Realism Books

This is a great step by step approach to life size cast drawing. Short of signing up for an atelier to learn the process, this is the easiest and most detailed book I have read on the subject.

This book is well worth buying. Its very easy to understand and well put together.

A little book, but very very complete. I think that it suits all artists that are not perfectly familiar with this method. I was knowing the method but I found some little gems in it. A must!

I bought this book after reading the positive reviews at amazon.
This book gives a closer look at classical drawing technique which is perfect for portrait drawing done in a studio.
Almost from a beginning a reader is thought the sight-size technique by example.
There are clear explanations about setting up a workspace, measuring, shading and finishing work. Additionaly a reader is given some references about the sight-size drawing and painting.
The author promise this book to be a start of a whole course of sight-size aproach. That's why a student-reader begining his journey with this book starts with basic practice of cast drawing.
What I like the most in this book is that it comes with a subject right away without any unnecessary content.
The author is a painter and teacher and as a teacher he knows that book is sometimes not enough. That's why there is a dvd that accompanies the book and shows the author explaining the technique while drawing a cast.
The only disadvatage of sight-size aproach is that you have to have some extra space to set up your workspace that's why I recomend this book to everyone interested in classical drawing and painting done in art studio and to everyone interested in drawing techniques in general.
However, I don't recomend it to comic and concept artists, unless they are interested in broadening their drowing skills in general.

"Cast Drawing, using the Sight-Size Approach, by Darren R Rousar"

In my studio is a large walk-in-closet filled with books on art history, artist biographies and art how two books. Most of my how to books are deceptive pricey, glitzy books claiming to reveal secret art practices, some just rehashed bits of stuff with an over focus on personal expression and others are ads. My students offend bring in new books and we as a class discuss each book's merits. We've broken the field of books on art practices into three groups: inspirational, usually packed with lots of pretty pictures, artist promotional, usually packed with lots of pretty pictures produced by one artist, and technical usually not so pretty but packed with useful information.

Darren R Rousar's book "Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach," is technical and is in the vein of an older group of books written in the tail end of the 19th and start of the 20th century who's authors focused on real studio practices and aesthetics, not on self-promotion. What you will learn from Rousar's book is a way of drawing that is focused and sure. This book is like having Rousar there beside you as he walks you through an approach to skill development in drawing. He is one of those rare teachers, formed from the studio tradition, who understands the how and why, and can explain it and do it. I wish I had him as a studio trained drawing teacher instead of the university trained teachers, when I went to art school back in the 70's but I now have his priceless book of well-presented material.

This is not a book of fluff and pretty pictures. If you want to learn how to draw, buy this book and learn from it.

David C. Powers artist and teacher of art skills

"Realism"- A more fitting description of this book could not have been found. The creators have developed perhaps the best resource book and teaching aid on structural anatomy I have had the pleasure to utilize.

My school added this book to their library, and it has helped me a great deal. Very detailed and clean images. I've recommended it to all my classmates.

I've used this book as a guide to human body sculpting. This book has given me a better understanding of muscle structure as I built my clay model from the skeletton, and then adding muscles. I recommend it to any artist who strive to represent the human body with accuracy, be it in 3D or 2D.

I always found it difficult to relate to the way individual muscles act alone or in groups to shape and to move the human body. Page after page this book brings a simplicity to a complicated form and trust me on this one...you will have a greater appreciation of the functional body when you aquire this atlas.

I have used my REALISM book countless times as a student of anatomy, and as a practicing massage therapist. The outstanding images in REALISM capture the detail of each bone intricately and each muscle so clearly. As a student learning origins and insertions of muscles this book was invaluable, and as I educate my clients about their own bodies; explaining where muscles are or why somethings hurting etc. I am constantly reffering back to REALISM whether it's to show someone where a muscle is on their body or to refresh my own understanding. I would recommend this book to anyone whether you are a student of anatomy, working in a field where you need to know detailed anatomy, or someone who simply wants to understand their body structure a whole lot better!

Mr. Kiesling is of course famous for his notable letter of resignation at the beginning of the latest Iraq adventure after which he left a 20 year career as a diplomat. Hearing the backstory of his departure alone would have been interesting enough reading. But, surprisingly, that story is only the introduction to the real book.

Diplomacy Lessons ends up being a tour-de-force about the modern craft of international affairs, a book that transmits both the soul of the profession and the technical details that make up getting along in a world transformed by globalization. Befitting the archaeogical background of its author, the book delves into international relations with a much more sweeping view, starting with Greek democracy and projecting into the future. Diplomacy Lessons goes beyond the shallow headlines of our news sources into what's really going on - not just back room details, but simple stuff like "Hey, there are reactionary nationalists in EVERY country." You get the immediate sense that this is the backstory you need in order to understand current events.

Not that it's an easy read. Probably to the reader's benefit, the book has not been overly edited to meet mass appeal. The text can be quite dense at times, and the organization can seem a bit haphazard. Then again, to leave much out would detract from the value it provides.

