Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals

Book Description

Over the past twenty-five years, Chicano artists have made a unique contribution to public art in California, transforming thousands of walls into colorful artworks that express the dreams, achievements, aspirations, and cultural identity of the Mexican-American community. Signs From the Heart tells the inside story of this new and important American art form in four interpretive essays by noted Chicano scholars about its historical, artistic, and educational significance.

Four essays interpreting the historical, artistic, and educational significance of Chicano murals in California.

Customer Reviews:

The Very Best In VISUAL SOUP FOR THE SOUL!.......2003-03-31

I bought this book for a CHICANO/A studies course that I had and it really sank inside of me. It shows pictures of the beautiful murals that can be found in CALIFORNIA by some well known chicano/a muralists and others by popularly known organizations such as SPARC. Coincidentally SPARC which stands for SOCIAL PUBLIC ART RESOURCE CENTER are also the community artists that pained a 2, 435 foot long "GREAT WALL OF LOS ANGELES" which can be viewed at Coldwater Cyn and Oxnard St near Los Angeles Valley College. Very inspirational as well. These murals are also depicted in the book, but I recommend breathing in the life of the murals on your very own. It creates a sort of "ZEN" between you and history. Very powerful images!

It includes inspirational and pride-filling pictures from "CHICANO PARK" in San Diego, East Los Angeles Ramona Gardens MURALS, murals from BERKELEY, murals from freeway underpasses, and San Francisco. These of course are only a couple of localities, there are more. It is an empowering book that really lets you see what struggles the Latino people have had to overcome. It depicts scenes from earlier pre-colonial struggles to recent political views. It is a book that you will pick up and want to add to your collection. This is a 2nd copy that I own and thought that I would share the knowledge with others. It really makes you want to go out and see for yourself what beautiful pieces of art lay within the urban chaos that we live in.

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house that faux built reveiws ca toga

an inspiring life to which i aspire

The magical fantasy of Carlo, Maestro d'Artes

Festa Veneziana A Ca'Toga: The Imaginative World of a Venetian Artist in Napa Valley
Carlo Marchiori
Manufacturer: TEN SPEED PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Grand Illusions

ASIN: 1580084028

Book Description

In the serene Northern California town of Calistoga, a splendid villa is fronted by stately wrought-iron gates and a small sign reading “Carlo Marchiori, Maestro d'Arte.” Ca'toga, as the Palladian-style villa is named, is the home and workshop of Carlo Marchiori, a world-renowned Venice-born artist. In FESTA VENEZIANA A CA'TOGA, Marchiori serves as tour guide, leading us room by room through this live portfolio, providing deeply personal and mysterious explanations for the wonders that abound in his gallery-like residence. Sixteenth century-style frescoes hang in the main salon, hand-painted stone floors accent the library, and antler and bone sculptures embellish the Native American room. Roman ruins, Thai temples, a seashell-encrusted grotto, and an open-air theater sit in archaic splendor on this dreamscape-turned-landscape. A spontaneous and creative expression of his life and work, Ca'toga is Marchiori's artistic utopia—a work in progress that is a brilliant spectacle to behold.

Customer Reviews:

house that faux built reveiws ca toga.......2007-09-30

The House That Faux Built As the author of The House that FAux Built-Transform Your Home with Paint Plaster and Creativity, I shared the faux-cademy stage with the the author of this book and we traded books at the end. I was thrilled and amazed at his creativity. It is an exceptional book full of great ideas. Even better, I was able to visit the house this summer on a tour. If you ever get the chance do it! In the meantime defn. buy the book, Adrienne van Dooren

an inspiring life to which i aspire.......2007-09-07

carlo lives the artist's life surrounded by a world of his own creation, and shows us that it is our mission to create and spread beauty in this world, with our skill, and our hopes and dreams. plus, it looks like he knows how to throw a good party. bravo maestro!

