Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze Norman Bryson Yale University Press, 1986             Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (Johns Hopkins Paperbacks)2 reviews Gotthold Ephraim Lessing The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984 The Godfather of Art Criticism + Artistic Portrayal of Time and Space If you are of the notion that the tide is turning in aesthetics once again, and you're right, then G.E. Lessing's seminal Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry is once again a necessary starting point. Edward A. McCormick has finally given English speaking academians a ...             Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (P.S.)3 reviews Leonard Shlain Harper Perennial, 2007 Art & Physics:Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light + Interesting Connections I thought this was a wonderful book. Tying the evolution of art to the evolution of thinking and science gave me a more holistic way to look at art. From the ancient Greeks through the Dark and Middle Ages, the Impressionists, and into modern times the parallels of physics to art are simply ...             Matisse And Picasso: The Story Of Their Rivalry And Friendship (Icon Editions)5 reviews Jack Flam Basic Books, 2004 Excellent Juxtoposition + Must read for Art lovers!!! + Lucid, Riviting Artist Stories + Esthetic in braid + Matisse and Picasso by Flam             Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation7 reviews E.H. Gombrich Phaidon Press, 2004 No one does it better + It will teach you understanding for the visual language + Art and Illusion review by artist/filmmaker + Fantastic book             A Handbook of Greek Art (Da Capo Paperback)1 review Gisela M Richter Phaidon Press, 1994 Reference Fantastique! Unbelievable, no one has reveiwed this text! I first used it in a Classical Studies course in highschool, but found it so helpful as a resource and quick reference that I was furious when someone walked off with it. Well written, nicely laid out, many illustrations, scholarly~ an all around ...             About Looking5 reviews John Berger Vintage, 1992 How little we appreciate visually + About Looking + Interesting Perspective + You gotta read this ! + Please read this book.             The Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Penguin Classics)7 reviews Vincent Van Gogh Penguin Classics, 1998 An Intimate Look + van Gogh: A Writer and Painter + intimate look into the artistic process + The greatest letters ever written by an artist + "the best way to love God is to love many things"             Meaning in the Visual Arts2 reviews Erwin Panofsky University Of Chicago Press, 1983 Essays by a great scholar in the field + A masterpiece in Art History Panofsky was one of the great founding fathers of Art History. His studies in Iconology opened up a whole new way of reading meaning into works of Art. In this work he combines masterful scholarship with great theoretical innovativeness to provide his own reading of the world of Art. Though his ...             A Life of Picasso, Volume I: 1881-19067 reviews John Richardson Random House, 1991 Classic Biography + A Fan Explains His Hero + The Best + excellent on picasso's early years + Brings to life the great artist's first 25 years             Writings on Art and Literature (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)1 review Sigmund Freud Stanford University Press, 1997 VERY useful collection Niel Hertz has brought together a valuable collection of Freud's writings on literature. He uses the notes from the Standard Edition as well as the texts from that edition. Hertz's introduction is interesting, as is all his work. (See his excellent book, The End of the Line.) I would have ...             The Great Mother (Mythos Books)3 reviews Erich Neumann Princeton University Press, 1972 a must for mythology lovers + A masterpiece of mythologic imagination The Great Mother is an absolute must-have for anyone intersted in mythology, Jungian psychology or even literary analysis. Part I is quite heavy in termonology and complex archtypal ideas; part II is more accessable and can be read and enjoyed without part I. As a feminist, I found it ...             The Romantic Child: From Runge to Sendak (Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures) Robert Rosenblum Thames & Hudson, 1989 Discusses the portrayal of children in art during the Romantic period concentrating on examples of Philip Otto Runge.             Concerning the Spiritual in Art13 reviews Wassily Kandinsky Dover Publications, 1977 "to break the bonds which bind". . . "to an impoverishment of possibility" + Inciteful... + Amazing + A fine attention to artistic reflection and analysis. + Good,but very deep             The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-19181 review Paul Klee, Felix Klee (editor) University of California Press, 1968 The Book Every Aspiring Artist Should Keep On Hand When I picked up the Paul Klee Diaries it fell open to the sentence every artist must secretly yearn to see: "...I am still incapable of painting, in spite of my sharp observation of tonal values and inspite of my clever way of determining the proper gradations of light and dark." Well! If he had ...             Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak John Cech Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996 Over the course of more than 80 books that he has written and illustrated in a career that has spanned four decades, Maurice Sendak has become an influential and controversial creator of works for children. Each of the books in his trilogy - "Where the Wild Things Are", "In the Night Kitchen" and "Outside Over there" - has been precedent-setting, dramatically expanding the boundaries of subject ...             The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Oxford World's Classics)19 reviews Leonardo da Vinci Oxford University Press, USA, 1999 The first Renaissance man Nothing of Leonardo DAVinci's sketchbooks were published until the 20th century. These are some of the most important documents of the Renaissance, and they did not become known until the 20th century. There are still people who do not know how important this work was. His anatomical studies ...             Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Literature (Penguin Classics) Charles-Pierre Baudelaire Penguin Classics, 1993             The Italian Painters of the Renaissance (Landmarks in Art History)2 reviews Bernhard Berenson Cornell Univ Pr, 1980 Classic, still-important, highly readable Berenson's classic study of Italian Renaissance painters is well worth seeking in used bookstores or through book-finding services. This collection of essays separately published between 1894 and 1907 focuses on the painters of Venice, Florence, central Italy, and north Italy. In intelligent, ...             Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney14 reviews Paul M. Johnson HarperCollins, 2006 A paean to the life of creation + The brighter side of human achievement If in a previous work 'Intellectuals' Johnson was all acid in criticizing those who in his phrase ' put ideas before people'.In this work he is all sweetness in praising great creators who as he sees it ' people before ideas'. Johnson's praise of creation however is not confined to those we ...