The author also adds choice phrases that can only come from a man never again considering a career in federal government such as "the flies gathered in swarms like defense contractors." Who knows if a big publishing house would have let such zingers go - but it adds to the color.

If you follow the news AT ALL, then BUY THIS BOOK.

I recieved this book as a Christmas present. It is certainly the kind of book I'm fond of reading. This was no exception. As a career diplomat, Kiesling sees the importance of projecting American inflence, but as the subtitle suggest he is "realistic" is how far this influence can go. However, his presenation gets repetitive in places and is needlessly wordy. For example, he included, as an appendix, his letter of resignation. You can see in the personal document that his natural writing style is rather verbose. Some of that style made it way into this book. Still an important addition to the bookshelf library. Four stars.

Kiesling's cogently and convincingly presented lessons are a useful read for anybody who takes an interest in foreign policy, but all our politicians, of BOTH parties, ought to read it. Unfortunately, very few of them will.

I bought this book after seeing Mr. Kiesling speak about it in a bookshop on PBS. I was impressed by his sincerity and knew, from the chaos of our involvement in Iraq and elsewhere, that his insight was needed. As a career diplomat, he's seen first-hand how diplomacy has been shunted aside in favor of blundering military might. He isn't just defending his own field, however, since he demonstrates how arrogance actually loses ground for the U.S., both by making us more of a target and destroying our credibility with potential friends. While he's on-target as far as he goes, Mr. Kiesling stops a bit short in his criticism of the Bush administration. He sees it as incompetent but basically well-meaning, rather hastily dismissing any ulterior motives. I suppose this is due to residual loyalty, but the more credible doubts about the administration's motives should eventually be attended to.

This is the BEST BOOK I have ever read on real world diplomacy. The combination of his feet on the ground experience and clear eyed view of American diplomacy is most powerful. I started writing down pithy, pertinent quotations as I read it through the second time, but I filled up too many notebook pages. Perhaps it will be best to read it yet again! Here are a few: "A politician who obeys the dictates of a hostile superpower is toast." "..local nationalism and resistance to outsiders trumps the call of ideology or religion." "Someone whose ego has been sandblasted by the humiliations of learning a language successfully from scratch as an adult is bettter at risking the reciprocal vulnerability required for relationship building."

As far as I know, this is the only available publication on Thiebaud. The book covers the artist's career from his early pastries paintings to his recent large-scale landscapes. It also enables the reader to discover less "typical" works, like the portraits of his wife.

However, what makes Thiebaud's paintings striking is their thickness, the way the artist works through the layers of paint, what we call in French "la matière". It is not only the color, which of course is present in the reproductions that fill this book. Unfortunately, that is somewhat lost and therefore I was a bit disappointed when I opened this catalogue for the recent retro on Wayne Thiebaud. The reproductions should have shown more close-ups and details of the works. For this particular artist, something is lacking.

I had ordered this book to share it with my adult painting students in a class I teach. It was to inspire a lesson about painting pictures of pastries. What I found was so much more. The book provides an informative overview of a variety of types of work by this artist, both realist and pop artist, with fine quality reproductions of the art work.

Remember that old Frank Sinatra song that served as an inspirational film for rainy day grade school entertainment in the 50's? Well, if there is an artist who has captured the imagination and dreamy reveries of life in the past century, the quieter, more ebulliently committed time to joy and the simple treasures here, that man is Wayne Thiebaud. WAYNE THIEBAUD: A PAINTINGS RETROSPECTIVE is a beautifully designed catalogue raisonne of the pop artist's oeuvre that toured the country a few years ago. Organized by curator Steven A. Nash of San Francisco (the artist's home) this book is beautifully illustrated with all of the iconic images of pies, cakes, candy apples, etc. that everyone associates with Thiebaud. Yet it gives equal time to the inimitable 'landscapes' of the hilly terrain that is San Francisco, valleys of Northern California, and beaches. Thiebaud's ability to flatten vistas into geometric patterns can be compared to Richard Diebenkorn's purely abstract Ocean Park Series of paintings: both artists understand space, color, and the excitement of the line.

Accompanying this 'delicious' array of Thiebaud paintings are essays by both Nash and by Adam Gopnik of 'New Yorker' who aptly praises Thiebaud as a man in the same company of Americana as Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and John Updike! That about sums it all up and this essay alone would be reason enough to buy this important volume of American art history. Simply superb. Grady Harp, October, 2004

This is the definitive book on the works of Wayne Thiebaud, which accompanied the very successful exhibition at the Whitney Museum. Thiebaud is best known for his hyper-realistic paintings of food, so luscious and sensual that they have universal appeal. When Theibaud first started painting in this style, he was compared to the Pop Artists, such as Warhol, Wesselmann, Indiana and Ramos. However, Thiebaud always tried to set himself apart from these artists, because although he agreed with their use of repetitive images as a comment on the banality of American consumerism, he wanted to paint well and believed that a series of soup cans painted poorly did not reflect his goal as an artist. It took many years after the Pop Artists became famous for Thiebaud to achieve the recognition that he deserved, partly because he was considered a regional artist who painted in California. This book is the seminal treatise on the works of Thiebaud and is therefore a must read.

an excellent book with excellent reproductions. i enjoyed it.

