Posted on Aug-03-2009

Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)


Sentient humans with brains as well as bodies have always been fascinated by the way we adorn ourselves and why. Once we can get past the cultural anthropology of fashion, and the fads that make it a billion-dollar world industry, we can dig down to discover the roots of historical and current adorned beauty, and EXTREME BEAUTY does this . . . beautifully.
It is pleasing--in an era in which physical beauty and adornment typified by fashion have been roundly rejected by most of the jeans-wearing public--to find a book that lets beauty out and helps us exercise our sense of mystery and wonder, based in no small part on human sexuality and attraction. Harold Koda (curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Met) has mounted a show and created a book with marvelous insights and passion, and the illustrations are wondrous--consider, as a case in point, Thiery Mugler's 'Chimere,' with its savage eroticism.
One could quibble with Koda's arbitrary division of the body into 'neck and shoulders,' 'chest,' 'waist,' 'hips' and 'feet,'
and his exclusion of the fascinating face/head/hair perplex, and the hands, with their magical touch and allure. But this book and its illustrations will become a benchmark by which human adornment is judged, and is a keeper of power and importance.

Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)

Product Description:
Over time and across cultures, shifting concepts of beauty have given rise to extraordinary fashions that constrict, enhance, minimize, or exaggerate various zones of the human body. This stimulating book displays and discusses an array of such extreme fashion practices, from the bound feet of aristocratic Manchu women to the tea-tray supporting bustle of an 1880s French visiting dress.
Amazon.com Review:
Throughout history, humans have used clothing and accessories to lift, squeeze, frame and pad the body. In Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed, Harold Koda deftly weaves anthropology, sociology, art history, and haute couture into a lively survey of shifting notions of the body beautiful. Divided into five sections--Neck and Shoulders, Chest, Waist, Hips, and Feet--the book surveys fashion's literal imprint on the body while tracing the history of clothing styles. The long neck may be the only bodily ideal equally prized by all cultures. Young Padaung women of Burma traditionally wore weighted brass coils that pushed down their collarbones and shoulders, creating the illusion of a remarkably long neck. The wide van Dyke lace collar achieved a similar "triangulated" shoulder-line in 17th-century Europe. Fashionable women in the 1830s relied on hugely inflated sleeves—-held up with down-filled or wire-ribbed supports—-to create the rounded dropped shoulder then in vogue. In the "Feet" section, Koda, who remains scrupulously nonjudgmental throughout, juxtaposes the miniaturized "Golden Lotus" bound foot of pre-Revolutionary China with the reshaping effect of today's stiletto heels. The platform shoe was another way of encumbering a woman's gait, whether as a way of keeping her at home (away from sexual temptation) or as a means of showing her off (the courtesans of Japan and Renaissance Venice perched on elevated soles). Men's body-altering fashions also get their due, from sculpted codpieces and male waist-binding to a front-padded shirt by Issey Miyake that resembles a baseball catcher's uniform. Koda's discussions of the historical allusions of avant-garde designers like Viktor and Rolf, Olivier Theyskens, and Hussein Chalayan vividly illuminate an often murky aspect of contemporary couture. Copiously illustrated with works of art and photographs of clothing and undergarments from many eras, Extreme Beauty packs a wealth of information into a slender volume. —-Cathy Curtis

Features:
  • ISBN13: 9780300103120
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Posted on Jul-28-2009

American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume I: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865 (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)


American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume I: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865 (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)


ISBN: 0300085176
Number Of Pages: 480
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

Product Description:
This book, the first of a two-volume set documenting the distinguished and comprehensive collection of American sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, focuses on late nineteenth-century works. The book includes sculpture by such masters as Hiram Powers, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Gaston Lachaise, and it offers premier examples of neoclassical ideal nudes, expressive genre statuettes, studies for monumental sculpture, portraits in a variety of styles and materials, and much more.

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Posted on Jul-28-2009

Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800-1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)


Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800-1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)


Average Rating:
Author: Gary Tinterow
Edition: illustrated edition
ISBN: 0300124120
Number Of Pages: 344
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

Product Description:

This beautiful volume features a compendium of the Metropolitan Museum’s finest European paintings dating from 1800 to 1920. The focus is on French art of this period—of which the Museum possesses the most comprehensive collection outside of France—but extraordinary pictures by artists of other nationalities are also included. Thanks to a succession of generous and discerning donors—

from the H. O. Havemeyers to the Walter H. Annenbergs—this publication presents a history of painting in Paris from Prud’hon to Picasso, by way of Delacroix, Corot, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Seurat, and many others.



