That will paint itself. Do the obvious thing before you do the superhuman thing. It may have been accidental, but you knew enough to let this alone. The good painter is always making use of accidents. Never try to repeat a success. Swing a bigger brush — you don’t know what fun you are missing. For 31 years, Charles Hawthorne spoke in this manner to students of his famous Cape Cod School of Art. The essence of that instruction has been collected from students’ notes and captured in this book, retaining the personal feeling and the sense of on-the-spot inspiration of the original classroom. Even though Hawthorne is addressing himself to specific problems in specific paintings, his comments are so revealing that they will be found applicable a hundred times to your own work.The book is divided into sections on the outdoor model, still life, landscape, the indoor model, and watercolor. Each section begins with a concise essay and continues with comments on basic elements: general character, color, form, seeing, posture, etc. It is in the matter of color that students will especially feel themselves in the presence of a master guide and critic. Hawthorne’s ability to see color and, more important, to make the student see color, is a lesson that will aid student painters and anyone else interested in any phase of art.Although it does not pretend to be a comprehensive or closely ordered course, this book does have much to offer. It also represents the artistic insight of one of the finest painter-teachers of the twentieth century."An excellent introduction for laymen and students alike." — Time"To read these notes and comments … is in itself an education. One cannot help but gain great help." — School Arts

    These crippling fears are laid to rest through insightful discussions of personal experiences, the struggles of famous artists, and the rewards of producing art that comes from an authentic creative core. Providing sensitive reassurances that these struggles are normal, these essays encourage artists to focus on the development of their crafts and find inspiration to work through self-doubt.

    With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems confronting us near the end of the twentieth century––problems we still face today. Berry elucidates connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. He forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is "still the strongest force now operating in our society." As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a "rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products," buying into the very economic system that is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.

    Unlike the style of psychological realism, which dominates film, the transcendental style expresses a spiritual state with austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment. This important book is an original contribution to film analysis and a key work by one of our most searching directors and writers.

    Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life of any person seeking a fully realized existence.Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars, the film it helped inspire, is an exploration of the big-picture moments from the stage that is our world. It is a must-have resource for both experienced students of mythology and the explorer just beginning to approach myth as a source of knowledge.

    On the page facing each letter, an illustration by a celebrated illustrator or graphic artist presents that artist's visual response.Among the diverse contributions are letters from Jane Goodall, Neil Gaiman, Jerome Bruner, Shonda Rhimes, Ursula K. Le Guin, Yo-Yo Ma, Judy Blume, Lena Dunham, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Jacqueline Woodson, as well as a ninety-eight-year-old Holocaust survivor, a pioneering oceanographer, and Italy’s first woman in space. Some of the illustrators, cartoonists, and graphic designers involved are Marianne Dubuc, Sean Qualls, Oliver Jeffers, Maira Kalman, Mo Willems, Isabelle Arsenault, Chris Ware, Liniers, Shaun Tan, Tomi Ungerer, and Art Spiegelman.  This project is woven entirely of goodwill, generosity of spirit, and a shared love of books. Everyone involved has donated their time, and all profits will go to the New York Public Library systems.Preface by David Remnick, editor, The New Yorker; Edited and introduced by Maria Popova, who has been writing since 2006 about what she reads on Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), which is now included in the Library of Congress archive of culturally valuable materials; Edited by Claudia Bedrick, publisher, editorial and art director of Enchanted Lion Books.

    Clarifying and simplifying the various aspects of painting with watercolor, Gordon MacKenzie's The Complete Watercolorist's Essential Notebook will encourage and challenge you with new possibilities.Rather than a list of rules, this is a collection of principles, concepts and general information designed to expand your creative process. Mackenzie shares with you tips, techniques, ideas and lessons for a sure path to creative fulfillment and better watercolor paintings.

    This book sets out to provide the first concise interpretation of the period as a whole, clarifying the artists and their works along the way. Closely informed by new critical approaches, it concentrates on the relationship between American and European art from the end of the Second World War to the eve of the new millennium.Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst are among many artists discussed, with careful attention being given to the political and cultural worlds they inhabited. Moving along a clear timeline, the author highlights key movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Postmodernism, and performance art to explain the theoretical and issue-based debates that have provided the engine for the art of this period.

    Here, combining more than forty years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone and immense gift for storytelling, To Show and To Tell reads like a long walk with a favorite professor—refreshing, insightful, and encouraging in often unexpected ways.

    In 1972, the 13-year-old Woodman made a black-and-white photograph of herself sitting at the far end of a sofa in her home in Boulder, Colorado. Her face is obscured by her hair, light radiates from an unseen source behind her out at the viewer through her right hand. This photograph typifies much of what would characterize Woodman's work to come: a semi-obscured female form merging with or flailing against a somewhat bare and often dilapidated interior. In an oeuvre of around 800 photographs made in just nine years, Woodman performed her own body against the textures of wallpaper, door frame, baths and couches, radically extending the Surrealist photography of Man Ray, Hans Bellmer and Claude Cahun and creating a mood and language all her own. In the 30 years since her untimely death, Woodman has gained a following among successive generations of artists and photographers, a testament to her work's undeniable immediacy and enduring appeal Amid a renewed intensification of interest in Francesca Woodman, this volume is published for a major touring exhibition of her photographs and films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. Containing many previously unpublished photographs, it is the definitive Francesca Woodman monograph.Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was born in Denver, Colorado, to the well-known artists George and Betty Woodman. In 1975 she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1979 she moved to New York, to attempt to build a career in photography. In 1981, at the age of 22, she committed suicide.