This was one of the most delightful books I've read all year. The story is set in present day New York City and begins with an encounter with John Lennon, playing guitar in a small Greenwich Village Café. It is humor and magical realism at its best. If you like Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and if you loved "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", you'll want to read this book. William Hammett did several things that surprised me. His lead character is a woman, and I will give him his propers - I was convinced. He incorporates all kinds of Beatles lore, historical events, current events and time travel and he does it with simple,lovely prose. If you've read his poetry, you know what a talented writer he is. Underneath this seemingly simple tale, there are some profound ideas and themes that will keep you thinking long after you've read the last page.

Although I was never a huge Beatles fan, this is an incredibly fun book. If you are a Beatles fan you'll likely enjoy it even more. John Lennon comes back from the dead and at first only a woman named Amy can see him. From the moment she does a wild surreal ride begins involving time travel, the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie, a road trip from New York City to California and back, folk and blues music, and lots of inside information about Lennon and his times. It's the closest thing to going on tour with John Lennon. Highly recommended.

I just finished reading this book and was truly impressed. Not only is this a fun read and a real page-turner; it also has a deep and compelling message for the reader to contemplate, throughout.

John Lennon spoke for and to a generation: "give peace a chance", "imagine", "strange days indeed" . William Hammett has captured Lennon's charisma and character so well.

The story takes the reader on a journey that has many a twist and turn along the way and is indeed,magical and mysterious.

This is a novel that will appeal to anyone who enjoys a great read, Lennon fan or not. Buy it, read it, pass it along to a friend. A book you will truly enjoy and want to share.

John Lennon is one of the most important and conflicted figures of a troubled decade. This well written spiritual journey takes it's readers on a wonderful trip into the realm of the what if.

I loved this book! It was a great read for a rainy week-end snuggled on my couch with, dare I say, a cup of tea. It was a fantastic journey that I didn't want to end...maybe one we all want to take...to look inside ourselves and redo or undo some of our own past...or maybe just to see why we do the things we do...or maybe just to enjoy a few hours with a music legend.

Some of the clearest, most economical and beautiful writing ever about the human condition and how to better it -- for example the chapter critiquing Freud is, it seems to me, absolutely brilliant, 'magisterial', as they say, superior to what you can find about Freud just about anywhere else. And the same can be said about the quality of the rest of the book, which is concerned with various aspects of how to achieve or approach one's fullest humanity. Siegel managed to get down to an unusual, almost historically unique depth and simplicity of thought and expression, while still managing to take in and express the infinite complexity of the world in a remarkably complete way. I have read a lot of books on philosophy, psychology, and spirituality, Western, Eastern and other, and Siegel's book is to my mind one of the very best. A masterpiece.

My caveat: I don't see how his students in Soho (he has been dead for decades) have been able to turn what is found in this book and in Siegal's other writings (most of which I have read) to the rather dogmatic ends to which they put it. For example, they used to insist a few years ago (I don't know what they say nowadays) that this book was the greatest book ever written, and that Siegal was basically the greatest person who ever lived. And they would say such things without the least apparent smidgen of uncertainty, diffidence, or consciousness of the possibility that they might, just possibly, be mistaken. At least, the students I met were like that, and my sense of the situation was that they were typical of the students in general. They go around, or used to go around, with buttons saying, "victimized by the press", because they felt that the mainstream press, the New York Times, the Washington Post should be reporting on Eli Siegel's writings and teachings. The fact that this was not happening, the students thought, was a kind of assault perpetrated on the students of Siegel's teaching, on the deceased Siegel, and on the human race itself.

So, in my view, one should beware of the students, but read the book, it's a very important piece of writing, up there with the classics, I think, both in the high degree of perfection of its literary style, and in the simple beauty and yet profound complexity of its content. If you seek self-knowledge and profound knowledge of the world, there are few writers or books to compare with this one. Just don't stop with Siegel.

