Best Art History Criticism

For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius." The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is expeienced by artmakers themselves. Art & Fear has attracted a remarkably diverse audience, ranging from beginning to accomplished artists in every medium, and including an exceptional concentration among students and teachers. David Bayles is an accomplished photographer, author, workshop leader, and conservationist.

Masterfully weaving together pop science and history, Stoned breaks history into three categories—Want, Take, and Have—and explains what the diamond on your finger has to do with the GI Bill, why green-tinted jewelry has been exalted by so many cultures, why the glass beads that bought Manhattan for the Dutch were initially considered a fair trade, and how the French Revolution started over a coveted necklace. “Raden’s commentary on the often ugly side of human desire through the ages is consistently captivating, and her witty delivery makes the material shine.” (Publishers Weekly). What makes a stone a jewel? In this brilliant account of how eight jewels shaped the course of history, jeweler and scientist Aja Raden tells an original and often startling story about our unshakeable addiction to beauty and the darker side of human desire. With sharp wit and a light touch, Raden weaves together history, science, and economics to explore our enduring love affair with beautiful things, and shows us that just like their glittering surfaces, jewels have a singular power to reflect our desires back to us and show us who we really are.

Embodying the entire system of Robert Henri's teaching, The Art Spirit contains much valuable advice, critical comment, and inspiration to every student of the arts. He led the Ashcan School movement in art, and attracted a large, intensely personal group of followers.

This #1 New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. #1 New York Times Best SellerAmazon's Best Book of 2014 in Crafts, Home & Garden. "Ms. Kondo delivers her tidy manifesto like a kind of Zen nanny, both hortatory and animistic." a literal how-to-heave-ho, and I recommend it for anyone who struggles with the material excess of living in a privileged society. A totally reasonable, scary cult that works, doesn’t kill people (a bonus), but does drastically change your life. the Japanese expert’s ode to decluttering is simple and easy to follow." "Reading it, you glimpse a glittering mental freedom from the unread/uncrafted/unworn, buyer’s remorse, the nervous eyeing of real estate listings. "All hail the new decluttering queen Marie Kondo, whose mess-busting bestseller has prompted a craze for tidying in homes across the world . "How could this pocket-sized book, which has already sold over 2 million copies and sits firmly atop the New York Times Best Seller list, make such a big promise? Marie “KonMari” Kondo runs an acclaimed consulting business in Tokyo helping clients transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. With a three-month waiting list, her KonMari Method of decluttering and organizing has become an international phenomenon. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a best seller in Japan, Germany, and the UK, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and has been turned into a television drama for Japanese TV. She has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time , featured on more than thirty major Japanese television and radio programs, and profiled in the Sunday Times , Red magazine, You magazine, the New York Times , USA Today , NPR's Here & Now , Slate , Family Circle , and the London Times, who has deemed her “Japan’s preeminent guru of tidiness, a warrior princess in the war on clutter.”.

Near the end of the last Ice Age 12,800 years ago, a giant comet that had entered the solar system from deep space thousands of years earlier, broke into multiple fragments. The impacts, from comet fragments a mile wide approaching at more than 60,000 miles an hour, generated huge amounts of heat which instantly liquidized millions of square kilometers of ice, destabilizing the Earth's crust and causing the global Deluge that is remembered in myths all around the world. The evidence revealed in this book shows beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was destroyed in the global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago. Deeply immersed in an ocean of new scientific and archaeological discoveries and yet prescient enough to conceive of humanity's mysterious development and humble place in the universe, Hancock weaves a multidisciplinary thread that connects oral traditions, the mystery of place and time with contemporary scientific observations and evidence....A masterpiece of penitentiary distillation, intuitive speculation and multidisciplinary perspective, Magicians of the Gods comes with the highest recommendation." "Magicians of the Gods schools the attentive reader in exotic locales and colourful (often thwarted) characters, dusty ancient knowledge and pristine contemporary science and theory. "Hancock does a magnificent job of proving beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization, which flourished during the Ice Age, was destroyed in global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago."