Rodin (Masters of Modern Art)

Customer Reviews:

Claudel: Rodin's greatest student --.......2005-10-31

-- and greatest teacher.

Mme. Paris has written a brief but affectionate, even zealous book on the life and career of Camille Claudel. It summarizes her upbringing in a bougeois but emotionally austere houshold. Perhaps she was never encouraged in her art. At least she was never actively discouraged, and did find some creative kinship in her brother Paul.

Her rise was meteoric. By her twenties, she was producing major work of remarkable expressiveness. Art was a man's world then. With its physical demands of stone and foundry work, sculpture was considered the most masculine among arts. Still, Boucher and then Rodin took her on as student and muse. According to Mme. Paris, Rodin's style owes much to Claudel - perhaps acknowledged in his "Eternal Idol," where the male figure kneels in obeisance and passion before the female.

The passion was real. Claudel lived with Rodin for more than a decade, and it has been claimed that his art stultified when she left him. Rodin remained fond of her until he died, but her leaving may have marked the start of Claudel's tragedy. Her mind gradually turned against itself. Irrational fears took command of her life, and her ability to tend her own needs slowly failed. About age forty, she was committed to an asylum for the insane. She never recovered, and died after more than thirty years of custody. Part of this book reproduces the letters from her years of confinement, and correspondence relating to her care.

The small body of work she left documents that tragedy. There's no sign in it of her illness, but her ouvre shows what she was and hints at what she could have become. Her illness stole her talent, not only from herself, but from the world as well.

//wiredweird

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Fabulous Biography

Rodin: A Biography
Frederic V. Grunfeld
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0805002790

Customer Reviews:

Fabulous Biography.......2003-12-27

It is hard to believe that this book did not engender more attention or acclaim. It is absolutely the best I have ever read on Rodin the man and the artist. His life and background is presented in remarkable detail and photographs of many of his most famous works are presented.

Book Description

Auguste Rodin-the most famous artist in the world at the turn of the twentieth century-led a life as sensational and intense as the great sculptures he created. In this major reinterpretation of Rodin`s life and times, the accomplished Rodin scholar Ruth Butler draws for the first time on closely guarded archives and letters to disentangle the facts of this legendary artist`s life from the many myths that have grown up around him. Lavishly illustrated, the book also provides new interpretations of the motivations, execution, and reception of Rodin`s extraordinary artistic creations.

Discoveries: Rodin (Discoveries (Abrams))

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Small but comprehensive
very biographical but not criticle enough!
A great little book

Discoveries: Rodin (Discoveries (Abrams))
Helene Pinet
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0810928884

Customer Reviews:

Small but comprehensive.......2003-01-22

Although largely biographical, it covers most of his important pieces and their impact on his life and the art of that era. But, what I love about the book are the beautifully written prose of (the poet) Rainer Maria Rilke and his commentary about particular pieces, that can't be found in print elsewhere. Particularly striking is Rilke's commentary on Rodin's The Burghers of Calais in the first several pages, which gives a dynamic piece its true emotional content. This is what makes this small book unique. Coffee table sized books on Rodin will give more satisfying visual reproduction of Rodin's works and probably provide more critical commentary on the meaning of individual works, but this small book does have rather unusual content. It has sections in the back on the lost wax technique and excerpts of letters and interesting photographs of Rodin at work in his studio and imposing his enormous ego over the works that made him one of the most important sculptors since antiquity.

very biographical but not criticle enough!.......1999-09-28

A very interesting biography on rodins work and his personel life and how this, through the path of time reflected in his work. Although laking in criticle views and historical context of what his influenses were (apart from that of Michelangelo)it did mention the possible influence that Camille Claudel had on him.

A great little book.......1998-11-03

I have dozens of books on Rodin and this is one of my favorites. Great, though small, photographs, concise text and even a nifty section in the back of the book with copies of letters to Rodin as well as a thoughtful explanation of the bronze casting and transfer to marble processes. It's inexpensive and compact as well. Excellent!

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Beautiful
Beautifully written
wonderful selection of Rodin's work with an informative bio

Rodin (World of Art)
Bernard Champigneulle
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0500200610

Book Description

Auguste Rodin, the most famous and influential sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is also widely considered to be the successor to Michelangelo, whose genius was a lifelong inspiration to him. Though the astonishingly lifelike quality of his sculpture was in defiance of current academic conventions, Rodin was spared the prolonged and bitter hostility meted out to the Impressionists who were his contemporaries, and in later life he became a famous and widely respected figure. Bernard Champigneulle discusses Rodin's great significance as an innovator in sculpture. For Rodin created an entirely new form--the detail considered as finished work--and in doing so exercised a lasting influence on future sculptors, who were profoundly affected by his emotional expressiveness, his power of characterization, and his subtle modeling. This authoritative monograph combines a searching reappraisal of Rodin's achievement with a revealing account of his personality and his troubled private life.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful.......2001-02-21

A beautifully prepared work. Well written, with stunning black and white pohotos of Rodin's major works. The writing is very elegant, yet simple and elegant. A must for any collector or any one interested in Rodin.

Beautifully written.......2000-09-03

This book was definitely informative and complete. But what I found most compelling about it was the author's poetic tone. It was refreshing to be so enchanted by a biography; sometimes they can be awfully dry. The subject of Rodin and his work is, of course, irresistable. But, I really felt this book was a page turner because of the eloquent writing.

wonderful selection of Rodin's work with an informative bio.......1998-09-01

Champigneulle's RODIN is a very informative, chronological account of Rodin's life as an artist, packed with an excellent selection of plates illustrating his work. The text is clearly presented, well-organized and very well supported by well-placed illustrations.

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Auguste Rodin (Life and Work of)
Richard Tames
Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1403484880

Book Description

Discusses the life and work of the French scupltor, describing and giving examples of his art.

Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel (Pegasus Libraryeries)

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A STORMY RELATIONSHIP
A Refreshing Look at an all-too-politicized relationship
downgrading Claudel to a copy of Rodin
An uninspired work that lacks insight.

Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel (Pegasus Libraryeries)
J.A. Schmoll Eisenwerth
Manufacturer: Prestel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3791313827

Customer Reviews:

A STORMY RELATIONSHIP.......2004-04-20

Books have been written and films produced about the stormy relationship between sculptor Auguste Rodin and promising sculptress Camille Claudel. Few liaisons have been as artistically fruitful or as emotionally turbulent.

In an attempt to freshly evaluate her work, this concise volume examines Claudel's impact upon Rodin's work, her family background, and her tragic descent into mental instability.

According to most biographers, Rodin's affection for Claudel continued even after their final separation as he continued to use her as a model. Perhaps the most poignant reminder of her is found in "The Thought," a pale, melancholy study.

Rich with illustrations by of works by both Rodin and Claudel, this title sheds new light on one of the most dramatic partnerships in the world of art.

- Gail Cooke

A Refreshing Look at an all-too-politicized relationship.......2001-11-06

I found this book engaging and very interesting. The relationship between Claudel and Rodin is examined fully and with an eye to historical accuracy. Though some may wish to champion the cause of an artist largely unrecognized in important critical scholarship, such politicization of an historical event to meet modern aims is untenable at best. For those seeking an honest, thoughtful account of a dynamic and difficult relationship between a premier artist and an aspiring sculptor this book is worth the read. The reproductions are dazzling in quality and the design is pleasing and neat.

downgrading Claudel to a copy of Rodin.......1999-05-21

Camille Claudel was too genuine, too proud an artist to ever allow her work to be a copy of Rodin's. Who knows maybe it should be the other way: Rodin copying Claudel...

An uninspired work that lacks insight........1998-07-22

Schmoll has taken the party line on this piece and looks at every reason to discredit Claudel to the benefit of Rodin. Criticism of Claudel goes so far as to imply that her best works could have been touched up by Rodin. Schmoll even takes time to nitpick at Claudel's looks, pointing out that they were marred by a "weak" chin. From the beginning Schmoll compares the work of a young girl's in her 20's to that of a man in his 40's. It is one of the poorest critical studies of an artist that this reader has ever read.

