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Art History Challenge – Life Studies by Susan Vreeland

December 31, 2009 in book review, Challenge, short story by Kim | No comments

Nothing like completing a reading challenge at the last minute!  My goal was to read six art history books, fiction or non-fiction, during 2009.  I finished my sixth book last week, Life Studies by Susan Vreeland.  It’s a collection of short stories divided into three sections:  stories concerning Impressionists and Post-Impressionists; a lovely tale about friendship and art; and current art stories. 

I think I made the mistake of reading the book like a novel, one story after another.  After awhile the stories felt a little repetitive and dull.  I probably would have enjoyed all of them more if I had read a story, moved on to something else, and then returned for another story.  That being said, there were three stories that I’ve thought of multiple times:  “In the Absence of Memory,” “The Adventures of Bernardo and Salvatore, or, The Cure:  A Tale,” and “The Things He Didn’t Know.”

Modigliani was a brilliant painter and a drunk.  He died leaving a young daughter who is raised by his mother and sister.  “In the Absence of Memory” concerns her effort to reconcile being the daughter of a great artist and an awful man.  Vreeland paints heartache, desire, betrayal and confusion in this small short story.  The plot follows the daughter from elementary school, when she is teased for being the bastard daughter of a drunk, to Modigliani’s show at the Venice Biennial, to her visit to Modigliani’s haunts in Paris.  It’s a daughter’s quest to understand a father she never knew.

In Hollywood language, “The Adventures of Bernardo and Salvatore, or, The Cure:  A Tale” is an art road trip meets The Bucket List.  Bernardo decides one day that he is ill and will die.  Salvatore, his best friend, does all he can to cajole him out of bed.  Bernardo mentions that he would like to see the Read the rest of this entry »

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Newsweek’s 50 Books for our Times – City: Rediscovering the Center by William H. Whyte

December 28, 2009 in book review, Challenge, community service, environment, science by Kim | 2 comments

Last summer Newsweek published a list of 50 recommended books to help understand our times.  The list is fascinating to look through and consider why some of the books were chosen.  To encourage a conversation about the books, Amy at My Friend Amy, started a reading project asking people to read one book, write about it, and then share the link on her website to spark conversation.  I chose City:  Rediscovering the Center by William H. Whyte for two reasons:  It was one of the last books available on the list and I knew my husband, Keith, the real estate attorney, would find it fascinating.  This is his review of the book:

Why are some cities vibrant, visually dynamic, and filled with people on the move and engaged with each other, while other cities lack many of these characteristics? What makes one section of New York a fantastic place to walk around, but other areas of the City appear unfriendly or menacing? Is it a matter of location and infrastructure or is it the result of city planning?

I always thought that city planners went to school and learned their craft attending lectures, and then on the job by sitting at their desks and analyzing plans. Maybe some do. William H. Whyte’s book argues that in order to make good planning decisions, the types of decisions that will positively impact the way in which people live in their cities, planners must go out onto the streets and understand the raw data of how people interact in public spaces. City describes how Whyte’s team studied interactions on city streets and translated this information into discernible patterns. They set up a number of cameras in different locations on a street and recorded the day-to-day interactions. Whyte dissected how people traveled the streets, where they visited, how they interacted with each other and in conjunction with the street’s infrastructure (bus stops, buildings, window ledges, etc.). Whyte drew conclusions about what makes a street work and how cities can improve the population’s experience.  One of my clients, who worked on the development of retail stores for the Walt Disney Company, told me that Disney studied many of these elements when deciding where to locate their stores. He recalled being quizzed by Michael Eisner, the then-CEO of Disney, on very specific details regarding pedestrian patterns and Read the rest of this entry »

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Art History Challenge – The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas by Gertrude Stein

November 18, 2009 in book review, Challenge, Uncategorized by Kim | 2 comments

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Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein. When told that it didn't look like her, he replied "it will."

Have you ever read Gertrude Stein?  It isn’t a question you have to ponder, possibly my greatest complement to her writing style is that you won’t forget it.  I just finished The Autobiography of Alicd B. Toklas for a literary lunch and discussion sponsored by Literary Affairs and led by Dr. Lynn Baton, UCLA literature professor extraordinaire.  I am fascinated by Gertrude Stein.  I’ve always imagined her Saturday evening salons which gathered the greats of modern art and literature to be the height of interesting conversation.  How did Gertrude know which art, artist, or writer to friend?  That was her true genius–finding other geniuses. 

