(Part 3) Best art & photography criticism books according to redditors
We found 922 Reddit comments discussing the best art & photography criticism books. We ranked the 445 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
These strips are a parody of the "Ideal boy" posters generally available in India. These posters would detail the tasks or "good" deeds to be carried out by an ideal student.
One of these posters : http://www.vinmag.com/online/media/gbu0/prodxl/AP861-ideal-boy-indian-chart.jpg
There is even a book named "An Ideal Boy" which exactly details such posters.
Book link : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1899235833/qid=1061784667/sr=8-2
Here's a free Kindle ebook download link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RP93B63
Get it before the offer expires.
Different version, but should stop the bickering.
That last panel reminds me of this terrible book that somehow has 4.5 stars on Amazon.
> yet when it comes to music, suddenly popularity becomes a marker of quality.
It's a bit of a tangent – and you might be completely across this anyway – but plenty has been written and spoken about the collapse of traditional "low" and "high" cultural distinctions, with instead a focus on popularity as the indicator of worth, validity, etc. I really enjoyed this book on the subject.
This article, this VIS, and this anthology ought to be more than enough material to get you started.
Perfect! You'll never look back once you go down this path.
Here's my favourite text of the year. It rambles near the end, but especially going through how we envisioned perspective before modern art it's just a fantastic little guide. You also get some basic background in theoretical physics from it, just as fascinating.
This one is more limited, but puts artistic developments of the early 20th century in perspective by drawing parallels between those and those of science. This and the above are very good if you still see art as painting pretty scenes.
Another by the same author, less involved with the parallels and more with the history.
This is a collection of essays, but they're brilliant. Nature of creativity and the creative process mostly.
These are the ones I know of offhand. Most of my library is a few hours away by car, but I'll be passing through there in a couple of weeks and can pick through titles if you'd like.
If you're expecting to be "talked out of" something on reddit, you're a fool (or, more likely, you're being dishonest -- more likely because you're already mischaracterizing the responses you're getting).
But because I'm a fool too, I'll nibble just a little at your bait:
First, even if your characterization of art as "decoration and entertainment, nothing more" were true, it would still be important. Just as dreaming when you sleep is important, just as laughing is important, just as enjoying the taste of the food you eat is important, just as being surrounded by people whose company you enjoy is important, just as feeling happy instead of miserable, afraid or numb is important.
Of course your characterization is wrong and art is more than merely that. It can also help us develop empathy and expand our capacity for communicating with others, for understanding and being understood; it can challenge the way you think, and exercise your mind -- as important for a healthy mind as exercise is for a healthy body; it is part of the way we speak to one another, the way we understand ourselves and the world, and always have; it helps us comprehend history and it is a part of history; it can even anticipate scientific discoveries. Art is important, mostly because it brings pleasure and joy -- at its best, difficult pleasures and lasting joys -- but also because it's an integral part of being wholly human.
Get the book All American Ads of the 80's
Its full of magazine ads just like this and its glorious. Its big too
Amazon links:
I thoroughly recommend this book http://www.amazon.com/What-Are-You-Looking-Surprising/dp/0142180297
I saw it referenced in /r/museum once and it literally changed the way I see modern and contemporary art (which I now love).
"Otherizing", huh? Let me guess. You're a fan of one of the modern schools of "criticism", like postmodernism or deconstructionism? Here's a book you desperately need to read if you think "otherizing" is a meaningful notion, let alone a word:
http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Masters-Political-Correctness-Sabotages/dp/1893554864
P.S. This was an absurd self-indulgent performance by what is a apparently a conductor in love with themselves. Great performers get out of the way and play for the material. They don't perform on stage circus acts...
I'd call it deconstructivism, which is a postmodern artistic movement arising out of Derrida's concept of deconstruction. If you wanted to get away from the pomo side of things, you might say it's suprematism (focus on basic geometrical forms) or constructivism (also focused on basic geometrical forms). These arise out of the modernist period.
There's a great book about this stuff you might be interested in. It certainly helped me understand modern/post-modern art in a way I never did before. It's called What Are You Looking At?. Any mistakes I've made above are my own and due to my failure to grasp the material fully.
The book that started me down the rabbit hole: Coming to My Senses, Alyssa Harad
Others I have out from the library:
Also
I highly recommend Brian Ashcraft's book. Very informative on themes and meaning, talks about some pairing stuff too. Best part, it's inexpensive!
EDIT: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Tattoos-History-Culture-Design/dp/480531351X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=japanese+tattoo+brian+ashcraft&qid=1568696111&sr=8-1
Depends on what the talk will be on. If it is analytic philosophy of art, which traditionally has focused a whole lot on theories of art, something like this would be fine. I also would suggest this, which I really enjoyed. If the focus on more on other aspects of the philosophy of art, then you might be better off looking in a different direction.
Try this cheap copy. Newer editions haven't changed too much, especially if you're new to the topic.
Here's a Google Doc of AP Art History for you to use as a guide.