    Prepare to be bombarded with ideas, techniques and suggestions as you allow your creativity to take hold. "The Journal Fodder Junkies" are on a mission, ready to arm you with all that you need to explore artistic ways of recording your life and thoughts. Part sketchbook, part diary, part notebook, part dream journal, part daily planner, part to-do list and part doodle pad, the art journal is different things to different people. Whatever it is for you, the Journal Junkies Workshop contains all the covert inspiration and know-how you'll need to get started. Uncover your own path, your own voice, your own style. Inside you'll find:Basic information on the supplies and materials you'll need to start your journal experienceStep-by-step presentation of techniques using water colors, acrylic paint, image transfers and moreChapter-by-chapter demonstration that follows the Junkies' techniques as they layer a page, taking it from blank canvas to dynamic documentIdeas on how to get started writing in your journal, covering both what to write and inventive ways of writing itGallery spreads taken straight from the authors' journals that give you a unique opportunity to peer inside the heads of two experienced art journalistsGrab a journal and begin basic training today with Eric Scott and David Modler to become a Journal Fodder Junkie!

    Invaluable for students, arts professionals and other aspiring writers, the book first navigates readers through the key elements of style and content, from the aims and structure of a piece to its tone and language. Brimming with practical tips that range across the complete spectrum of art-writing, the second part of the book is organized around its specific forms, including academic essays; press releases and news articles; texts for auction and exhibition catalogues, gallery guides and wall labels; op-ed journalism and exhibition reviews; and writing for websites and blogs.In counseling the reader against common pitfalls—such as jargon and poor structure—Gilda Williams points instead to the power of close looking and research, showing how to deploy language effectively; how to develop new ideas; and how to construct compelling texts. More than 30 illustrations throughout support closely analysed case studies of the best writing, in Source Texts by 64 authors, including Claire Bishop, Thomas Crow, T.J. Demos, Okwui Enwezor, Dave Hickey, John Kelsey, Chris Kraus, Rosalind Krauss, Stuart Morgan, Hito Steyerl, and Adam Szymczyk.Supplemented by a general bibliography, advice on the use and misuse of grammar, and tips on how to construct your own contemporary art library, How to Write About Contemporary Art is the essential handbook for all those interested in communicating about the art of today.

    In this rare and important volume, the painter expresses (in his inimitably eccentric fashion) his ideas of what painting should be, expounds on what is good and bad painting, offers opinions on the merits of Vermeer, Picasso, Cézanne, and other artists, and expresses his thoughts on the history of painting. In a blend of outrageous egotism and unconventional humor, Dalí presents 50 "secrets" for mastering the art of painting: "the secret of sleeping while awake," "the secret of the periods of carnal abstinence and indulgence to be observed by the painter," "the secret of the painter's pointed mustaches," "the secret of learning to paint before knowing how to draw," "the secret of the painter's marriage," "the secret of the reason why a great draughtsman should draw while completely naked," and many other Daliesque prescriptions for artistic success.Illustrated with the artist's own drawings, this volume is a fascinating mixture of serious artistic advice, lively personal anecdotes, and academic craftsmanship. It is, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "in lay-out and clarity of design . . . a remarkable work of art in itself." Especially esteemed for its insights into modern art, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship is indispensable reading for any student of Surrealism or 20th century painting.

    Its startling popularity marked the emergence of a new type of theatre whose proponents—Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and others—shattered dramatic conventions and paid scant attention to psychological realism, while highlighting their characters’ inability to understand one another. In 1961, Martin Esslin gave a name to the phenomenon in his groundbreaking study of these playwrights who dramatized the absurdity at the core of the human condition.Over four decades after its initial publication, Esslin’s landmark book has lost none of its freshness. The questions these dramatists raise about the struggle for meaning in a purposeless world are still as incisive and necessary today as they were when Beckett’s tramps first waited beneath a dying tree on a lonely country road for a mysterious benefactor who would never show. Authoritative, engaging, and eminently readable, The Theatre of the Absurd is nothing short of a classic: vital reading for anyone with an interest in the theatre.

    The Office constructs propositions and documents for the advancement of a natural history of civic surface. Three books of Robertson's poetry have been published: XEclogue (Tsunami Editions, 1993, reissued by New Star, 1999) Debbie: An Epic (1997, nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry) and The Weather (2001) (both co-published by New Star in Canada and Reality Street in the U.K.). Her prose has appeared in Cabinet, Front, Jacket, Mix, Collapse, Nest magazine, and many art catalogs and monographs.