I love this book and recommend it to everyone! In Self and World Eli Siegel looks at the turbulence of every person about-for example-guilt, love, parents, children, money and jobs, and through these and more he shows that within aesthetics is the understanding of the human mind. And with what style-and often humor-he explains us to ourselves! Reading this book, I recognized myself again and again in the descriptions throughout of persons who are fictional, but who nonetheless live. For example, there is Harold Jamison. As his personal turmoil is told of, I felt that I too was being understood. Take this passage from the chapter, The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict. Eli Siegel writes: [p. 95-96]

"Aesthetics is related to every particular conflict; to everyday conflict. Aesthetics is related to the problems of the ordinary man, the tough guy, the people we meet in our homes, in theatres, in streets, in stores. ...
Look at Jamison. He is shy and he is arrogant; in fact, he is like most people. Sometimes, Jamison looks at himself and finds a person who is timid, wants to evade people, thinks people don't like him; is unassertive and inferior. At other times, Jamison is raring to go, feels like an excited regiment, and like a dozen energetic lions up to something. In other words, Jamison of Wilkes-Barre feels both inferior and superior; and when he feels superior, it's hard for him to realize he ever felt inferior. ... So the inferiority and superiority feelings of Harold Jamison are in conflict. ...
Aesthetics makes the essential superiority and inferiority feelings in man a working team, a team of oneness. We can't kick out either Jamison's arrogance or his shyness. They are both part of him. They are to be made one, and they can be."

Here, what many people feel ashamed of-vacillating between looking down on everybody and feeling wretchedly inferior-is seen in relation to the questions of all people. Reading this for the first time gave me, surprisingly, a feeling of release and pride. "When people know themselves," Eli Siegel writes, "they truly can approve of themselves because they know what they are. No self can truly know itself and be ashamed." [p. 98]

This book has new, urgently needed knowledge. The practical applications of the philosophy explained in Self and World, Aesthetic Realism, which Eli Siegel founded in 1941, are vast. The book is a thrilling and deep good time. Get it!

When I began studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford, in the late 1970's, I was hoping to understand the world, other people, myself. There I studied the works of John Locke, David Hume, Rene Descartes, Bertrand Russell and many other great philosophers, and I was amazed by their ideas. But even when I graduated three years later I still didn't feel the philosophy I read and cared for had anything to do with my own personal thoughts and feelings. It was not until I read Eli Siegel's "Self and World" that I met a fully coherent, intellectually-satisfying explanation of reality and the purpose of our lives.

Eli Siegel explains the human self, what has interfered with -- ruined -- lives over the years; and he has enabled things that have tormented people--the hitherto intractable, incomprehensible things--to change, bringing sunlight where there was darkness. As he does, he brings together subjects that have been seen as essentially unrelated, such as individual psychology and economics, mental health and beauty, and shows how aesthetics relates and explains them all--that this is one coherent world, and that it is the other half of ourselves. As well as explaining in detail some of the biggest things such as insanity, happiness, what will make for truly successful economics, the meaning of beauty for our lives, guilt, how a child comes to have an attitude to the world and what interferes, love, dreams, and more--he also explains in a few paragraphs, sometimes less, such things as bed-wetting, the heredity-environment debate, trauma, and so much more, All this in words that are beautiful, with the most clear, accessible logic, kindness, passionate good will, and with tremendous humour.

I'm giving a swift description of some of the matters addressed in this book, but what I write here comes from careful study and much thought. I suggest you read it for yourself, and see what you think.

This book is a major step in the understanding of mind, and it also happens to be a joy to read.

Self and World by Eli Siegel is a grand book, from beginning to end. In particular, the chapter, "Psychiatry, Economics, Aesthetics," is a must for every person interested in the study of politics and government as I was, majoring in political science and international affairs in college, and now, as I work as an urban planner for New York City. Studying, for example, George F. Kennan's American Diplomacy 1900-1950, and Theories of the Political System, Classics of Political Thought and Modern Political Analysis by William T. Bluhm, I was learning why and how man has wanted to organize into a fair and just state of government. And I worked for candidates I felt could further this. Then I could feel, I just want to be by myself. Could sense be made of these two different and strong feelings? Yes. Eli Siegel explains as he writes about a young woman he called Stella Winn: "The profound trouble with Stella Winn is that she has become altruistic, collective, not as a completion of egoism or narrow individualism, but as a set-off to these, an atonement for these. Collectivism and altruism are not atonements for individuality, they are completions of it."

This is one example of the comprehension that fills this book, that has one say to oneself, over and over, yes, now I understand. Every chapter of Mr. Siegel's prose delights and educates in so many fields, including love, the family, the understanding of dreams, children and what they're hoping for from themselves and their parents, anger, and so much more.

This is a book, as other reviewers have stated, that is unique and great. The author states on the first page of his Preface: "The large difference between Aesthetic Realism and other ways of seeing an individual is that Aesthetic Realism makes the attitude of an individual to the whole world the most critical thing in his life." And to learn how this is true is to understand oneself better--to an exponential degree.

As an anthropologist who has studied many cultures, the explanation given in this book of the many ways an individual can see the world falsely or accurately, egoistically or with respect, illuminates--as no other explanation has done--the inner lives of men and women from southern Africa to the Arctic, from New York City to Beijing, Sydney, Bagdhad.

