Amazon.com
Every biology student knows Ernst Haeckel as the originator of the "Biogenetic Law": ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Haeckel was a passionate student of the evolutionary shaping of biological forms, and Art Forms in Nature captures both his artistic sensibility and the scientific rigor he applied to all his studies. First published in 1904, Art Forms in Nature is a glorification of function and form, a demonstration of organic symmetry that has nothing--and everything--to do with nature as it actually exists. Each plate exhibits organisms carefully arranged and exquisitely detailed, "a symbiosis between decorative sketches and descriptive observations of nature," as Olaf Breidbach states in his fascinating introductory text. The radiolarians, medusae, rotifers, bryozoans, and even frogs and turtles lovingly recreated here are gorgeous and self-explanatory, rendered in delicate, filigreed lines, and colored gently with muted green, delicate pink, and sepia. Art students will appreciate the designs found in nature--scientists will love the evolutionary statement of form inherent in the beauty. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
Thirty beautiful postcards of some of the world's best-known artists, reproduced in the highest quality and printed on thick, durable paper -- Prestel postcard books make a perfect gift.
Customer Reviews:
The online description versus customer comments.......2007-09-17
The following is Amazon's description of this book:
Paperback: 139 pages
Publisher: Prestel Publishing (August 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3791319906
ISBN-13: 978-3791319902
Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.4 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
More than one customer review states that they received a book that is only 3 inches wide. I hesitate to buy this book since the info posted may be misleading.
little book big eyes.......2007-07-10
decent for the price but it's made for little tiny people with little tiny little hands, cuz it has these little tiny ilustrations with bowed legs.
The best architech out there, nature.......2007-04-22
This book is full of illustration of organisms you can find on nature.I repeat, it is not fantasy, these beautiful illustration are drawings of things that are right there, sometimes too small to see with the naked eye, in nature, and one can only awe at such beauty and design skills. Haeckel did a great job combining biology with art, and it shows on this book.
A note of advise: these edition has color, the other one is black&white.
Pay attention to the dimensions!.......2007-03-10
I've wanted to get one of Haeckel's books for a while. His drawings are lovely, truely inspirational....BUT this book was a big disappointment, and one which could have been avoided had I paid closer attention to the product description. It is pocket-sized: 3 inches across!!
It's hard to see the magnificent detail in Haeckel's work on a page so small.
this is one of those things I would NEVER have bought if I picked it up in a book store. It looks like one of those little gift books..
so, if you buy this, do so with the knowledge that it is tiny, and consider buying the larger edition. it's what I would have done, had I looked at/ considered the dimensions of this book.
What a book........2007-01-03
Amazing images of pollen spores, bats' faces, moths, diatoms, and more - drawn by the master. Ernst Haeckel's prints were a huge influence in the Art Nouveau movement, and the introduction to the book discusses that. Just absolutely brilliant - a surreal and gorgeous look at nature at every scale.
Book Description
Combining the dramatic and meticulous work of printmaker Tom Killion--accented by quotes from John Muir--and the journal writings of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder, The High Sierra of California is a tribute to the bold, jagged peaks that have inspired generations of naturalists, artists, and writers.
For over thirty years, Tom Killion has been backpacking the High Sierra, making sketches of the region stretching from Yosemite south to Whitney and Kaweah Crest, which he calls "California's backbone." Using traditional Japanese and European woodcut techniques, Killion has created stunning visual images of the Sierra that focus on the backcountry above nine thousand feet, accessible only on foot.
Accompanying these riveting images are the journals of Gary Snyder, chronicling more than forty years of foot travels through the High Sierra backcountry. "Athens and Rome, good-bye!" writes Snyder, as he takes us deep into the mountains on his daily journeys around Yosemite and beyond.
Originally printed in a limited, handmade, letterpress edition, The High Sierra of California is now available in an affordable, full-color trade edition.