The magical fantasy of Carlo, Maestro d'Artes.......2002-07-29

What a joyous occasion it becomes to whirl through the new book on Venetian-born Carlo Marchiori, a master of many arts, who now lives and works in Calistoga, Ca., the northern-most town in Napa Valley. The book not only presents his life and work in a colorful, well-photographed journal, but it has the magical touch of Carlo's own imagination for the styling of the photographs, layout, and storyline. Now his mastery of arts includes book design as well as painting, drawing, sculpture, construction, architecture, and costume design!

A self-proclaimed great illusionist, he nontheless informs us of the historical references in his art while capturing our imaginations on an illustrated magical journey back through time. The book is storybook, history, and journal, all rolled into one, and written with Carlo's great sense of humor and gusto for life. From the moment you turn the first page, you are captured by Renaissance man Marchiori's presentation, all colorful, fun, and fantastic. It is a delightful glimpse into his most beautiful imaginings, and they are bountiful. You laugh, smile, ooooo, and ahhhhh, and see life above the mundane, as does Carlo!

Book Description

The fresco that José Clemente Orozco painted in 1930 at Pomona College in Claremont, California, was both the artist's first work in the United States and the first Mexican mural in this country. As such, the Prometheus is a landmark in the history of the Mexican mural movement and of the art of the 20th century.

The four scholarly essays in this volume, written over a period of 43 years, bear eloquent testimony to the undimmed power of the Prometheus to intrigue, provoke, and inspire. Celebrating the college's acquisition of 17 preparatory drawings for the mural from the artist's family, the book is lavishly illustrated with Orozco's work and that of his contemporaries.

Customer Reviews:

Epic and powerful art.......2003-02-04

I was a little put back wondering how so much could be written about one piece of art; then again we're talking a monumental groundbreaking piece, Promethius. At first drawn to the colorful photographs of this fantastic public display I was mesmerized with the brilliance of color, slashing strokes of genius revealing the at once creator and destroyer Promethius. Larger than life, in epic proportions this mammoth contribution was created by one of the three master muralists of Mexico, Jose Clemente Orozco. The other two muralists being Siquieros and Rivera who would later follow suit and create murals in the United States. The color and black and white pictures of Orozco's art, including some from Mexcio, is worth the price of the book by itself. The book features four rather scholarly essays written over a span of forty-three years. These essays are considered the most important analytical writings on Promethius by Orozco. The book details the origins of this book, the problems and the success in producing a complimentary publication to the major exhibition that came to the United States in 2001of which I was fortunate enough to witness.The aquisition of the original drawings was a struggle but eventually the family relinquished the ownership so that the originals could be with the mural in Pomona College. One of the interesting controversies regarding Promethius was the fact that everything was massive and in colossol proportions, the muscled male nude had everything except for his genitalia which was missing. Throughout it's reign over the dining hall at Pomona College, since 1930, students have had protests over this issue and it has even resulted in vandalism. In spite of the controversy restoration has taken place to guard and preserve the original integrity of the masterpiece for future generations. Anyway the essays are interesting and thought provoking. Many angles are discussed that deal with the social and historical relevence of Promethius and as to why Orozco chose him. The actual reproduced art work is an amazing demonstration of brilliance. Many of his other works are featured and discussed as well. The collection of studies for the murals are exceptional embryonic manifestations of the inner workings of creativity. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the works of Jose Clemente Orozco.

Painting the Towns: Murals of California

Average customer rating:

Excellent color photography, comprehensive overview

Painting the Towns: Murals of California
Robin J. Dunitz , and James Prigoff
Manufacturer: RJD Enterprises
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Binding: Hardcover

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Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals

ASIN: 0963286250

Customer Reviews:

Excellent color photography, comprehensive overview.......1998-07-01

As one of the muralists shown in this book, I feel very honored to have been included. The content of this book and intent of the author Robin Dunitz ranks up with any textbook of art history. California has always been home to artists who dare to dream and a public who appreciates those artists. The book is full of color reproductions on every page, includes the history of murals, and has interviews and observations by some very incredible artists who paint large, colorful, and thought provoking images. I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in art outdoors.

Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals/With Addendum

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Chicano Graffiti and Murals: The Neighborhood Art of Peter Quezada (Folk Art and Artists Series)
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Book Description

A study of issues of race in 19th century America.

Customer Reviews:

Seminal work on American race history.......2003-12-05

George Fredrickson's book, "The Black Image in the White Mind," is an intellectual history dealing with the rise of formalized racial ideologies in nineteenth century America. The author argues that these anti-black intellectual concepts, far from forming in a vacuum, arose in concert with other significant trends occurring in the American political, economic, and social arena. Moreover, Fredrickson points out the significant role the American North, an area not usually associated with overt racism, played in this emotionally charged discourse. Many of the ideas articulated in the North reinforced as often as they countered the extremely hostile invective circulating in the South. Most importantly, "The Black Image in the White Mind" stresses the underlying themes that all of these theories, regardless of northern or southern orientation, shared between 1817 and 1914: the author convincingly avers that every racial hypothesis assumed the idea of black inferiority, that blacks differed significantly from whites "physically, intellectually, and temperamentally," that animosity between whites and blacks was inevitable, saw miscegenation as a sublime evil, and viewed a biracial society as an impossibility best remedied by the outright removal of African-Americans from United States territory or through various forms of subordination to the dominant white society. It is not surprising this book is still a standard assignment in graduate seminars about race history.

Fredrickson begins his analysis with the emergence of the colonization movement in the 1820s and 1830s and concludes with the plight of the American black under the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. Along the way, the author discusses in detail various racial ideas: scientific racism, romantic racialism, recurring incarnations of Southern white paternalism, white nationalism, Negrophobia, and Accommodationist racism. In the American South, Fredrickson argues that a major tenet of racialist thought was Herrenvolk democracy, or a type of political theory that gave the dominant white population in the South all the fruits of democracy while denying blacks equivalent rights. Herrenvolk democracy informed much of the racial thought in this region during the nineteenth century because it created a hierarchical biracial system justified by slavery and later segregation systems. "The Black Image in the White Mind" proves that white racist thought in the nineteenth century was never a constant, monolithic ideology but a set of basic assumptions capable of adjusting to changing economic, political, or religious circumstances in the larger society. Just when one branch of racialist thought died down, another sprang up in an entirely different place and time with just as much virulence as the previous manifestation.

Perhaps the most compelling argument in Fredrickson's book is his formulation of romantic racialism. This idea, which posited that blacks were docile, childlike creatures whose attributes allowed them to attain a level of Christianity unavailable to "naturally aggressive" Caucasians, had great appeal among abolitionists in the North who believed slavery was wrong on religious grounds. Moreover, romantic racialism arose as a response to emerging ideas about perceived Anglo-Saxon superiority and the need for a homogeneous white nation. Fredrickson brilliantly develops this idea primarily through a literary analysis of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novels "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Dred." The articulation of romantic racialism explodes any lingering myths regarding abolitionists as rock ribbed anti-racists because it shows that these moral crusaders still argued for forcible removal of blacks from American territory.

Fredrickson addresses what is arguably his book's most serious problem in a new introduction to the 1987 reprint. He confesses that he focused more on what white intellectuals thought about blacks than what blacks said or did about their own situation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Admittedly, the title of the book should blunt some criticism directed towards the author on this point: a title like "The Black Image in the White Mind" leaves little doubt as to what viewpoint the author will take. Still, the author does leave significant gaps in certain places of his book that beg for elaboration. For example, at one point the author refers to a correspondence between Salmon P. Chase and black writer and intellectual Frederick Douglass, a correspondence revealing in succinct detail what Chase thought about racial separation. Surely, Douglass responded to Chase's arguments in some way, but what that response might have been does not appear in the book.

More problematic is the section on Southern Negrophobia, where the author spends a great amount of time discussing how intellectuals in the South at the turn of the century began arguing that the black was a subhuman beast whose greatest social accomplishments consisted of crimes against whites, specifically white women. Was there an enormous explosion in violent crime at this time in this region? If so, what underlying factors contributed to an expansion of crime in the South? The author's analysis of Negrophobia fails to provide any concrete data about the number of violent offenses in the South. Ultimately, Fredrickson resorts to psychohistory to explain the possible reasons behind Negrophobia, arguing that this scurrilous from of racial hatred arose from "a projection of unacknowledged guilt feelings derived from their [white southerners] own brutality towards blacks." Perhaps this claim does have some merit, but Fredrickson cites no sources to back up this particular argument. By looking at Negrophobia relying solely on the sources, Fredrickson might have discovered more relevant reasons for why specific racial ideologies arose when they did. As it stands now, "The Black Image in the White Mind" offers an intriguing, if incomplete, analysis of American intellectual racism.

Excellent History of Racism.......2000-12-19

Fredrickson defines racism as a reasoned theory that posits the "innate and permanent inferiority of nonwhites" (xvii). He argues that racism in some form has plagued American thought throughout the nation's history, and in this volume he traces the different forms it has taken in the period from 1817 to 1914. He thus arranges his study chronologically, progressing methodically through the nineteenth century. Fredrickson begins by showing that the underlying arguments for the colonization movements were based on the recognition of white prejudice in American society. Colonizationitsts argued that black people would never have the opportunity to integrate into the society because of deeply ingrained racial prejudices. The abolitionists answered this position by arguing that whites should be able to overcome their prejudice and achieve the ideal of Christian brotherhood. Then, as more abolitionists based their attack on moral grounds, proponents of slavery searched for ideological justification for their position and argued for the innate racial inequality and permanent inferiority of the black slaves. From this emerged a Herrenvolk democracy in which the creation of a permanent underclass (slaves in this case) protected the radical equality of the higher class (whites). Scientific theories emerge in the 1840s and 1850s to support the position of the innate inferiority of the slaves and gave rise to the theory of polygenesis which holds that only whites descended from Adam, while God created blacks as an inferior species. Romantic racialism also emerged at the same time moving focus from seeming social and intellectual deficiencies of black people and emphasizing their lightheartedness and willingness to serve, qualities of natural Christians. This position finds its fullest expression in Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Thus, in the 1860s the more conservative romantic racialists pushed again for colonization, arguing that these "natural Christians" could only flourish back in their native Africa. The ideal of white America had again become a racially homogeneous society. Frederickson argues that Reconstruction was therefore merely a political tool because the attitudes of racial superiority prevailed among whites. This renewed racial superiority then gave rise to a sense of paternalism in the period from 1877 to 1890. At the end of the nineteenth century Darwinian thinking came together with racial superiority to spawn the idea that black people, as the weaker race would be wiped out in this country. Finally, he concludes with a chapter on the accommodation that flows from progressivism which manifests itself as a return to a paternalism and a sense of treating black people with a modicum of decency as the "white man's burden."

Frederickson gives flesh to the above sketch of this argument in his well-documented and carefully nuanced book. The work is an excellent intellectual history of the phenomenon of racism in the United States.

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Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914
George M. Frederick
Manufacturer: Irvington Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0685937631

Average customer rating:
The Black Image in the White Mind; The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914
George M. Fredrickson
Manufacturer: Harpercollins College Div
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEV79U

Average customer rating:

Blunt and honest assessment

Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914
George M. Frederickson
Manufacturer: Harper & Row, Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MD631U

Customer Reviews:

Blunt and honest assessment.......2007-08-21

Race in America is a difficult topic for most writers, black or white, to address in an honest and balanced manner. Dr. Frederickson has done a superb job. His writing is clear and direct, his research is/was extensive and his conclusions well supported and objective. Provides brief summaries and objective judgments on other writers on the topic in the footnotes (1972 publishing date.) Highly recommended for anyone interested in tracing the nuances of American racial policy and its psychological underpinnings leading up to and after the Civil War and Reconstruction.

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