You see, in Self and World, for example, such sentences as: "The basic conflict in the human mind--present, I believe, in all particular conflicts--is that between a person warmly existing to his fingertips, and that person as related to indefinite outsideness....In every person there is a drive towards the caring for and pleasing of self; in every person there is a drive towards other things, a desire to meet and know these. Often this drive towards self as an exclusive thing collides painfully with the drive to widen the self" (p. 93). Here is the beginning point for the particular conflicts we all have, in every culture. It is the conflict present in the particular conflicts documented by Ruth Benedict in her always-important Patterns of Culture; by David Friend Aberle in his analysis of a Hopi life history (the life of Don Talayesva, titled Sun Chief); by Margaret Mead in her large anthology, Cooperation and Competition; and many more worldwide. Eli Siegel, in Self and World, explains the cause of these conflicts. He gets to a deep and universal, indeed multicultural, explanation.

When he writes, "Look at Jamison. He is shy and he is arrogant; in fact, he is like most people," he is talking about people worldwide. And we don't necessarily know a person's race in Self and World: Is Joe Johnson white, or black, or brown? What color is Jamison? or Robinson? or Stella Winn? The people whose lives are described in Self and World--each in his or her own particular, rich way--are Everyman. They are you and me.

And as we learn that Jamison "looks at himself and finds a person who is timid, wants to evade people..." and who "at other times...is raring to go, feels like an excited regiment, and like a dozen energetic lions" (p. 95), we see not only the duality or polarity that we have ourselves, but soon we will learn the reason why we bound back and forth between inferiority and superiority--and learn the solution in aesthetics. It is aesthetics seen in a way that adds to what was seen by earlier philosphers and critics--adding to Aristotle (in the Poetics) and Plotinus and Saintsbury and Matthew Arnold. For, writes Martha Baird Siegel in her Introductory Note, "He saw beauty in a new way and made it plain, able to be seen by others. He said: 'All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.'"

For a more complete description, see this book.

As a student of Aesthetic Realism who used the understanding of self set forth in Self and World as the basis of my doctoral thesis (Columbia University Department of Anthropology)--the thesis was sponsored by Margaret Mead--and as a person who came to understand myself much more deeply than by any other means, I have no doubt that the explanation of self that is in this book is the most valuable to be found anywhere. I do not say this to annoy anyone who may not be familiar with the full range of explanation that has been given (whether by Freud, Adler, Horney, Geza Roheim, or many others), but to be exact. To a person making a fair comparison, the author of Self and World, Eli Siegel, has understood, explained, elucidated with immense clarity, that unknown terrain which so many have struggled to map without success: the human self. And he has done so in prose that is great literature.

A timeless and sumptuous exploration of the fluidity of the ages and our spiritual connections, THOSE BEAUTIFUL EYES is a true feast for the senses.

From ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day San Francisco, in delicate yet masterful prose, this novel depicts the lives and fates of a village girl in service to a goddess, a dancer, and a film maker and his wife, while reflecting on the corrupting influence that the quest for recognition, power and wealth has on the soul. Ms Lutzky's wealth of historical research shines through without interfering with the sublime clarity of her tale - one that carries deep roots in Eastern philosophies. A sensual celebration of longing and loss, of the fragility of love and our forgotten past, this is literature of the highest order - an intelligent, deeply powerful book that cannot fail to leave the reader yearning for more. Highly recommended for fans of Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Lutzky's "Those Beautiful Eyes". Slipping back and forth through time kept me on my toes but the modern characters were so involving that I found myself wondering about them and where the story was headed...much as one would absently think about friends and their lives.

Of course I identified with certain characters and their struggles with life and relationships. Very convincing stuff. I suspect that Ms. Lutzky has indeed a connection to another time and place...a must read!

This is a "vanity press" book. If a writer such as Mrs. Lutzky cannot (it would seem) find an agent and that agent find a publisher, it merely indicates how distressed the book business is these days. Fortunately, yes, there are still many good writers and many agents/publishers to work with them. Of course, I may have this all wrong and it's a reprint of previously published material, but I do not believe that to be the case.

Whatever the case, this is no reflection on Those Beautiful Eyes nor the author. This is a stunning work of literature and I'm glad to see there are others who agree with my determination.

Other reviewers have given an overview of the contents of this beautiful novel, so I will only make a few remarks about my own experience in reading it. I bought this book on impulse, something I rarely do. I don't read novels for entertainment, but rather to be touched deeply at the feeling core of my being. Very few novels do that, but this one did. My love for ancient history was fed by the author's fine evocation of life in 2700 BCE, a time I well recall from a lifetime of dreams and reveries of Mohenjo-Daro.

The characters of Anarisha (in 2700 BC) and Maria (in modern times) are the most vividly drawn, and well brought to life by the strong supporting cast. I read this book slowly, savoring every word. The book is well-written enough to allow this kind of deep immersion without becoming thin or shallow. The ending was perhaps a bit contrived, but still satisfying.