Modern Art Up Close and Personal

Gertrude Stein name drops continuously and fills The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas with stories of artists and writers.  I loved it.  In Gertrude’s book, Matisse and Picasso recognize the talent in the other, but are very competitive.  Gertrude describes them as friends and enemies:

They exchanged pictures as was the habit in those days.  Each painter chose the one of the other one that presumably interested him the most.  Matisse and Picasso chose each one of the other one the picture that was undoubtedly the least interesting either of them had done.  Later each one used it as an example, the picture he had chosen, of the weaknesses of the other one.  Very evidently in the two pictures chosen the strong qualities of each painter were not much in evidence.

The walls of her apartment (which she shared with Alice and at times her brother Leo) were covered with the work of Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Gris.   It was the numerous requests to visit the artwork that prompted the Saturday evening salons, it became the set time to view the pictures.  One of my favorite scenes in the book is a lunch that Gertrude hosted for artists, she seated each one across from his art.  She knew that they only wanted to look at their own creation.  Matisse is the first to notice the arrangement and he doesn’t see it until he is leaving.

The reader follows Gertrude (supposedly through the eyes of Alice) from studio to gallery to homes.  The description of Picasso’s early studio in Montmartre is hilarious, there were not any available chairs so guests stood the entire time.  But when I read the later-to-be-famous paintings Picasso was working on when Gertrude visited, names she just mentions in passing, I really felt like I was watching art history come alive.

Gertrude provides insight into two famous dealers.  The all important Vollard who nurtured so many modern artists and from whom Gertrude and Leo Stein bought their initial pictures.  The first forary into his gallery is hilarious as Gertrude and Leo try to describe to Vollard the Cezanne landscape they want to buy Read the rest of this entry »

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Holiday Helper Added to Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge

November 4, 2009 in bookstore, Challenge, giveaway, holiday by Kim | 6 comments

Claire and I launched the Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge earlier this year to encourage people to seek out and visit new bookstores.  Robin, from A Fondess for Reading, satisfied the scout category by visiting Murder by the Book in Portland, Oregon, and  Snow Goose Bookstore in Stanwood, WA.  Allison Staton, from Soccer Mom in Denial, is also a scout after visiting Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC, and The Blue Bunny Bookstore in Dedham, MA.  We’ve had several other people sign up and we’re looking forward to hearing from them.  It’s not too late to enter the competition  – just visit at least two new bookstores before the end of year and tell us about it (in a post, or an e-mail or a comment on the Challenge post).   What a great activity while traveling for the holidays!  Everyone who satisfies the Challenge will be entered in a drawing for a $20 ABA Gift card.  Click here to enter.

In honor of the upcoming gift giving season, we’re adding a new category, “Holiday Helper.”  Buy two books at an independent bookstore, scan the receipt and send it via e-mail to Claire (claire@bookstorepeople.com) or me (kim@bookstorepeole.com) and we’ll enter you in a drawing for a second $20 ABA Gift card.  Not sure what books to buy?  No worries, we’ll be starting our Best Gifts for Readers lists next week.  We’re gathering lists of travel literature, fiction, YA, children’s, independent publishers and more.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

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Art History Challenge – The Renaissance Meets People Magazine

September 28, 2009 in book review, Challenge by Kim | 5 comments

28827776What better way to learn art history than to have it mixed with 500 year old gossip?  Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists is a jumble of fact and fiction.  Does this make the first art history book less valuable?  Maybe if I was writing a scholarly paper, but for me, it’s fun romp with the big shots of Renaissance art.

Vasari’s book provides a deeper understanding to Renaissance art without burying the reader in technical jargon.  I love art, I love discussing it, I love reading about it, but I roll my eyes when I see a sentence full of words that I individually understand, but together are a jumble.  The Lives of the Artists exposed the back story of artists and several of their works.  The experience of walking around the Pantheon and Duomo was richer after learning how Brunelleschi crawled all over the Pantheon measuring and calculating in order to crack the ancient secret of building a dome. 

My favorite stories are the legendary ones.  Brunelleschi comment that Donatello’s crucifix made Christ look like a peasant caused him to challenge Brunelleschi to sculpt a better one.  In secret Brunelleschi does and surprises Donatello with it.  In shock, Donatello drops the raw eggs he is carrying for their lunch and stomps away.  Now both crucifixes are placed across town in separate Florentine cathedrals.  I visited the cathedrals consecutively just to better compare crucifixes.  

Vasari explores artistic obsession in The Lives of the Artists.  Vasari’s described Uccello almost complete descent into madness trying to perfect perspective.  The story of Castagno’s plotting murder of Veneziano out of envy and ambition caused me to pay more attention to both of their works even though the story is completely false.  Since Veneziano outlived Castagno by at least four years, it would be difficult for Castagno to kill him.  Although, I wondered if Castagno was so ambitious in life that he would be happy to remembered even if for a false murder, and that Vasari correctly portrayed the essence of the artist.  Read the rest of this entry »

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