Particularly, if you're interested in contemporary art, this might be a light fun read.
Por BBC News Mundo
22 de septiembre, 2019
Publicación original
Humn... no digo que no haya error, solo que el error viene de la fuente original, la BBC.
Por cierto, esta es la página de amazon del libro que usó la BBC como fuente.
I just finished Zen about a week ago and have now started "I Am A Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. I have only read the prologue and the first chapter so I don't have a good feel for it yet, but it seems intriguing. So far Hofstadter has put forth questions of what "I" consists of and what consciousness is.
I Am A Strange Loop
After this on my reading list is Art & Physics by Leonard Schlain.
For those interested in the question "what makes something attractive anyway?" I can strongly recommend reading A Very Short Introduction: Beauty
Michael G. LaFosse's book Origami Art has a chapter on developing your brand as an origami artist. This includes information on intellectual property.
http://www.amazon.com/Origami-Art-Exquisite-Designs-Origamido/dp/4805309989/
I'd suggest emailing professors and seeing if you can get an early syllabus or reading list. This also helps in purchasing books early/getting them from the library before your classmates do. My graduate degree began with a historiography class to understand the history of art history. We read Art History: A Critical Introduction To Its Methods but there are other options like The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology .
In particular is there a particular subject you're interested in? See if colleges/universities have syllabi banks from previous courses and see what was taught.
I was gonna say Frederik L. Schodt's: Manga! Manga! but you beat me too it. (although as all_my_fish said it might be a bit hard to find it.)
Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics and Dreamland Japan aren't too shabby in terms of information on manga (although again you will have to find them first.)
Also A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi is an autobiographic manga about the gekiga movement that took place withing manga (and talks about the history of manga to a certain extent. (It is also a pretty well done manga in and of itself)).
I wish I could help find you some better non-book sources.
Your essay seems ok so far.
Here is a couple of lines from Schodt's book that you might could use:
>The word manga (pronounced "mahngah") can mean caricature, cartoon, comic strip, comic book, or animation. Coined by the Japanese woodblock- print artist Hokusai in 1814, it uses the Chinese ideograms [I don't know how to type these sorry] man ("involuntary" or "in spite of oneself") and [another one chinese character] ga ("picture"). Hokusai was evidently trying to describe something like "whimsical sketches." But it is interesting to note that the first ideogram has a secondary meaning of "morally corrupt." The term manga did not come into popular usage until the beginning of this century. Before that, cartoons were called Toba-e or "Toba pictures," after an 11th-century artist; giga, or "playful pictures"; kyoga, or "crazy pictures"; and, in the late 19th century, ponchi-e, or "Punch pictures," after the British magizine. In addition to manga one also hears today the word gekiga or "drama pictures" to describe the more serious, realistic story-comics. Some Japanese, however, simply adopt an English word to describe their favorite reading matter: komikkusu.
(from page 18 of Manga! Manga!)
there you go a source you can use and quote and make your teacher happy (maybe).
A bit dandy? This is a blog I imagined the father of the author of Nobrow would write.
Thank you. They're all lovely covers, especially Bright Shiny Morning.
For more info about pin-up art, and even vintage pulp fiction, these guides may be of interest to readers of this reddit -
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-American-Pin-Up-Charles-Martignette/dp/3836532441/
www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Pin-up-Sarahjane-Blum/dp/383653570X/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0896899683/
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1440213577/
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1932595058/
http://www.amazon.com/Wing-Chun-Warrior-Fighting-Companion/dp/9881774225
Based on everyone else's recommendations (which I agree with) I would purchase this book too.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-History-Critical-Anthology-Oxford/dp/0199229848/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Nochlin and Krauss arent included but EVERY OTHER big name is -- from vasari to shapiro.
I think you are on to something.
1st, quickly, yeah the Mona Lisa is a bit distracting because this piece (among others) are very unique examples in being both 1) an object of critical and historical importance and at the same time 2) exist as a mass market "sign" or "icon" for capital A "Art" beyond just being a good painting. It sort of bloats their significance over other worthy pieces that are less well known. There's a great documentary from Robert Hughes The Mona Lisa Curse that traces this process.
2nd, yes, totally on point on the second paragraph. The three point negotiation in the way Mike talked about between Artist, Media, and Audience is, in a broad way, a characteristic of really all cultures that create art, popular or otherwise. What he is kind of missing is the discussion of the Marxian power struggle between social classes. High-class, powerful groups create the dominant art, low classes may internalize it or reject it for their own art, and through that process struggle to define a general cultural status quo. In other words, High-brow art and low-brow art compete and negotiate to create "No-Brow" art or art for everyone, if I may borrow the term from John Seabrook.
So "popular culture" (or maybe "populous culture") becomes the hegemony become basically all culture as it transcends unequal class divisions. The ubiquity of media we have today without the rigid division of class seems to suggest that to be the culture that we have now. But if anything, that would assume "hegemony popular culture" to be basically uniform and homogenous because it's everyone, a one-size-fits-all. That seems wrong and if anything we don't see culture building towards any consensus, we see it fragmenting into a fractal series of diverse subcultures and subcultures within subcultures. The difference being that cultural divisions are not based on power or class or even geography, they are defined more and more by taste and these "taste cultures" or "niche cultures" can be as big or as small as they want to be.
