Essential art history texts for budding historians

On September 29, TimesOnline (UK) ran a list of art history texts considered basic needs for students of the discipline -- without comment. Obviously, they are awaiting those, which should make future reading interesting.

Oddly enough, a title in the list was a feataure of my childhood -- the Vitruvius study of architecture. I see that the text is now available online,at the Perseus site, but what I pored over for many hours was the wonderful illustrations.

From Berger's Ways of Seeing

Baxandall, Michael, Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy : a primer in the social history of pictorial style, Oxford University Press,1988

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Books Ltd, 1990

Burke, Peter, The Renaissance, Macmillan, 1997

Clark, T.J., Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism, Yale University Press, c1999

Collings, Matthew, This Is Modern Art, Phoenix, 2000

Fernie, Eric, Art history and its methods : a critical anthology, Phaidon,1995

Gombrich, Ernst, The story of art, Phaidon, 1995

Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, Art in theory, 1815-1900 : an anthology of changing ideas, Blackwell, 1998 & Art in theory, 1900-2000 : an anthology of changing ideas, Blackwell, 2003

Honour, Hugh & Fleming, John A., World History of Art, 2002, Laurence King Publishing 2005 (7th ed.)

Panofsky, Erwin, Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art (1939); Meaning in the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books

Pointon, Marcia, History of art : a students' handbook, Routledge, 1994

Preziosi, Donald, The art of art history : a critical anthology, Oxford University Press, 1998

Nelson, Robert and Schiff, Richard, Critical terms for art history, University of Chicago Press, 2003

Harris, Jonathan, The new art history : a critical introduction, Routledge,2001

Rubin, Patricia Lee, Giorgio Vasari : art and history, Yale UniversityPress, c1995

Sylvester, David, Interviews with Francis Bacon, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1987; About Modern Art: Critical Essays 1948-2000, Pimlico, 2002

Tavernor, Robert, Palladio and Palladianism, Thames and Hudson, c1991

Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Artists, A selection, translated by George Bull, Penguin Books, 1987

Vitruvius, Marcus, Ten Books on Architecture, Harvard University Press, 1914

Watkin, David, A History of Western Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, 2005

Welch, Evelyn, Art in Renaissance Italy, 1350-1500, Oxford University Press, 2000

Read More

1:21 PM | 0 comments

Australia to charge royalty on art resales

Oh boy, I am getting further and further away from posting about words, publishing, more words, and books -- but this is really mind-bendingly wonderful. In Australia, artists are to get royalties on their works!

Australia's federal government has proposed a five per cent royalty on the resale of visual art to benefit the original artist who created the work.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett announced the new scheme Friday, after a meeting with state and territory arts ministers in Alice Springs. "By enshrining in law the right of artists and their heirs to receive a benefit from the secondary sale of their work, we are building an environment where the talent and creativity of visual artists receives greater reward," Garrett said.

The royalty would help struggling artists make a living from their work and also would help their heirs, he said. It would apply to works by living artists sold for more than $1,000 and would continue to be collected for a period of up to 70 years after their death.

"We have designed the scheme in such a way that we are providing a copyright for visual artists and their heirs and successors," Garrett said. Artists will have that right for their lifetime plus 70 years, consistent with copyright under the Berne Convention.

The law, which could be passed by the Australian Parliament by the end of the year, is expected to be particularly helpful to struggling Aboriginal artists, who were invisible until the corporate rich suddenly realized that Aboriginal art looked really great on pearl luster walls. Many outback painters live in poverty and are willing to sell their works for low prices. But international demand for work by Aboriginal artists has led to a hot market for their work, which benefits dealers and auctioneers.

"Warlugulong 1977," a distinctive work by late indigenous artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (pictured above), set a new record for Australian Aboriginal art sales last year. The large canvas blending ceremonial ground paintings and European-style maps was sold to the National Gallery of Australia for $2.4 million Australian. A dealer had bought the work for just $2,500. Tjapaltjarri died in 2002.

Garrett compared the resale royalty for visual artists to the royalties earned by other creators, such as authors and music composers. Arts Law Centre Australia executive director Robyn Ayres called the deal "very significant for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists.""It's a recognition of a right that has been recognized overseas in some countries for many years."

Unfortunately, as the scheme is administratively complex, it could be some time before artists see any money.

Read More

9:32 PM | 0 comments

Puns, at a time when humor is necessary

According to Ed Baker, publisher of Yachting magazine, people with mere money are having problems with the meltdown in the market, but people with wealth couldn't care less. Marianne Richards, who manages super-yachts in the Antibes, says, "There might be a tiny bit of 'Oops, my shares have just dropped, I shouldn't.'" But people with real money get over it fast. "They might feel a bit guilty and say, 'I can't buy that today, I'll see what the stockmarket does' - but they'll call the next day."

And what do they call for? According to an article in the Guardian, written by Angelique Chrisafis, and repeated in today's Auckland Sunday Star-Times, people are buying super-super-super yachts like never before. While Capitol Hill, not to mention most of the world, was panicking about sub-primes and the credit crunch, last weekend's Monaco Yacht Show proved that the mega-rich have never been richer. Some of the floating palaces they have been buying resemble cruise liners -- cruise liners costing up to $400 million, equipped like fortresses, because the prospect of piracy is almost as worrying for these merchant barons as the possibility of foreclosure is for ordinary people.