I just finished the book this morning and I still cannot separate myself from it enough to give a fully objective evaluation. For one thing, there were a stunning number of coincidences between the dates and places in the book and those of my own life. This added much to my reading experience, but could not possibly be shared by very many other readers. For (only a very few of many) examples: Born in 1945; life changing month of June, 1963; entered UC Berkeley Fall, 1963 (I feel I knew the author then, but I can't be certain); first child born 1974; an unexpected tragic death in 1998; and far too many more to mention without boring you. And the Dhammapada, that constant companion and guide of my life. Certainly a part of my appreciation for this book was that the author was somehow, inexplicably, writing the story of my own life -- not merely the sense of it, which can be found in other books, but the details, which I don't know how she could have known.

A remarkable literary achievement, this book is "almost aesthetically perfect" like Michael Dagan's films. Ann, by pouring your life into this story, you have accomplished your life's work. Now it's time to go beyond being a Buddhist, and to become a Buddha.

A beautiful story of transcendence; transcendence of passion and will of a beautiful priestess in an ancient time to transcendence of time and space. A fascinating life journey that plays out in exotic sites across the world with seamless writing by the author. The colorful character of Anarishka stimulates the imagination. Anne Cowart Lutzky's writing is novel, intriguing, and absorbing. Highly recommended.

Hildebrand is quite fair in rectifying the philosophically muddled caricatures of Dewey and the classical pragmatists that have been popularized by neopragmatism. This is a must-read for anyone who has been introduced to Dewey via Rorty or Putnam. Not only does it provide brilliant scholarship in sorting out the misinterpretations made by neopragmatists, it offers a thoroughly comprehensive articulation of Dewey's actual philosophy as well as the sorts of debates that framed much of Dewey's writing.

The greatest strength of Hildebrand's argument is found in his technique of casting neopragmatism's preoccupation with much of the philosophical conversation surrounding realism vs. anti-realism in the context of these early idealism vs. realism debates that Dewey effectively overcame. The moral to take away from this story is that it is often all too easy, despite these contemporary attempts to recapture the spirit of Dewey, to become caught up in the underbrush of one's own theoretical discourse. Hildebrand makes a convincing argument that by rejecting Dewey's metaphysics and method of inquiry (as Rorty does), pragmatism becomes anemic--unable to fall back upon the "practical-starting point" that enabled Dewey to so elegantly diffuse criticisms from both idealist and realist camps. While the work of Rorty and Putnam may face similar challenges today, it seems that without the insight that Hildebrand explicates in Dewey's view, neopragmatism is unable to deflect many of its major criticisms.

The scanned copy of this book does not have the back cover blurbs, which I think are worth reading:

David Hildebrand's attempt to restate Dewey's central message is intelligent, well-informed and well-argued, as are his polemics against what he takes to be Putnam's and my own misunderstandings of Dewey.
--Richard Rorty, Stanford University

Pragmatism was revived, in the 1970s and 1980s and was led at once into philosophical dead ends that John Dewey had already skillfully dismantled. Now, David Hildebrand corrects the record; provides an informed, splendidly argued, indispensable part of the recovery of Dewey's analysis of realism still hardly bettered by anyone today.
-- Joseph Margolis, Temple University

Beyond Realism and Antirealism packs a double punch. Mobilizing a meticulous study of early twentieth-century classical pragmatism, Hildebrand engages the key neopragmatic positions of Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. Then, driving his own thesis home, he offers what he terms Dewey's "practical stance" as a corrective to the limitations of the linguistic turn.
--Larry Hickman, Director, The Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

I'm not sure what philosophers intend to create with their endless excursions into varieties of ways to navel-gaze, but this book has helped me interrupt the endless loop I've seemed to have been caught in with philosophers for several years now. It's certainly not for lack of effort on my part that I've perpetually ended-up confused. Now I learn that increasing the level of confusion has actually been part of the philosophical agenda.

David Hildebrand does me two incredibly welcome favors with this work. First, he gets me started in the right place. That is, he gets me out of theoretical epicycles and returns me to the radical world of reality. Needless to say, having a proper starting point makes a huge difference that I notice immediately.

Next, he tells me what philosophy is capable of. That is, philosophy can actually be engaged in as a MEANS to study, perchance to improve, the experience I find myself immersed in before I open my mouth to speak or poise my pen to write or or even begin to compose sentences.

I have turned an important corner here in my own personal quest to effect improvements in the world. If I never learned where to start or how to employ philosophy, then I'd remain lost in it's self-absorbed, subjective/reflective mazes until I died.

While I admit benefitting from having an erudite response constructed logically to help contextualize Putnam & Rorty, I enjoy most of all the freedom to take my own personal set of capabilities, such that they are, and investigate whether or not I am able to effect improvement in the real world.

I feel very much liberated and very much encouraged in being a practically-minded human creature.

I will add my own deeply sincere thanks to those of the other reviewers here. I look forward to what follows this volume.