Customer Reviews:
stunning.......2007-02-07
This book is stunning the woodblock prints are so beautiful they almost make you cry. We spend a lot of time in the sierras and this book shows the beauty of these mountains better than any photographs. Get the book
look at the pictures then do your family a favor and go spend time in these incredible mountains.
howl at the moon.......2002-06-17
hop up and down in your Teva sandals. Wade the great streams as they roar over round stones down from ancient peaks... dance the silver dance of the wild rainbow... but find a place in your ultralight backpack for this book. It deserves a place next to that bag of peanuts, your titanium cup; worth its weight in gold dust from the river, split pea soup from the pouch. Ancient shaman tales and woodcut journeys... yamabushi of the mind, and lots of white space for taking your own cryptic outerspace trailnotes...
Book Description
Activities with colorful, unspun sheep's wool offer a wide range of creative possibilities that will stimulate the creative imaginations of children and adults alike. Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke combine their craft and teaching talents and experience to show how to create beautiful figures and animals using a variety of techniques.
Also see Angelika Wolk-Gerche's sequel, More Magic Wool!
Customer Reviews:
Great for 3rd grade and up.......2007-03-18
It's hard to describe, but you only have to sink your fingers into natural wool to appreciate its magical qualities. It's a tactile experience that is not only appealing, but also sparks creativity and imagination. This fine book offers many craft and project ideas using this delightful medium. The brightly colored photographs are inspiring in themselves! The first part of the book deals with creating wool pictures, including techniques and many examples of classic stories. Next are projects for making woolen dolls, gnomes and animals, some with a wire substructure that gives them flexibility. The last chapter gives practical advice and techniques for using unspun sheep's wool in a group setting with young children and includes a puppet script. A motivational and useful addition to your craft library.
Excellent.......2007-01-11
This is an excellent way to learn working with wool and producing beautiful and lovely pieces.
simple, yet difficult.......2006-01-30
Magic wool includes two sections: one is devoted to two dimensional pictures made with dyed wool and the other to making unspun wool dolls. The book doesn't offer detailed instructions. The procedure for making pictures is simple: you simply add layer after layer of wool on felt surface. But, making pictures is nevertheless difficult as you depend heavily on your own skill and talent. This book is useful because you can learn from examples (beautiful images from fairytales and legends) and try to copy skilfully made shadows, glows and textures. It takes time - don't expect your first picture to look like those in the book.
Nice but I wonder how easy it would be to teach to children.......2005-11-17
The cover is enticing and the pictures inside are very appealing. The instructions are clear and concise but I get the strong impression that to achieve this level of detail you need quite a bit of experience at it and an older, or more patient child to do this with. If you have a fair amount of experience handling wool and fibres this may not be such an issue as you can probably work quickly and not need to remove or rework you pieces which always frustrates children so. There is also a lot of ironing and some fine stitching in this method which means a lot of adult input in my house.
That said, my six and half year old really wants to make the Cinderella picture!
Book Description
Using innovative techniques, photographer Blossfeldt produced arresting images of seed pods, buds, stems, and other botanical items. This spectacular collection features scores of his remarkable photographs of plant life, offering artists and craftspeople a treasury of royalty-free pictures and design inspirations. 120 full-page black-and-white plates.
Customer Reviews:
boring............2006-04-12
I was disappointed with this book. It is not brimming with natural pictures as I had hoped it would be, it is a meager collection of black and white photos that didn't seem worthy of a whole book.
Amazon.com
Frans Lanting, a Dutch American photographer, delivers yet another extraordinary book drawn from time spent alongside African waterholes, Antarctic beaches, and North Pacific islands, among other locales. Lanting chronicles the lives of residents such as the aye-aye of Madagascar, the elephant seal of California, and the caiman of Brazil. He favors an up-close and personal approach to his work, and his aptly titled Eye to Eye, made up of 140 color plates, captures the essential qualities of various animals. The subjects did not always appreciate posing for him; while making his images Lanting was challenged by African elephants, sniffed at by lions, and shunned by macaws.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent photography book.......2006-11-03
Wonderful - the shots were amazing. I really enjoyed just leafing through the book and let the visions just wash over me.