So "pop culture" in this way is not a monolith but is seen as this diverse web of niche cultures of various sizes and overlapping relationships. What makes them "pop" is that they are not defined hierarchically (high and low culture) but are all treated equally (anyone can like anything). This equality is the end result of the negotiation first talked about between Artist, Media, and Audience.
If you like laughing at this kind of stuff, you can buy a whole book of 1980s print ads. Pretty cool.
Also The Art of Art History, A Critical Anthology ed. by Donald Preziosi. I know that Adams is a Renaissance scholar, so maybe take that with a grain of salt - editors tend to pull from what speaks to them alongside their presentation an objective viewpoint into art theory.
https://www.amazon.com/Wing-Chun-Warrior-Fighting-Companion/dp/9881774225/ref=sr_1_1
Sixties Design A fun romp through the sixties curvy day glow design bent
Eames: Beautiful DetailsDefinitive Eames Book.
Industrial Design Raymond Loewy My favorite all time designer.
Infrastructure by Brian Hayes Not Sexy, but necessary.
Industrial Design A-Z, Taschen Everything by the letters.
PreFab HousesGood, if dated a little on prefab potential
1000 Chairs Bible of chairs
Things Come Apart They destroyed it beautifully for you
Trespass Street Art photographed and credited
Type Vol. 2 The Taschen site-order version comes with a digital code for Hi-Res digital downloads of each plate. Not sure if the amazon version does. Still worth it either way.
D&AD 11 All the D&AD books are a real tight look at that years best and worst commercial work.
Logo Design 2 I'm sure this has been updated, but good enough and much cheaper now.
DDR Design I have a soft spot for bolshevik propaganda forced into design.
1000 Retail Graphics It is what it says it is, not much more. Good for brainstorming, but not really inspiring.
Scott McCloud looks really interesting, especially Understanding Comic seems to be right up my alley.
By way of related literature on Amazon when looking up the Thompson book, I found a couple of interesting looking titles - thought I'd share:
Looking through their tables of content, they seem solid enough.
Thanks for the recommendations! :)
It's from a book on amazon that another site linked to:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/3836509644
Buy some of the Blackwell series of Anthologies. I think that they have a great collection of contemporary essays (Some of the best contemporary work in aesthetics come in the form of essays). I have the Philosophy of Literature anthology in my lap right now, working on a paper (I'm a graduate student focusing on aesthetics, actually). The "Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art" would be the best.
[Here is one supposedly good intro book](http://www.amazon.com/But-Art-Introduction-Theory/dp/0192853678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255491803&sr=8-1"testing this particular function out, hope it works") I have not read, but have had it recommended.
another
It depends on if you are talking serious academics, or if you are just looking to get into aesthetics for fun, really.
Dearest Redditors - check out this publication as well if you're interested in more of his writing and helping with the cash bit.
This is all in the book Arrows to the Moon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Arrows-Moon-Avros-Engineers-Apogee/dp/1896522831
No problem--I'm happy to help! If you get the chance (but I certainly understand a heavy work load), the book [But Is It Art?] (http://www.amazon.com/But-Is-It-Art-Introduction/dp/0192853678) is a really good introduction to a lot of critical theory that you will run into when dealing with 20th century art. Also, I don't think you can really use it as a true source for your paper, but I would also recommend [Postmodernism for Beginners] (http://www.amazon.com/Postmodernism-For-Beginners-Jim-Powell/dp/1934389099). We used it in an undergrad seminar when I was just starting to learn theory, and it was absolutely invaluable--very, very easy to read, and you really get a good overview of the major ideas and philosophers in Postmodernism. Good Luck!
I wouldn't doubt it if it were the engineers at Avro.
http://www.amazon.com/Origami-Art-Exquisite-Origamido-Projects/dp/4805309989/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beauty-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0199229759
I used porn to soothe my sexual urges until I met my wife. I still use porn when my wife tells me she is not in the mood for sex, and I am. I find picturesof naked women incredibly arousing. I find pictutes of scantily-clad women even more arousing. I own this book which I paidtwice as much as the listing price for, and still consider a bargain. If I am desensitized, then it is news to me.
An Ideal Boy:
Ideal Boy, An: Charts from India https://www.amazon.com/dp/1899235833/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_flqPBbVBDYB4N
You may be right about Kafka, I never bothered much reading his stuff. But I was responding specifically to the other notions you mention: The neverending intellectual love affair with totalitarianism and the gobbledy-gook theories.
A fine read on this can be had here:
http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Masters-Political-Correctness-Sabotages/dp/1893554864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417326076&sr=8-1&keywords=rape+of+the+master
A funny and brilliant savaging of just one aspect of all intellectual shennanigans: Art Theory