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Auguste Rodin
Philip R. Adams
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Artists, Architects & Photographers | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1432588079

Auguste Rodin: Master of Sculpture (Art)

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Auguste Rodin: Master of Sculpture (Art)
Irene S. Korn , and Irene Korn
Manufacturer: Smithmark Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765194244

Book Description

Although his cousin Sir Francis Drake is more famous, Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) was a more successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Born into a family of wealthy pirates, Hawkins became fascinated by tales of the riches of foreign lands. Early in his career he led an illegal expedition in which he captured three hundred slaves in Sierra Leone and transported them to the West Indies. There he traded them for pearls, hides, and sugar—thus giving birth to the British slave trade. His voyages were so lucrative that Queen Elizabeth herself sponsored subsequent missions.

Discouraged from his career as a pirate by a near-fatal encounter with angry Spanish troops, Hawkins spent much of his later life in England at the service of the queen. Although he committed treason, murder, and adultery at various points in his career, he was nonetheless knighted in 1588 for his role in defeating the Spanish Armada. In this riveting book, Harry Kelsey, biographer of Sir Francis Drake, tells the story of this extraordinary man.

Customer Reviews:

One of the Armada's Fab Four.......2004-09-08

Those of us raised on tales of the Armada, and the gallant defense of the English homeland, will immediately recognize Sir John Hawkins as one of the fabulous Four heroes who repelled the Spanish attacks (the other three being Howard, Drake and Frobisher). Less admirably, Hawkins is also notorious for his freebooting in the Carribean, wherein he sought to bust the Spanish monopoly on slave-trading. Like Sir Francis Drake, Hawkins was a master of staging a phony "raid" on local Spanish officials who were all too keen to buy the Englishman's wares - but needed to stage a token resistace to the interlopers in order to satisfy King Philip that the dreaded English had forced them to trade at gunpoint. Kelsey tells Hawkins's life story passably well, but the narrative is, for the most part, an unexciting one; for a character this infamous, one might have expected something more.

The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls (P.S.)

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Hawkyns, Elizabeth and the Slave Trade
Sliding into the slave trade.
Fascinating look at origins of slave trade, Hawkyns' role
Not quite a full book's worth

The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls (P.S.)
Nick Hazlewood
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0060935693
Release Date: 2005-11-22

Book Description

Throughout history, blame for the introduction of slavery in America has been squarely placed upon the slave traders who ravaged African villages, the merchants who auctioned off human lives as if they were cattle, and the slave owners who ruthlessly beat their helpless victims. There is, however, above all these men, another person who has seemingly been able to avoid the blame due her. The origins of slavery -- often described as America's shame -- can actually be traced back to a woman, England's Queen Elizabeth I.

During the 1560s, Elizabeth was encouraging a Renaissance in her kingdom but also knew her country's economy could not finance her dreams for it. On direct orders from Her Majesty, John Hawkyns set sail from England. His destination: West Africa. His mission: to capture human lives.

After landing on the African coast, he used a series of brutal raids, violent beatings, and sheer terror to load his ships. As the first major slave trader, Hawkyns's actions and attitudes toward his cargo set the precedent for those who followed him for the next two hundred years. In The Queen's Slave Trader, historian Nick Hazlewood's haunting discoveries take you into the mind-set of the men who made their livelihoods trafficking human souls and at long last reveals the man who began it all -- and the woman behind him.

Customer Reviews:

Hawkyns, Elizabeth and the Slave Trade.......2006-09-18

I absorbed this read with great interest. The subject of slave-trading has been too painful for me to tackle it head-on but here I got into it because I am interested in Elizabethan personalities. The thing that shocks me in the book is how matter-of-fact the trading really was. This fact-based account puts the reader into the then-contemporary perspective of humans as just another commodity to be dealt for profit and a highly lucrative one at that. The rewards for successful trading were enough to turn the Queen, Elizabeth, into a profiteer. In fact, we see an Elizabeth in denial after she has waxed moral in her view of the abduction of Africans. She says they should be asked to volunteer. (Which is ridiculous on the face of it.) Of course, Hawkyns only saw the green light to GO. One cannot view Elizabeth in any ideal sense after this: there is no Gloriana or Astraea in this book. The business of the Queen is business; Queen and country are one.