A lesson about dignity ..........2005-12-14
From the elephant up to the insect, from the cayman up to the seal every animal looks us in the eyes deeply. "Less than the human being: - the monkey follows in the system of zoology according to an immense ravine. If one, however, once wanted to organize the animals after her bliss, cosiness etc., then some people would come to stand anyway apparently under the miller donkeys and hounds ... ", 250 years ago the nature scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg already wrote. However, he did not have a camera yet to hand to cover this. Frans Lanting, however, shows us the determination with which snow geese and ibisses, penguins or zebras are away to something, shows us her family care and the dignity of animals in liberty - at times, when more and more people feel caught - a book which reminds us that "upright walking"- that synonymous of the philosophers for courage and self-respect - that you can make it true even on all four paws...
Face Time.......2005-01-28
Frans Lanting is one of the great wildlife photographers of the world. He has published many books showing wild animals but "Eye to Eye" is certainly one of his most famous. It consists of dramatically close-up photographs of animals, always concentrating on the eyes of the subject.
The book is divided into three parts: "One on One" shows photographs of single animals, often so close that the frame is filled completely with just the animal's eyes. "Two by Two" usually shows pairs of animals, although there are occasional shots of larger groups. Often the pictures are of mother and child, or mates, but a few shots show conflict. "All in All" shows shots of larger groups of animals. The book also contains a two page section called "Behind the Camera" in which Lanting discusses his photographic philosophy but provides few hints that will allow others to copy his style. Finally, perhaps because the text of the main sessions is limited to species name, there is a section of thumbnails with a brief statement concerning the picture. I found this section to be particularly inadequate since I often said to myself "How did he do that?" but got no help in finding an answer.
These are amazing pictures, primarily because Lanting has managed to get so close to his subjects. In a few pictures we can see that that is a result of enlarging and cropping, but in most cases the pictures are sharp enough so that so that we realize he was really close to the animals. Moreover, with a few exceptions, these are not captive animals. I for one would not like to take a picture of a wild lion at a distance of twenty feet. At least one critic has suggested that this book raised the bar for all wildlife photographers, forcing them to get closer to their subjects, and placing more stress upon photographers and subject.
There are moments of great intimacy, particularly in the "Two by Two" section, where the pictures of parent and child tug at our heartstrings. It's hard not to see human characteristics in these photos. The book also benefits from its layout, grouping its subjects by actions. Thus there are pictures of a huge flock of butterflies followed by pictures of ibises, penguins, snow geese, zebras and elephants all purposefully on the move to some destination. I also particularly enjoyed facing pictures of a lion and a leopard, moving toward the centerfold in mirror image.
These are great photographs because the photographer got so close to his subjects. But they are also mostly documentary. Few of the pictures rise to the level where the form rather than the subject makes them art, although I was particularly struck by a picture of Oryxes carefully treading their way across the Namibian sand dunes. But when I compare Lanting's photographs to the work of other wildlife photographers like Art Wolfe, I can see the difference. The pictures in Wolfe's "The Living Wild" show each animal in its environment, where Wolfe was better able to concentrate on the composition of his subjects to create a more artful picture.
Not withstanding this quibble, "Eye to Eye" is a great book, and readers are unlikely to soon forget these close encounters with the other living inhabitants of our planet.
Another masterpiece.......2003-05-28
Frans Lanting does it again in Eye To Eye--a brilliant collection of intimate portraits and daily activities of various animals. Like Jungles, it's a book that no natural photographer should be without. When you can see the individual hairs in a courgar's fur coat, it makes you kind of wonder what it would be like to be that close to one.
Looking at Lanting's work is always like looking through a book of artwork, as if he is the Picasso of photography and we are looking through his masterpieces.
Prepare To Be Amazed !.......2002-09-06
Wow !!! How can anyone get so close?!