All we ordinary people can do is shake our heads and laugh, just as the human race has been doing for perhaps 700 million years. And here is a sampling of what is flying about the internet, leavened with puns:

From the City of London:
"What is the difference between a pigeon and a merchant banker?"
"A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Ferrari."

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago they would now be worth £4.95; with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50; £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5; but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

The puns come from the Japanese banking industry:

In the last 7 days Origami Bank has folded.
Sumo Bank has gone belly up.
Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.
Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.
Samurai Bank is soldiering on following sharp cutbacks whilst Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black.
Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal

Read More

5:17 PM | 0 comments

Word of the day -- MAVERICK

MAVERICK is a word bandied about a lot. At first glance (or hearing), I was irresistibly reminded of the TV series, a favorite more years ago than I care to count. But, like a number of commentators to various New York Times political blogs, I thought it would be interesting to explore the word.

My Concise Oxford dictionary tells me it is an "unbranded calf or yearling; masterless person, rover; stray."

"Masterless person" doesn't seem quite the right definition for the way the word has been used in speeches, comments, and debates, of late, so I turned to my "Standard Desk" American dictionary, courtesy Funk & Wagnall. This entry proved rather more informative: "1. U.S. An unbranded or orphaned animal, as a calf, traditionally belonging to the first person to claim or brand it. 2. U.S. Informal One who is unorthodox in his ideas, attitudes, etc. [after Samuel A Maverick, 1803-70. Texas lawyer who did not brand his cattle.]"

Well, shucks, it sure is fascinating to learn that the word "maverick" derives from the name of a lawyer who refused to follow the law. But how does this relate to the use of the word today? And, in the real world of the western cowboy, what does it really mean?

I found someone who speaks from experience in a comment posted on one of the NYT blogs. Royce Williams elaborated on the term in intriguingly ominous terms, saying: "Out here in the West, a maverick is an unbranded range bull. You can't trust them; can't turn your back on them, even for a second. And they are not afraid of the horse you are riding. You bring in a bull to improve genetics in the herd, and the maverick will kill it."

An image that's a long, long way from the lovable footloose gambler played by James Garner in the first TV series. My, how a word can change.

Read More

2:05 PM | 0 comments

Nobel prize for literature -- US books too insular to qualify

Any American who is hoping to find his or her name in the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature next week had better brace herself (or himself) for a big disappointment.

Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which administers the award, has declared that the literature scene in the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with the European equivalent. "Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world," he informed The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Asked for elaboration, he said that American writers were "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture ... The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining."

Naturally, there has been an outburst of affronted reactions. Harold Augenbaum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he would rather like to send Engdahl a reading list of American literature.

Not a bad idea. Wasn't John Steinbeck a Nobel Prize-winner?

GalleyCat has been running a competition recently asking people to submit the names of books that have destroyed budding relationships. I've toyed with the idea of running something similar myself, asking people to submit the titles of books they consider altered their lives -- made something within themselves adjust. My own list would include quite a few U.S. greats, including Steinbeck. Others would be Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird. And of course, Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville.

Other suggestions welcomed. European books included, of course.

Read More

3:09 PM | 0 comments

Political books

Can one predict political outcomes by looking at book sales?
Probably not, but it is amusing to look at the ratings of books penned by or about current candidates, and see how they are doing.

Kaylene Johnson, author of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down, must be delighted with her unexpected success of her subject, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, lauded by Fox News as "a politician of eye-popping integrity." Sarah is currently ranked 171 on the amazon.com list.

Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has a book out called Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. He has a longer tale to tell, a reader finding the book "one of the best ... eye-witness accounts of the most significant events of the past thirty-five years." The book is ranked 16,584, which might augur badly for the debate (9 pm Eastern Time, October 2).

So how are the presidential candidates doing? Both have two memoirs on sale.

John McCain's Faith of My Fathers stands at 1890, while Why Courage Matters is ranked 2639.

Barack Obama has a pen with popular appeal: Dreams from my Father is ranked 210, while Audacity of Hope is standing at 120.

Read More

3:27 PM | 0 comments

Had a manuscript rejected lately?

Been rejected by Academy Chicago?

Poets & Writers, the largest non-profit organization to serve creative writers in the United States, reports that a bookkeeper employed by the 33-year-old independent publisher has been sending back submissions off her own bat, without bothering to go through the proper process. She has no editing or manuscript assessment skills, and her motives are an unsolved mystery.

Jordan Miller, co-founder of Academy Chicago, said authors whose work is promising enough to warrant rewriting normally get a handwritten letter, while writers whose work isn't suitable get a printed form with handwritten messages filling certain blanks. The bookkeeper simply sent in the printed form, with no annotations. As he remarked, it was a coldblooded sort of communication. Aspiring authors who had received an unpersonalized rejection are urged to re-submit their work.
http://pw.org/content/bookkeeper_bungle_indie_publisher_recalls_errant_rejection_letters

Read More

3:12 PM | 0 comments