There isn't much of a biography of Hawkyns in the book. At least, insofar as a biography fleshes out the nuance of the character. What we get is a very competent individual who is able to make both military and financial decisions in quicktime. The depth of the book is focused on the ambivalence of Hawkyns in matters of religion. This is, in my opinion, is what places the story into it's deeper historical context. The English, as other Europeans, who were destined to fight bloody civil wars in the next century, were obsessed with the outer manifestations of Christianity (ritual, plastic images, etc. or not) and had lost any real sense of Christian teachings. In this book, we lose any ability to condemn Hawkyns as an individual; we are overwhelmed by the brutality of the times. I think the author, Nick Hazlewood has done quite a good job here.

Sliding into the slave trade. .......2005-06-23

Attempts to analyze the historical sociology of capitalism and slavery too often deal in abstractions. And the morality of power politics, and economic globalization, as with Marx, tends to be sublimated into the account by value-free laws of history, etc,... All well and good, but. This account of a one vignette of the early gestation of the Atlantic slave trade, in England, speaks more eloquently by its plain account of actual people, at the moment of the crystallization of a dreadful circumstance. Significant is the detail of Queen Elizabeth, quoted early on as denouncing the traffic in human beings, succumbing to royal patronage once the immense profits possible became clear. While one can practically hear the ghost of Marx snorting with contempt, the plain fact of the matter is that there is an ethical history possible, and there was nothing inevitable in the way slavery, almost extinct in Europe, made a comeback in the early modern period. It is not utopian, as this portrait makes clear, to consider that politicians, instead of being untrustworthyfrom the word go, might actually not succumb to terrible temptations and enter in league with poor devils like the Hawkins portrayed here, basically a capitalist thug, soon a courtier. The portrait of John Hawkins gives a fine-grain series of images of one of the great and classic failures of economic globalization, and the terrible legacy and bitterness that it led to.

Fascinating look at origins of slave trade, Hawkyns' role.......2005-02-22

Nick Hazlewood has written an engrossing book that gives us a rare and in-depth look into the opening salvos of the English slave trade through the voyages of Sir John Hawkyns (also spelled John Hawkins), the first English trader. Hazlewood supplies a brief biography of the Elizabethan mariner but focuses on Hawkyns' three major slave-trading voyages starting from 1562, from his departure from England to his actual acquisition of slaves in West Africa, through to his transactions in the New World and return to England.

This book is a must-have for those interested in the early Age of Exploration and the nature of early trans-Atlantic commerce, but it is of far greater significance and value for a general audience since it provides a rare glimpse into the little-known details of the wretched commerce in human beings that took place as the Americas were being settled. Treatments of the African slave trade often leave a reader wondering about the mindset and nature of the participants who were profiting from it, and Hazlewood provides us with a "you are there" feeling. He has clearly done his homework here, consulting primary literature in both English and Spanish archives to reconstruct the means by which Hawkyns acquired his slaves in West Africa, the "currency" exchanges which took place to seal the deal, the wretched and horrendous conditions on the slaving ships, and the nature of Hawkyns' eventual transactions in the Caribbean and Spanish outposts in America. What emerges is that Hawkyns was a remarkably shrewd and ruthless businessman, able to secure such an extraordinary profit margin from his deals that even Queen Elizabeth I-- initially opposed to the human commerce-- became a crucial investor in Hawkyns' slave-trading schemes, providing ships and resources for raising his crews and launching further voyages.

Hazlewood also casts Hawkyns' commerce within the broader context of 16th-century European seafaring, demonstrating how Hawkyns' actions-- viewed as smuggling by Spanish authorities-- in many ways constituted the root of the conflict that would flare between the Spaniards and English (leading to the Spanish Armada attack and a 16-year war between the two countries) later in the century. The reader is treated to an in-depth look at Hawkyns' fateful third voyage in 1567, in which his ships were attacked by a Spanish squadron off Veracruz. Hazlewood provides perhaps the best description in any recent book of the clash at Veracruz and its aftermath, both for Hawkins and his unfortunate crew members who were seized by the Spaniards. The book does drag somewhat in its later chapters but is not at all a chore to read, and Hazlewood's evocative style ensures that readers have a concrete tableau of the events that were transpiring, rather than merely an abstract depiction of them.