Hildebrand's book sets the record straight regarding Rorty and Putnam's failure to properly understand Dewey's metaphysics and epistemology--a failure that results in their unwitting support for the very philosophical positions that Dewey had explicitly rejected. But the reader is in for much more than an informed correction of two prominent neo-pragmatist philosophers. This book offers a compelling interpretation of Dewey's metaphysics and epistemology, the key to which, Hildebrand argues is Dewey's practical starting point. This thesis is well researched, clearly presented, and rigorously argued. Finally, Hildebrand concisely presents some of the key debates between Dewey and his realist and idealist critics. The reader gains much from this book: a thorough account of contemporary debates in neo-pragmatism, a compelling interpretation of Dewey, and a concise overview of some of the most important philosophical debates in early twentieth century American philosophy. And all of this is presented in clearly written prose. Additionally, the book has many helpful diagrams of key philosophical concepts. This is the sort of book that will benefit analytic philosophers and those interested in American pragmatism. I highly recommend it!

Although many essays (and anthologies of essays) have appeared on the topic of classical pragmatism versus neopragmatism, this is the first book-length project I know of to tackle the controversy from a viewpoint fully conversant with and sympathetic to Dewey's signal contribution. It is quite refreshing to discover a scholar who not is not only aware of, but champions, the vital Deweyan conceptions of having versus knowing, primary experience, and the centrality of inquiry. Hildebrand's grasp of Dewey's engagement with direct and critical realism is exemplary, and his "deconstruction" of Rorty's antirealism is nothing short of amazing-"wicked" comes to mind! Although Hildebrand's alternative "practical standpoint" falls short, in my view, of Dewey's full transactional integration of experience and nature, this book opens up an area of research of vital importance. It is well written, informed, and cogent.

edward hopper ... robert bechtle ... william eggleston ...

the great american image creator.

the only book of bechtle. great!!

The mere act of transforming what might be considered an average snapshot into a work of art is Bechtle's magic. Quiet streets, mundane automobiles, and people from a home photo album take on an air of the sublime, proving that the greatest power of photorealism lies not in the technique, but in the process of transforming a snapshot into an irrefutable memory.

This is a great book about a great artist. I saw the pictures in original and they are very good reproduced in this book. Who loves photorealism should have it.

I drove from Jackson, Mississippi to the Modern Museum of Ft. Worth see the Retrospective of Robert Bechtle's work. I am an artist myself and was astounded at the collection in this exhibit. The book does a superb job of presenting photos of the paintings in the collection. Additionally, the museum store at The Modern had none of these books in stock so it was fortunate that I ordered it when I did.

Robert Bechtle has been a creative force in California art since the 1960s, yet his name remains practically unknown outside the Bay Area artists group. This very fine monograph by Janet Bishop, designed as a catalogue to accompany the traveling exhibition of this works, should help to mend that sin of omission. The style of writing is warm and informative and, in many ways, in keeping with Bechtle's vision of the world he paints!

One quick perusal of the many reproductions of his major works in this book quickly leaves the impression that Bechtle understands and successfully captures the quality of light that is peculiar to California. His street scenes of angled cars and bungalows are flooded with light and shadow. Though his art movement classification is Photorealism, Bechtle goes beyond mere photo copying techniques. His work is more about our lifestyle and our living compartments normally looked upon as mere blocks of space in which we function. Bechtle enhances everything he paints with a sunny 'romanticism' if you will. His art is more about a love affair with the atmosphere's effect on the mundane places we inhabit than it is with simple reproduction of images and landscapes.

For the art lover of realism and for those who respect the prodigious gifts of representational artists, this book is a must for the library. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 05

Stillbird is a family history through five generations beginning with Alwyn, mother of Jamie and Abel. Abused and abandoned by her husband, she becomes a mid wife. It is then that she is accused of being a witch and murdered. Introduced only through the memory of her son Abel, she is the ancestor of the others. The story begins with Rosie/Stillbird as she buries her husband Jamie. Part Native American she was born to a tribe that had escaped The Trail of Tears that killed so many but their survival forced the tribe to live in secrecy. After her husband's death she must deal with unwelcome attentions of his brother who has always wanted her for himself. She returns to her tribe as No-Name, not accepted back into the tribe but not abandoned by them either. But Abel follows her, determined to wait for her.

The story follows the generations from the woods and poverty of early North Carolina to the birth of Stillbird's great grandson in religious revival camp to the post World War II America. It is a look at the product of rape, abuse and incest. This is not a tale of family progress but of a family trapped in its history of violence and madness. What is amazing about this book is the author's excellent combination of foreshadowing and surprise in the story line. While she clearly tells the reader what to expect it still astounds as the pieces of the plot follow one another in ever saddening swirls.

