Max Beckmann and the Self
by Sister Wendy Beckett
Listed under Max Beckmann
Sister
Wendy's American Collection
by Toby Eady Associates (Editor), et al
Sister Wendy's catholic view of art is as rare as her insightful view
of Western religious painting. The work she admires is startlingly diverse,
embracing Paul Revere's silver and a bodhisattva from Pakistan, an Issey
Miyake metallic polyester dress and a Mayan vase, not to mention paintings
by artists as remote in style and vision as John Singer Sargent and Joan
Mitchell. Sister Wendy's American Collection is a highly selective tour
through six major U.S. museums: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland
Museum of Art in Ohio, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. To frequent museumgoers, her choices
initially can seem charmingly arbitrary--until they begin to inspire the
urge to check out those galleries again.
With a page or two allotted to each art work (short essays in large
type and 250-odd modestly sized illustrations), this is a friendly book
to curl up with, as unpretentious as Sister Wendy herself. Anyone looking
for detailed art historical information will be disappointed by her tendency
to coast on a thimbleful of facts, yet her gift for plainspoken rapture
about art remains intact on the page.
When she singles out from the Met's vast collections an Ottoman sultan's
elegant logo with its "small paradise" of painted flowers, when she peers
at the tense body of the young cheat in Caravaggio's The Cardsharps
at the Kimbell, or ambles along the length of a Sung dynasty landscape
painting at the Cleveland museum, that's when Sister Wendy proves the value
of close, patient looking as a contemplative act. --Cathy Curtis - Amazon.com
Hardcover: 288 pages
HarperCollins; ISBN: 0060195568; (November 2000)
Sister
Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces
by Wendy Beckett, et al
This handsome tome is packed to the gills with paintings, and while
readers might disagree with any of Sister Wendy Beckett's choices (that's
half the fun, perhaps), there are still hundreds of unforgettable works
of art that nearly any reader can appreciate. Most of the pictures, even
those that seem unprepossessing at first glance, are made riveting by Sister
Wendy's quirky, personal narratives, in which the simplest of images is
suddenly rendered a dramatic focal point. A perfectly ordinary Dutch scene
by Hendrick Avercamp--Frozen River, 1620--shows people going about their
business on a lively patch of ice where children play hockey and adults
chat and work. Sister Wendy seizes on a fishing hole cut into the ice through
which a circle of cold, black water is apparent. "The hole that has been
cut in the ice can frighten us when our eye falls into it, and this is
the only hint of the inherent danger of the scene," she writes ominously.
In Anthony Van Dyck's magnificent portrait of Charles I of England, she
observes of his regal hauteur, "In hindsight we can see the tragedy: that
a man so remote from common humanity, so superb in his conceit, must be
heading for a fall."
There are bound to be some infelicitous matches in a book that is arranged
alphabetically, such as the pages shared by Robert Mangold's hot, geometric
Four Color Frame Painting No. 1, 1983, and Andrea Mantegna's profoundly
reverent Dead Christ, 1480. And Rosalba Carriera's portraits look decidedly
meretricious across from those of the masterful Mary Cassatt. But all in
all, this is a page-turner with brief captions that offer guidance to any
reader in search of the telling note that draws one to a work of art, whatever
its era, style, size, or subject. --Martha Hardin - Amazon.com
Hardcover - 512 pages (September 1999)
DK Publishing; ISBN: 0789446030
 |
Sister
Wendy's Story of Painting (Second Edition)
by Wendy Beckett, et al
For those who've enjoyed the original, the good news is that the new
edition of The Story of Painting has grown by more than 300 pages of photographs--magnified
close-ups of details from nearly half the 450 paintings in the book. Fauvist
paint strokes become mighty slabs; sparkling light on a Dutch still life
is revealed as a series of tiny dots; the cheeks of a young man in an Italian
Renaissance portrait betray a touch of five o'clock shadow. This kind of
close looking is seductive, and it's an important part of Sister Wendy's
direct, unpretentious approach to art. --Cathy Curtis - Amazon.com
Hardcover - 736 pages Enhanced edition (October 1, 2000)
DK Publishing; ISBN: 0789468050
Child's
Book of Prayer In Art
by Wendy Beckett, Sister Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - March 1995)
Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces : Sister Wendy Beckett's Selection
of the Greatest American Paintings
by Wendy Beckett, Patricia Wright
Listed under American Art History
The
Duke and the Peasant : Life in the Middle Ages (Adventures in Art Series)
by Wendy, Sister Beckett, et al
Reading level: Ages 4-8
(Hardcover - August 1997)
Sister
Wendy's Book of Saints
by Sister Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - August 1998)
Sister
Wendy's Nativity
by Wendy Beckett, Sister Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - December 1998)
Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations
by Sister Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - August 1998)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Sister Wendy's Impressionist Masterpieces : Sister Wendy Beckett's
Selection of the Greatest Impressionist Paintings
by Wendy Beckett, et al
(Hardcover - March 2001)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
My Favorite Things: 75 Works of Art from Around the World
by Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - October 1999)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Sister Wendy's Meditations on Silence
by Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - October 1995)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Sister Wendy's Story of Christmas (Adventures in Art)
by Wendy Beckett, Sister Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover - October 1997)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Love: Meditations on Love by Sister Wendy
by Wendy Beckett
(Hardcover)
Out of Print - Try Used
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