A in time.
............

In short, an excellent food for thought. Highly recommended!

p.s. I like the following story on pg 137 the most.

"After carefully conditioning a flea to jump out of a box following the presentation of a loud noise, the researcher removed the first pair of legs to see what effect this had. Observing that the flea was still able to perform his task, the scientist removed the second pair of legs. Once again noting no difference in performance, the researcher removed the final pair of legs and found that the jumping behaviour no longer occurred. Thus, the investigator wrote in his notebook, "When all the legs of a flea have been removed, it will no longer be able to hear."

Even though "Ways of Seeing" is a flawed book in many ways, it is so seminal in the development of post-modern image making that it must be considered essential reading in critical theory.

The book is based on a television series. The book itself is only 176 pages. The print is all in a bold, sans-serif font. The authors are quick to claim that the book was made, not written. The pictures used to demonstrate the points are small and in black and white.

The book is based on the theory that the interpretation of western art evolved out of the power and finance structure of western civilization. Inevitably books that describe the world primarily in economic terms, as an arena of conflict and a battle by the rich for dominance of the poor, are referred to by some as Marxist and I have no doubt this book has been so described.

The book has seven chapters, four of which are written and three of which are reproductions of art works without words. The theme developed is that the way people view art is strongly affected by the power structure of the society.

I must confess that the three chapters that were solely illustrated were difficult for me to engage, both because of the size of the images as well as the difficulty of following the thread which I felt ran through the pictures even though I was not able to decode the message.

The first chapter is based on and explicates the work of the critic Walter Benjamin in his essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". Unlike Benjamin, who sometimes seems torn between the loss of the aura of the original and the benefit of mass accessibility, Berger seems to believe that real benefits will derive from the reproduced work of art, if the viewer can sweep away the lenses of the past through which he might view the work.

The third chapter deals with the role of art in the commodification of women and the fifth chapter examines the role of oil painting in the reduction of people's world view to a matter of money. (Burger only excepts the work of a few artists, like Rembrandt, from this view.) The final chapter is based upon the use of images for marketing.

This work is important because, if it did not shape the outlook of post-modern art, it was at least in the vanguard of recognizing the roles of the art that preceded post-modernism, and led to the rejectionist point of view.

Berger is clear in emphasizing that the way we view art is filtered through the prism of culture in the sociological sense, although that certainly was not ground breaking in critical theory, even at the time of first publication. On the other hand, here was art criticism first presented on what was then a new media, television. Even the book format, such as using a bold-faced font throughout the book, appealed to the avant-garde.

Burger would substitute art, not as a tool to help preserve an economic and power system, but rather as a way for the consumer of art to enrich his own life.

I suspect that artists other then post-modernists may not benefit very much in their work from reading "Ways of Seeing". On the other hand, if you have a serious interest in critical theory, even though you may reject Berger's thesis, you must read this book.

Ways of Seeing is about looking at art, if you get right down to it. However, it is about looking at it from a political point of view, or a cultural point of view, or a gender point of view. He takes a few different actual art pieces and writes about each of them, taking this sort of thing into account.

This is a hot little book well worth contemplating if you're aspiring to become a serious artist. For the student, novice artist, seasoned practioner or curious artlover, your money will be well spent to have this on your shelf.

"Ways of Seeing " has become so universally available, so overused (especially in academia), and so often quoted, that it's refreshing to read the reviews of so many intelligent naysayers here. "Ways of Seeing" is perhaps mistitled in that it really proposes only one way of seeing works of art, which is as artifacts in the history of capitalism. It is propaganda, and like most propaganda, it heavily skews the evidence in favor of it's main argument, which is basically that European art from Raphael to Picasso is just a tool for enslaving women, non-Europeans and the working classes. (Warning: Berger is a real kill-joy. If you read this book and imbibe it's themes, be prepared to never innocently enjoy your favorite old masters again!) However, I would advise anyone with a serious interest in art criticism and theory to get a copy, fill the margins with notes, consult the original sources, and decide for herself/himself how well it stands up. To give just one instance of how sloppy Berger can be, I would invite the reader to consider whether he bothered to learn anything about the art of perspective drawing before indicting it as ideologically tainted, and then trashing it, all in two short paragraphs.

Dreck, dreck, dreck, dreck,dreck, dreck, dreck, dreck, dreck, dreck,more dreck, more dreck, more dreck, more dreck, more dreck, more dreck, more dreck, and more dreck, and more dreck, and more dreck . . . you get the idea?

This is a great tool to use for design and is a great reference book for work if you are a drafter too. The drawings are very clear, informative and precice. We love this book for our office.

This book is very good for designers, and you can learn many details of drawing from this book. Also, it was a very good price to buy it with Amazon (cheapest than other stores).

While Ching does cover some aspects of drawing outside of those needed for drafting, the primary focus is on architectural drafting. This is a technical book intended for design students. It is not a do-it-yourself learn-to-draw manual. Most often, this book will be a textbook in a design class. As such, it is excellent. The instructions are clear and well written, the drawings are simple and easy to follow, the flow of the book is natural, building from very simple to more and more complex drafting skills. This book can take you from elementary drafting skills to advanced if you use it as intended. All in all, this is an excellent book on design drawing. I highly recommend it for anyone entering the design field.

i purchased this book as required text for an upcoming class and got more than i bargained for...the book is informative, fascinating, and inspiring and i haven't been able to put it down...i am really looking forward to utilizing the book in the classroom setting to in order to explore some of the concepts presented, particularly those that are more elusive to grasp...because the book uses exercises to really cement in the main idea of each of its concepts, it is an invaluable learning tool...i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing a deeper understanding and appreciation of drawing and design.

Way too fast for learning to draw. Like most of Chings stuff it lacks narrative and aims at getting you to think visually. However first timers need a bit of narrative hand holding so I would suggest something else. Might be good for a 2nd book to help reinforce concepts visually after you already have some base confidence in the drawing.