About this Art Book section.
If you purchase the book from my links you will be supporting this site as we get a small percentage of each sale of someone clicking on the link for a book on this page. Eventually I hope to examine a wide number of art books, exhibition catalogs, art criticism and dvds. With each book I list will be a link to buy the book at Amazon.com.
Also, please consider supporting this site by whenever you wish to purchase any book at all from Amazon.com – if you first return to this page, click on any link to a book and put that book in your shopping cart and then add the book(s) you really want to your shopping cart. Then simply delete the book you initially clicked on from the shopping cart and in the same shopping session buy the books you want. We will still get a small percentage for referring you to Amazon.com. (Please note: the “affiliate sales” arrangement with Amazon has recently been restored – it was previously stopped by Amazon for California residents due to recent changes to California tax laws)
Thank you for considering this help. Any money I get will be used to help make this blog even better with more interviews, video interviews and time devoted to making this site a valuable resource to the perceptual painter.
*************************************************************************************************
Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Vol. 1-6)
I recently discovered this incredible online resource, Vincent van Gogh, The Letters, put together by scholars from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the complete translated 902 letters of Van Gogh along with over 4,300 illustrations – every work to which Van Gogh refers is reproduced. There are excellent search features that allow you to easily view the letters, artwork, notations, translations, etc by period, location and by correspondent.
Most of the letters were written to his brother Theo, but Vincent also wrote to other family members, including his sister Wilhelmina. He also wrote letters to several other artists, such as Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. The letters often show the evolutions of his ideas about painting, nature and literature.
Having a free online reference is perfect for many who can’t yet afford the physical book version, which has six volumes with a slipcase.
But if you do decide to spring for the hard copy, please consider buying it from this link Amazon.com
Buying this book from clicking this link to Amazon.com it will help support Painting Perceptions as Amazon will give us a small percentage of the sale. (The price of the book is the same either way) This money will help to expand this site to provide even greater articles, interviews, videos and other writings related to modern perceptual painting and more.)
From Amazon:
A massive work of scholarship as well as a visual delight. (Sunday Telegraph [UK] )
The greatest cache of writing about art left behind by any artist. Intense, relentless, gossipy, utterly fascinating. (The Sunday Times [London] )
The most important art publication of 2009, if not of the decade. (Financial Times )
This could be the best autobiography of an artist yet to appear anywhere. (The Economist )
With his words and visions united in all their blazing intensity, this momentous edition at last completes the palette of Vincent’s double art. (The Independent [UK] )
This edition is an immense treasure trove of biographical and art-historical information. The culmination of fifteen years of new research and superseding all previous editions in its ambition and up-to-date scholarship, it provides a lasting pleasure as a personal testimony to a life consecrated to art.
* Over 4,300 illustrations
* New transcriptions of every known letter to or from Van Gogh
* The complete collection: this edition includes all the letters, both in the Van Gogh Museum and those in other museums, archives and private collections
* New translations render Van Gogh’s words more closely than ever before – unadorned, unimproved, faithful and accurate
* Van Gogh’s sketches, made throughout the letters, are reproduced here at full size
* New material: previously unknown letters and fragments of letters are published in English here for the first time
* New scholarship: fifteen years of new research have added to scholars’ understanding of Van Gogh’s life and work. Extensive research has been carried out to identify every work of art mentioned, whether produced by Van Gogh or by other artists.
* Authoritative editing: many omissions and misreadings in previous editions have now been corrected. For the first time the letters are fully annotated.
* Supplementary texts add information about Van Gogh’s life, his family, his correspondents, his characteristics as a letter-writer and the context in which the letters were written. Also includes a comprehensive list of materials discussed in the letters, a chronology of his life and a full index
* Exemplary design: the typography and design is by Wim Crouwel, one of Holland’s most accomplished book designers of the last fifty years
*************************************************************************************************
Edwin Dickinson: A Critical History of His Paintings by John L. Ward
$65.00
Amazon.com
One of the few books currently available on Edwin Dickinson (1891-1978), Edwin Dickinson is one of American greatest painters who primarily worked from observation. This book gives first-rate scholarship to a painter who has been long overlooked by art historians. The essays are well researched and contain information gleaned from interviews and other period sources that are difficult to find elsewhere. Edwin Dickinson was also a great teacher and the book offer painters and art lovers many treasures of knowledge to learn from his teachings as well as new insight into his enigmatic paintings. This book, being primarily essays rather than a catalog of images, is the perfect companion to the Albright-Knox exhibition catalog, Edwin Dickinson: Dreams and Realities
from a few years ago.