Stillbird is an entry to the world of Classic Fiction by The Wessex Collection. Wessex Collection is a group of writers who feel they should use their talents to help create social justice in the modern world. Sanchez uses her back ground as an attorney to address the issue of violence against women. But she is able to extend the metaphor to cover the attitudes of a world that does not see the obvious, that can blind itself to those it chooses not to see. As Mary, the granddaughter of Stillbird faces her own terror those in the town around her turn a blind eye to that which was in front of them. Sanchez is able to draw the reader into the anomalous humanity of the characters and their lives. It is a thoughtful yet powerful portrayal of family dynamics gone drastically wrong, generation after generation in a cycle of lost mankind.

Stillbird is a multifaceted web of connections. As we watch one generation to the next, the effects of one evil deed washes across several families and numerous communities. Sanchez has done a frighteningly wonderful job of showing how the past is rarely truly gone as events ripple through time.

The writing is subtle but the message comes through loud and clear. This is a work that makes you think as you feel the characters' pain. A must-read for those interested in the effects of sexual abuse on resulting generations and fans of compelling writing!

Stillbird is a strangely powerful novel whose haunting, almost surreal images, lyrical, dream-like prose and complexity will challenge the most sophisticated reader.

Divided into three parts, with each part focusing on a specific character or characters, the novel encompasses different locations and timelines. Either directly or indirectly, the characters and their fates are darkly connected to one other. In a bizarre way the events in the story seem to spring from the strangulation of a midwife who was suspected of witchcraft in the isle of Skye in the 1880's, and culminate tragically in Denver in the 1960's.

In Part One, the reader encounters a lovely Indian woman named Stillbird, a name she gave herself. "She nestled into the leaves and slept soundly without dreaming," writes Sanchez, "but sometimes she woke and watched the stars, and when she woke, it seemed the birds did too, and they spoke to her, and she got her name that night." (15) Before this, she called herself No-Name. Later, she is referred as "that woman." In fact, Stillbird is "an empty vessel, waiting for the gift of soul and identity." (14) A young window, Stillbird has to deal with her brother-in-law Abel, whose obsessive love for her impels him to rape her.

With a keen understanding of human motivations, Sanchez offers the reader a chilly portrayal of the twisted psychology of love. Layer by layer, she strips her characters raw. Abel worships Stillbird, but, not corresponded, and ignited by her serene indifference, his love gradually turns to violence. One evening, after an incident involving their son, Abel, for the first time, slaps her hard on the face and discovers something with catastrophic consequences: "He made a formal apology to his wife, after which he made love to her, and she was too confused to deny him. He sensed her confusion as fear, which made him first sad and then satisfied: if she could not love him, let her fear him, he would settle for that." (29)

In Part Two, the reader meets John Banks, an odd figure with a preacher's collar, suede Indian-like boots and "a wide brimmed hat that look like he'd gotten it from a theatre's costume room." (53) Full of pathos and hopelessness, he is almost a comical character as he roams from town to town preaching and telling "crazy" stories about the second coming. No one takes him seriously, especially when he raves about miracles and how he saved a young girl who was pregnant with the son of God. Only this baby who comes out of her, this so call "Jesus," is born with no arms and deemed as a devil.

In Part Three, Sanchez offers us a disturbing portrayal with Mary Queen of Scots.
A victim of incest, and mother of her father's child, Mary is all that is tragic and painful in the world, a symbol of innocence lost and dreams crushed forever. Her father, seeing her pregnant with his own child, goes to a cave to "ask for a dream to guide him" (97) and decides to kill her. "He held her close to him as he walked in long strides, stepping over rocks and small ravines and snakes that wound, sluggish with cold, toward their winter holes... he lovingly lay her on the ground in a thicket of wild mint, and he took out a knife that he had sharpened so he could not cause her pain, and he carefully cut her throat, feeling a magical strength and sureness in his cold benumbed hands. Carefully, he held her lovely head and carefully, he made the cut." (97)

Sanchez utilizes the author omniscient point of view and very little dialogue. The cave is a recurrent image in the novel, and the wild animals add a delicate touch of myth and magical realism. "Once, in mid-summer, when she [Stillbird] fell asleep in the warm afternoon sun in a field of tall grass, and Charles wandered very near to her, the crows all flocked to her and landed on her body, dozens of them, to hide her sleeping form from the man." (40)

Sanchez's writing style, though, is exquisite. Her flawless prose flows like "the blood that streamed down her hands [Mary's] and arms as her father carried her to the river that would be her grave." (97)

Sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing, but always memorable, Stillbird is a novel I highly recommend for the serious reader.

Sandra Shwayder Sanchez is a wonderful writer. Always original, never trite, Sanchez paints beautiful pictures with her words. A true artist.

In "Stillbird," Sandra Sanchez has written a terse epic, a story of generations that flows as swiftly and turbulently as the stream that binds them together. This imaginative author ushers us into the lives of utterly original characters so adeptly that we feel we have known them all along. Sanchez seems to be telling us -- through Stillbird and the granddaughter she would never know, Mary Queen of Scots, bound together in their mute quest for sanctuary, and the armless James, wise beyond his years -- that life can be simultaneously brutal and sweet.