For what would become the United States as well as for Britain, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was integral to their history. Indeed, Americans are well aware of the brutal consequences of slavery from the Civil War in the 1860s, yet are often much less aware of the background to that "curious institution." Hazlewood details these often obscure origins with both accuracy and a highly readable presentation. The reader emerges from the book with a sense of the Hobbesian mentality and conditions that dominated seafaring in the 1500s, and a better sense of the psychology that enabled so many to allow themselves to partake in the bloody business of human enslavement and trans-Atlantic trafficking. Hawkyns is shown in all his complexity as a ruthless merchant and as an inspiring leader of his crews, who braved on-ship conditions and hostile oceans that would make most of us cringe barely minutes away from the dock. Hazlewood's book is an excellent complement to Harry Kelsey's book on John Hawkins-- which covers similar territory-- and to Hugh Thomas's general history of the slave trade. It's a must-have for historians, for teachers and school libraries (at many levels), and for those who want to learn about the often-obscure history of slavery and of the fascinating details of 16th-century Atlantic exploration and maritime commerce.

Not quite a full book's worth.......2004-12-30

First, the good: Nick Hazlewood gives us a thoroughly researched book about an interesting character from English history, the seafarer/pirate John Hawkyns. I was constantly amazed at the in-depth information that Hazlewood was able to provide, even going so far as to relate many of Queen Elizabeth's conversations with or about John Hawkyns to the reader. We also get the words of Philip II, the Spanish king, and his ambassadors in London. We even get the gist of John Hawkyns' conversations with all the dignitaries he dealt with in the new world as he sold his horrific cargo. All in all, we get a fairly complete picture of Hawkyns the brute, the opportunist, and Hawkyns the leader of men. It is an interesting portrait.

And now the bad: John Hawkyn's adventures in New Guinea and the New World aren't really enough to fill a book from cover to cover with enough drama or information to keep the reader enthralled. Hawkyns makes three missions to the New World to sell slaves, and each time he visits the same places, and employs the same tactics. By the third trip, I was reading out of obligation rather than excitement. And of couse, the drama of his defense against the Spanish Armada falls outside the scope of this book, though there is an attempt to tie it to an earlier conflict that occurred at the end of Hawkyns' slaving career. What I missed most was a sense of history throughout the course of the book. Oftentimes events were merely relayed in sequential, if wonderfully thorough, order, but an analysis of these events place or influence on world history were saved for the final chapter of the book.

All in all, an OK read if you enjoy Elizabethan or Age of Sail histories, but not enough to recommend it to the general readership.

A General History of the Science and Practice of Music - In two volumes

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A General History of the Science and Practice of Music - In two volumes
Sir John Hawkins
Manufacturer: Dover Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0486210499

A proof of eminence;: The life of Sir John Hawkins

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A proof of eminence;: The life of Sir John Hawkins
Bertram Hylton Davis
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Civil Procedure | Procedures & Litigation | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0253346177

Boynton's Guide to Compulsory Purchase and Compensation (Longman Practitioner)

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Boynton's Guide to Compulsory Purchase and Compensation (Longman Practitioner)

Manufacturer: Sweet & Maxwell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Complete [Compleat] Angler, or, Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. With Lives and notes, by Sir John Hawkins

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The Complete [Compleat] Angler, or, Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. With Lives and notes, by Sir John Hawkins
Izaak and Cotton, Charles [Isaak] (Rennie, James [ed.]) Walton
Manufacturer: Allan Bell and Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000KL5YX2

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The Complete [Compleat] Angler, or, Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing. With Lives and notes, by Sir John Hawkins
Izaak and Cotton, Charles [Isaak] Walton
Manufacturer: Allan Bell and Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QBVJ8A

Hawkins Of Plymouth..A New History Of Sir John Hawkins And Of The Other Members Of His Family Prominent In Tudor England

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Hawkins Of Plymouth..A New History Of Sir John Hawkins And Of The Other Members Of His Family Prominent In Tudor England
James A. Williamson
Manufacturer: A.& C.Black
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000TKCPAO

Product Description

348 Pages of Text and Illustrations

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Hawkins of Plymouth;: A new history of Sir John Hawkins and of the other members of his family prominent in Tudor England
James Alexander Williamson
Manufacturer: Black
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

HORAE SYNOPTICAE Contributions to the Study of the Synoptic Problem

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HORAE SYNOPTICAE Contributions to the Study of the Synoptic Problem
Sir John C. Hawkins
Manufacturer: Baker Book House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GKDOYI

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