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Customer Reviews


An Excellent Collection of Paintings
This book is published on occasion of the new galleries of nineteenth and early twentieth century art. The book contains 193 color reproductions of the greatest paintings in the collection including Rosa Bonheur's,"The Horse Fair", Auguste Renoir's,"Mme Charpentier and Her Children", Edgar Degas' "The Dancing Class", and Pablo Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein. The book starts with the history of the collection and then goes into an explanation of each work reproduced. The paintings represent almost every important art movement and artist of the nineteenth century from Neoclassicism to Post Impressionism. The centerpiece of the book focuses on the museum's great Impressionist paintings. In between the reader will see Neoclassical portraits by Jean Dominique Ingres, Romantic paintings by Eugene Delacroix, Realist works by Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet,and early twentieth century masterpieces by Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Picasso, and Amadeo Modigliani. The last section gives provenance of all the works. The book will be a great addition to any art lover who wants to learn about nineteenth and early twentieth century art.

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Posted on Jul-27-2009

English Embroidery in the Metropolitan Museum 1580-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature (Published in Association with the Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture)


This was an expensive book that I ummed and aahed about purchasing. But on receiving it, I could see what the fuss was all about. Many textiley, embroidery people are very visual people, and I was thrilled to see the quantity and quality of colour photos in this book. Some of them are very close-up so that you can see wonderful details in the embroidery. I still haven't actually read the text - but that's not why I bought it! The photos just enthrall me.

English Embroidery in the Metropolitan Museum 1580-1700: \'Twixt Art and Nature (Published in Association with the Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture)

Product Description:

This book centers around the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s preeminent collection of embroidered objects from England’s late Tudor and Stuart eras. These seventeenth-century embroideries, some eighty works in all, include samplers, gloves, headgear, purses, raised work panels, boxes and mirrors, portrait miniatures, lavishly embroidered Bibles, and a spectacular burse made to hold the Great Seal of England. In a series of essays the book explores the important role of embroidery in the history of textiles and decorative arts and also offers new insight into the role of women in the production of decorative arts. Expert scholars discuss embroidered furnishings, fashion accessories, biblical narratives, and pastoral imagery, to create a superb and comprehensive overview of embroidery during this tumultuous period in English history.



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Posted on Jul-25-2009

American Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Volume 3: John Singer Sargent


American Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Volume 3: John Singer Sargent


Average Rating:
Author:
  • Stephanie L. Herdrich
  • H. Barbara Weinberg
ISBN: 0300085192
Number Of Pages: 444
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

Product Description:
American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singer SargentStephanie L. Herdrich and H. Barbara Weinberg, with an essay by Marjorie ShelleyThis lovely book celebrates the unparalleled collection of works by John Singer Sargent at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The volume describes The Metropolitan's acquisition of Sargent's works, including the particularly fine collection of his drawings and watercolors, and organizes his work into four sections: childhood and adolescence, student years in Paris and early career, professional accomplishments from 1890 to 1925, and studies made during extensive travels from 1890 to 1925.
Amazon.com Review:
An expatriate American living in England, John Singer Sargent was an immensely gifted artist and the leading international portraitist of his day. He produced his magnificent oil paintings of the social elite after lengthy preparations that included numerous studies and sketches. American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singer Sargent presents the Met's collection of four sketchbooks and 337 single sheets by Sargent, from rough to highly finished designs. Many of the watercolors and a handful of the drawings are brilliant, but they are lesser works than the great paintings; this book is an important art-historical study rather than an art book.

Two introductory essays describe the formation of the collection and the artist's techniques. The material is divided into four sections covering Sargent's childhood, early career, professional activity, and travel, each introduced by details of the artist's life. The drawings provide useful contexts for his major paintings. For example, intimate sketches of Madame Gautreau, the sitter for his portrait Madame X, whose scandalously low shoulder strap led to the closing of Sargent's Paris studio, clarify the narrative that precedes the section "Student Years and Early Career, 1874-89." Watercolors from his visit to the frontlines during World War I include naked soldiers bathing; these and other material have led to speculation about Sargent's sexual orientation, which is beginning to attract critical analysis. The complex material is extensively and intelligently footnoted, and a chronology of Sargent's life, exhibitions, and a bibliography round out the book's encyclopedic scholarship. The first of a series documenting the Met's collections of master-drawings, this book is a treasure-trove and an art historian's delight. --John Stevenson


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Customer Reviews


A Sargent Treasury
First... some disclosure. I am a "card-carrying" admirer of John Singer Sargent and of all of his work. I have more than fifty books on Sargent. And I am an obsessive amateur watercolorist; half of our home is filled with paintings, paintings in progress and painting supplies. But, a little rational mitigation... I am not monomaniacal. I also deeply appreciate the work of other greats such as John Whorf and Winslow Homer. And today's Trevor Chamberlain, John Yardley, David Curtis, etc. So, if you like this kind of work, then you'll love this book.

Love it even without any fancy academic theory, art history or the like. Like me, you can just look at a reproduction of an alpine brook in watercolor by Sargent and simply say, "Wow!" And pass your eyes over every millimeter. "Look how he suggests those rocks and ferns!" But then I also greatly enjoy reading the textual background. Where it was done. In what context. Sargent's visits and vacations. The work's provenance. This last can be facinating as in the case of Sargent's recently surfaced, fabulous and obviously originally "mis-acquired" by a maid, "Spanish Dancer". Why, if my own work was any good and further if I did employ a maid then I'd be very careful to... :)
Well, obviously I can speak only as a naive Sargent enthusiast, but I can't recommend this book more. I read it over and over. I'd have paid twice the price.

