This is a resource post. Please add comments describing any useful information about any art-related books you have enjoyed or found useful. Links to other online book resources are welcome, especially if you say a word or two about what is available at that resource. Links can also be to Art and Perception posts with relevant information. If the information is in a comment rather than the main post, please link to the comment, which can be done by copying the link under the comment date (or the name of the commenter from the sidebar comment section).
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Some interesting books relating to visual working space are listed in the penultimate paragraph of June Underwood’s post on Working Spaces. These include
Frank Stella: Working Space
Erle Loran: Cezanne’s Compositions
Lawrence Weschler on Robert Irwin: Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees
James Elkins: Why Art Cannot Be Taught
After seeing June’s mention of it, I picked up Frank Stella’s “Working Space,” the text of his 1983-84 Norton lectures at Harvard. It’s main theme is the “problem” of modern abstraction, identified by Stella as its failure to fully address and create three-dimensional space. He likens the situation to that of Renaissance painting before Caravaggio and Rubens, whose work he analyzes nicely in the context of their contemporaries. Some of his thinking was exactly echoed by Richard Serra (interviewed by Charlie Rose), who said that when he saw “Las Meninas” he understood that a painting could create a space that would apply not only within the painting, but would come out and include the viewer. Whether or not you agree with Stella’s diagnosis, the book is interesting for the insightful readings of a number of old and modern paintings. The final chapter describes Stella’s own work and the background of its creation. My favorite line: “I do not have a secret desire to put Donald Duck or naked women in my paintings, although I know they harbor a secret desire to be there.”
Steve,
Should we return to this post when we have books to recommend? It would be terrific if this or something like it on A and P were the central gathering place for books people mention.
I know you talked about doing something but I lost track of what it was you were suggesting.
Is there a way to make a data base inside the blog? On the old Ragged Cloth Yahoo list, we had an on-going data base, open to everyone for new entries, of recommended readings and I still go back to it occasionally. I haven’t figured out how to include it in the Ragged Cloth blog, however.
I just now picked up Peckham’s “Man’s Rage for Chaos” from the library. It looks formidable, but fun. I think I’ll read it back to front. I can’t remember who recommended it.
Yes, this is the place to add any book notes as comments — unless, of course, you’d like to do a post and have a bit of discussion about the book, which is highly encouraged (no need to wait for an assigned day). I added a link in the first sentence to the description of resource posts like this, but it will probably evolve. A database could be nice, but I don’t know how to set one up here. One main thing to make this more accessible is to put up a permanent link to the Resources page, probably in the tag line below the main Art and Perception title. Something like that should happen in the near future; meanwhile, comment away!
“The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing,” by art historian T.J. Clark, stems from a diary he kept during six months he spent at the Getty living with two Poussin paintings, “Landscape with a Calm” and “Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake.” It is over 200 pages of closely reading these paintings, not so much from an academic perspective as from a personal one as he lives with and reflects on these paintings. It is fascinating to learn about all aspects of the paintings, from the effects of different lighting to organization of space to details of brushstrokes to speculations on the sociology and psychology of people depicted. I confess I started skimming after the first quarter of the book or so, but I found it worthwhile nonetheless, and it is well illustrated with many details of the paintings discussed.
I just posted a review of The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity in my blog entry Blowing Your Mind on Art. The book gets a little technical, but I think it’s still a worthwhile read for people interested in just how important the creative impulse is to making us human, both intellectually and emotionally.
–Bob (ArtBlogByBob.blogspot.com)
Bob,
Thank you for the pointer to your fascinating review. I edited your comment slightly to make the link directly clickable. You have a ton of art history on your blog, I’m looking forward to lots of good reading.
…“Man’s Rage for Chaos” …It looks formidable, but fun. I think I’ll read it back to front. I can’t remember who recommended it.
I think I passed this one along from Brian Eno, who mentioned it when I heard him speak a couple of years ago. I’ve got it on my Amazon wish list, but haven’t read it yet. June, when you’ve finished it, let us know what you think.
I just reviewed an interesting book arguing that Gustave Courbet is the father of the self-marketing artist (http://artblogbybob.blogspot.com/2007/10/power-of-press.html). The ideas of playing to the marketplace and manipulating the media are as relevant now as they were then.
–Bob (ArtBlogByBob.blogspot.com)
Check out Art Blog By Bob for a chance to win a free copy of Abbeville Press’ Courbet, a $135 coffee table book on the great French rebel. Contest ends at midnight, Friday, July 11th, so don’t wait.
http://artblogbybob.blogspot.com/2008/07/most-arrogant-contest-in-blogging.html