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Zen Brushwork: Focusing the Mind With Calligraphy and Painting by Tanch Terayama, translated by Thomas F. Judge & John Stevens (Kodansha International) With its bold strokes and mystic aura, Zen calligraphy has fascinated Westerners for decades, yet it remains an abstract, rarely practiced form of expression outside of Asia . Now, in Zen Brushwork, master calligrapher Tanchu Terayama, professor at Nishogakusha University , explains the techniques behind this subtle art and offers step-by-step instructions for practicing it on a professional level. More

Children's Art by Antje Tesche-Mentzen, Herlinde Koelbl (Prestel USA) What can we learn from children's paintings and drawings? An extraordinary amount, as this charming and disarming volume of creations by young artists reveals. This wondrous collection of paintings and drawings by children ages two to sixteen is compiled by a leading expert in teaching painting to children. From blobs and streaks in vibrant hues to pictures of people, buildings, and animals, to entire worlds precisely rendered, these paintings and drawings give shape to children's imagination and feelings. More

Botero: Women illustrations by Fernando Botero, introduction by Carlos Fuentes, edited by Paola Gribaudo (Rizzoli) Accompanying the work of this incomparable artist is an introduction by one of the most respected Latin American writers of today, Carlos Fuentes. Botero: Women provides a comprehensive look at the opulent, goddess-like women Botero paints, many empowered by his keen sense of humor and irony. It is a must-have for those who adore both women and art - and the perfect illustration of voluptuous beauty. More

Goya by Robert Hughes (Knopf) Robert Hughes, who has stunned us with comprehensive works on subjects as sweeping and complex as the history of Australia (The Fatal Shore), the modern art movement (The Shock of the New), the nature of American art (American Visions), and the nature of America itself as seen through its art (The Culture of Complaint), now turns his renowned critical eye to one of art history’s most compelling, enigmatic, and important figures, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. With characteristic critical fervor and sure-eyed insight, Hughes brings us the story of an artist whose life and work bridged the transition from the eighteenth-century reign of the old masters to the early days of the nineteenth-century moderns. More

Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon by Takeshi Nagatake (Kodansha International) Ever since kaolin was discovered in the Hizen area of Kyushu in the early seventeenth century, the area has been famous for its beautiful porcelain. A wide range of wares decorated in cobalt blue underglaze or colorful overglaze enamels were shipped to Europe by the Dutch East Indies Company. In this volume, the late Takeshi Nagatake, possibly the most knowledgeable scholar on the subject, discusses the developments in techniques, styles, designs and trade of these exquisite wares. With 95 color plates illustrating some rare and classic Imari and Kakiemon pieces from museums and private collections, this volume will appeal to collectors as well as enthusiasts. More

Moroccan Textile Embroidery by Isabelle Denamur (Flammarion) At the heart of Morocco 's vibrant handicraft culture is an essentially feminine art form of embroidery on silk, cotton, and linen-one of the most vibrant arts in North Africa for many centuries and in vogue through the 1930s. These exquisite embroidered objects bear witness to the sophisticated taste of a bygone society. More

Artists of the Middle Ages by Leslie Ross (Greenwood Press) examines the identities of artists attributed to the most famous and influential works of medieval art, summarizing their lives and work, and offering unique insights into the practices and traditions of medieval art and its role in society. A timeline, chapter bibliographies, a list of further resources on medieval art, and an index offer additional tools for study. More

The Weaver's Craft: Cloth, Commerce, and Industry in Early Pennsylvania by Adrienne D. Hood (Early American Studies: University of Pennsylvania Press) Cloth was one of the most important commodities in the early modern world, and colonial North Americans had to develop creative strate­gies to acquire it. Although early European set­tlers came from societies in which hand textile production was central to the economy, local conditions in North America interacted with traditional craft structures to create new patterns of production and consumption. The Weaver's Craft examines the development of cloth manufacture in early Pennsylvania from its roots in seventeenth-century Europe to the beginning of industrialization. More

Schirmer Encyclopedia of Art (4-Volume Set) edited by Ann Landi (Gale Group) The past decade or so has seen a tremendous increase of interest in the visual arts. Museum attendance is steadily on the rise; galleries devoted to the art of our times and the art of the past are flourishing; and there are probably more artists of note today than at any other point in the history of humankind. In New York alone, it has been estimated that there are some 60,000 practicing artists. As the contemporary painter and sculptor Frank Stella noted recently, with some astonishment, "Until now, there weren't even 60,000 artists since the beginning of time." More

Comedy After Postmodernism: Rereading Comedy from Edward Lear to Charles Willeford by Kirby Olson (Texas Tech University Press)  Author note: I wrote about six authors who I think should be reevaluated after the advent of postmodernism. Before this, Lear, Gregory Corso, Philippe Soupault, P.G. Wodehouse, Stewart Home, and Charles Willeford, were thought to be throwaway lightweights. Now, thanks to Gilles Deleuze and J.-F. Lyotard, I believe these authors can be reevaluated. More

Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context edited by Robert H. Sharf, Elizabeth Horton Sharf (Arc: Asian Religions and Cultures: Stanford University Press) The "enlightened" scholarly view that canonical Buddhism did not sanction the worship of images, or that, at the very least, did not sanction the view of images as numinous spiritual entities, was confirmed by a host of modern Asian apologists, many of whom were urbanized intellectuals educated in Western science and philosophy.
The essays that comprise this volume join other recent attempts to look anew at the nature and function of Buddhist images, focusing on a small but significant sampling drawn from the Japanese tradition. The sculptures and paintings discussed in the chapters below were all sanctioned and revered by members of the clerical elite. Some were central to monastic ritual; others played pivotal roles in the lives of eminent masters, or in the evolution, legitimation, and dissemination of new teachings. Each chapter draws on a variety of materials in order to reconstruct the historical and institutional context surrounding specific icons and in the process contributes to the reevaluation of the status and function of the image within the Buddhist tradition. More

Religion and Media edited by Hent De Vries and Samuel Weber (Cultural Memory in the Present: Stanford University Press) Any inquiry into the relationship between religion and media must begin by pursuing several central questions and interrelated areas of research. More

Music Education and the Music Listening Experience by Marian T. Dura (Studies in History and Interpretation of Music, Vol 89: Edwin Mellen Press) The purpose of this book is to examine and characterize the kinesthetic, movement-based aspect of the music listening experience. To this end, I will address the "knowing" that musical sounds produce within the body and the ways in which musical experience becomes somatized and represented as movement. This includes rhythmic responses; inner representations of tension and release, line, and phrase; responses resembling change of location in actual space; muscular reactions imitative of those used in playing or singing; and responses based on the character or mood of a piece of music, insofar as these relate to posture, smoothness or jerkiness of gesture and/or locomotion, speed of movement, placement (high or low) and other kinetic factors. More

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