Approximately 11 & 1/2 by 9 inches and 426 pages. Published by the Metropolitan in 2000. An excellent physical production in the usual quality manner of Yale University Press, lately the source of excellent series on artists. (Here, Sargent but also the likes of William Merritt Chase. Yale was a physical partner in this particular Sargent enterprise.) This book is organized roughly chronologically, from Sargent's youth onwards. However, there's much more; an Essay on Materials and Techniques, a Sargent Chronology, an Exhibition History, a Record of Travel and Other Studies, and an appendix, Works of Questionable Attribution.

Finally, for some, the category "drawing" can be confusing, as is evident here it also includes watercolors. Go figure. But, I don't mind the nomenclature as long as the academics provide me with pretty decent reproductions and an interesting history.

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Posted on Jul-24-2009

American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: I. Early Colonial Period: The Seventeenth-Century and William and Mary Styles


American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: I. Early Colonial Period: The Seventeenth-Century and William and Mary Styles



Author: Frances Gruber Safford
ISBN: 0300116470
Number Of Pages: 464
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

Product Description:
The Metropolitan Museum’s preeminent collection of early colonial furniture is expertly documented in this long-awaited publication. It covers the full spectrum of furniture forms made during the 17th and early 18th centuries—from chairs and other seating to tables, boxes, various types of chests and cupboards, and desks.  Each of the 141 objects is thoroughly described with detailed information on provenance, construction, condition, inscriptions, dimensions, and materials.  Photographed anew in color for this volume, each piece is explicated in terms of the styles and craftsmanship of the period and is evaluated in light of comparative pieces in public and private collections throughout the country. One appendix contains photographic details of construction and decorative elements, and another has drawings of joints and moldings.

(20080808)

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Posted on Jul-22-2009

Greece and Rome (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)


Greece and Rome (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)


Average Rating:
Author: Joan R. Mertens
ISBN: 0300087853
Number Of Pages: 160
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

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Customer Reviews


A Catalogue of Timeless Classical Art
This volume represents just a fragment of the art on display at the Greece and Rome exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). But the selections (165 of them) are wisely chosen and the explanatory notes accompanying the photos are very illuminating. All in all, this catalogue of timeless classical art will be a wonderful souvenir for those who have been there and it will be a good gift for someone who has yet to witness this magnificent collection first-hand.

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Posted on Jul-15-2009

American Quilts and Coverlets in The Metropolitan Museum of Art


American Quilts and Coverlets in The Metropolitan Museum of Art


Average Rating:
Author:
  • Curator Amelia Peck
  • Cynthia V. A. Schaffner
  • Elena Phipps
Edition: New
ISBN: 030015903X
Number Of Pages: 320
Languages:
Original Language: English
Unknown: English
Published: English

Product Description:

Newly Available from Yale

 

This handsome book showcases the Metropolitan Museum’s superb collection of 151 American quilts and coverlets. First published in 1990 and revised in 2007 to feature 32 new acquisitions and updated scholarship, this volume chronicles the development of quilt and coverlet production in the United States from the 18th through the 20th centuries, provides a glimpse into the lives of the makers and recipients of these pieces, and discusses their emergence as works of art.

 

Notable pieces include the Phebe Warner and the Baltimore Presentation coverlets, Amish, Crazy, and Honeycomb quilts that exemplify achievement in abstract and geometric patterns, along with the Adeline Harris Sears Autograph Quilt, a memorial to the greatest politicians, composers, authors, and thinkers of the mid-19th century. Each work is catalogued with a description and essential information on materials, condition, publications, and references. Also included is an illustrated survey of materials and techniques used in the creation of these works.


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Posted on Jul-12-2009

American Impressionists Abroad and at Home: Paintings from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art



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Posted on Jul-11-2009

Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)


Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)

Product Description:
In aesthetic quality, significance and scope, the Metropolitan Museum's Oceanic or Pacific Islands collection is one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world. This generously illustrated volume features some 200 masterworks from the more than 2,600 objects currently in the collection, and it is published to coincide with the opening of the Museum's new galleries of Oceanic art. An overview of Oceanic art and a history of the Metropolitan's collection are followed by detailed chapters devoted to each of the five major cultural regions of the Pacific: Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the islands of Southeast Asia. Among the notable works discussed are a monumental Baining barkcloth figure, a spectacular shield from the Solomon Islands, the Museum's renowned Torres Strait mask and acclaimed Mangarevan wooden male figure, a weather charm from the Caroline Islands, and textiles from the regions of Lampung and Sumba, in Sumatra. A glossary and selected bibliography conclude this essential guide.

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