Here is a sample image of the text in the book that discusses one of Dickinson’s major works, “The Cello Player” (pictured below)
*************************************************************************************************
In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-Air Painting by Philip Conisbee and others.
A great resource is In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-Air Painting by Philip Conisbee in learning about Corot and other early plein air painting done in Rome. Wonderful reproductions of lessor known 18th and 19th Century painters as well as Corot, who painted outdoor views in Italy to directly study Nature. Intelligent and insightful commentary, I’ve returned to this book many times for inspiration and ideas. Sadly, out of print but you can currently still get copies used on Amazon.com
From a blurb about the book:
Prominent art historians Philip Conisbee, Sarah Faunce, Jeremy Strick, Peter Galassi, and Vincent Pomarede discuss the cultural, theoretical, and art historical background of this school of outdoor painting. They examine the early history of open-air painting, its theory and practice, the sites of Rome and southern Italy that were painted, and the delicate balance that existed among realism, memory and imagination. A rich selection of representative paintings is discussed and reproduced. The book is the catalogue for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Saint Louis Art Museum
*************************************************************************************************
Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition
An essential and perhaps the definitive book on Corot’s outdoor paintings in Italy is Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition by Peter Galassi This book is also out of print but used copies are also currently available on Amazon.com
I have used my copy of this book as if it were part inspirational guide, part textbook over the years. Perhaps my most worn and valuable art book.
Here are what a couple of reviewers had to say about this book…
“Beautifully produced. . . . Galassi has assembled a formidable range of facts and new insights for this detailed examination of Corot’s first, and most important, visit to Italy in 1825-8. In doing so he has uncovered a wealth of illustrative material (much of it previously unpublished). . . . Galassi’s book deserves unrestrained praise. It probes far more deeply into Corot’s most impressive period than any previous study of the artist. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in landscape painting.”—Michael Clarke, Apollo Magazine
“Our view of nineteenth-century French painting may never be the same. . . . Corot in Italy is plentifully and beautifully illustrated, with many near-life-sized details that make Corot’s firm touch as evident as reproductions can. A delight to look at, Corot in Italy is also a delight to read—lucid, intelligent, and blissfully free of jargon, Galassi has a gift for the telling phrase and—a scarce commodity these days—clearheaded discussion. . . . Corot in Italy is on of the best, most absorbing new books on art I’ve come across in a long time.”—Karen Wilkin, New Criterion
*************************************************************************************************
Euan Uglow: The Complete Paintings from Amazon.com
Publisher’s blurb…
British artist Euan Uglow (1932–2000) maintained a lower profile than others of his generation, yet his beautiful, intelligent, humane, and often witty landscapes, still lifes, and figure studies are today gaining the recognition they so clearly deserve. Many critics and admirers now consider Uglow one of Britain’s greatest post-war artists.
This is the first book devoted to Uglow and his oeuvre. Richard Kendall’s essay explores Uglow’s fundamental attitudes, beliefs, and processes in the years 1950 to 1970, and Catherine Lampert looks at the content and personal nature of the artist’s paintings over a lifetime, emphasizing his growing attention to color and light. The volume reproduces every known oil painting by Uglow—a total of more than 400 works–some 80 of which are here reproduced for the first time. In addition to a chronology, bibliography, and exhibition history for each work, the catalogue entries provide many other details and illuminating notes, including the artist’s own observations.
*************************************************************************************************
Fairfield Porter
John T. Spike 1996
Spike’s Fairfield Porter is perhaps the best catalog in terms of great reproductions, number of works, and essays. Sadly it’s out of print and the prices are insane but is one of my most cherished art books.
John T. Spike’s Fairfield Porter from Amazon.com
*************************************************************************************************
Giorgio Morandi 1890-1964: Nothing Is More Abstract Than Reality
Publisher’s blurb:
This volume showcases 116 masterpieces arranged into the four major themes that characterize Giorgio Morandi’s work: self portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and flowers. The collection represents all the various expressive techniques used by Morandi over the years, including paint, etching, drawing and watercolor.The volume is the catalog of an outstanding exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and by the Museo d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. The exhibition will be open in New York from September 16 to December 14, 2008 and in Bologna from January 22 to April 12, 2009.The exhibition and the catalog also contain a number of photographs of Morandi’s studio and quotes from his admirers, as well as the memorable 1958 interview with Edouard Roditi.
*************************************************************************************************
*************************************************************************************************
Painting Perceptions was started in 2009 by Larry Groff to promote the ideas, practice and experience of painters working from observation in a modernist vein from around the world through interviews, essays, videos and community. It later evolved to include imagination-based and abstract painting as well.