These photographs are stunning. The talent of Frans Lanting oozes from these pages.
There is a closeness to the subjects here that borders on the intimate. In some cases, one wonders how he actually managed to get the shot.
The focussing and exposure is spot on and the composition is perfect.
I have tried to follow this type of photography and I am only too aware of how difficult it is to obtain these sorts of images.
I take my hat off to Frans Lanting. This is a brilliant work. A completely unique approach to wildlife photography. His behind the scenes narrative to the shots is illuminating.
This book is a valuable reference for all nature photographers. Sensational !
Customer Reviews:
VISUALLY ARRESTING AND EMOTIONALLY COMPELLING.......2001-02-13
Arthur Harry Church, scientist, painter, and teacher, left an incomparable legacy of botanical illustrations. His work, which has often been compared to that of Georgia O'Keeffe, is to this writer just as visually and emotionally compelling.
The vibrancy of Church's work may be due, in part, to his disciplines - he saw his subject with a scientist's mind and an artist's eye whether it was an abundant flower from the Oxfordshire country or a rare specimen from South Africa. His cross-sections and diagrams leave no doubt as to his teachery thought processes or his artistic vision.
This rare volume holds much previously unpublished material from the archives of London's Natural History Museum as well as 100 illustrations, each imbued with a rhythmic vitality.
Undoubtedly, "The Anatomy Of Flowers" will be appreciated by those with an interest in botanical prints and those who enjoy the striking clarity of the art nouveau.
Book Description
Natural Colors create a world that's tranquil and soothing. This wonderful new tool is created for designers, artists, and anyone presented with the challenge of selecting the perfect color scheme for a project. Focusing on the natural-tone color palette, each chapter presents a range of 72 natural color schemes, each unique and reflective of a natural mood. Whether your color scheme needs to be Rustic, Earthy, Pastoral, or Urban, this is the book that will provide you with the color inspiration you need.
--More than 700 natural color schemes.
--Color schemes matched to specific moods provide creative Inspiration for any range of color projects.
--Evocative four-color photographs illustrate moods and color schemes.
--A color conversion chart is included to provide easy and accurate color matching.
Average customer rating:
|
Carving Sea Life: Sperm Whale (Carving Sea Life)
Robert L. Buyer , and
Martha M. Towers
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Sculpture
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Fun with Paper & Wood, Stones & Knives
| Crafts & Hobbies
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Crafts & Hobbies
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0811725219 |
Book Description
Painstakingly reproduced from a rare original edition, this lavish bestiary features a spectacular array of creatures from the animal kingdom: mammals such as cats, panthers, wolves, and sheep; fish and other sea creatures; birds; reptiles and amphibians; and an incredible assortment of insects. Great for graphic artists, illustrators, craftspeople, and others.
Customer Reviews:
Inspirational.......2004-05-07
Since I am really for pencils and charcoal, this book is very high in appeal. I think the artist liked to draw cats, 'cause he draws a lot about them. The book is definetly not just about cats, I just had to point that out. The drawings are crisp, and any fool can see M. Meheut knows a fair amount on animal anotomy. The drawings are extremely well detailed, such as it is that you can easily see the difference between feathers, fur, scales, slimy skin (amphibians), shell materal, you get the idea.
They're also easily distinguishable, not some mass blob in the shape of a peacock. Some of the drawings are sketches, others look almost like advanced black and white photos. Most are closer to the photos, though. Some animals I would like to see that are not here are gorrilas, horses, panthers, dolphins, whales,rhinos, and some others. I do realize that many of these animals a re hard to study, so its very forgivable. I like it.
Not at all cartoony.......2000-12-09
in it's approach, this book is crisp and accessible. It describes a good variety of animals in a manner more familiar to an industrial designer than a fine artist. All the images read beautifully with strong visual communication skill apparent in every regard. As a student in Entertainment Design I hold this to be an invaluable reference.
Customer Reviews:
Kid Style Nature Crafts.......2000-04-13
Here is another great book by this author that makes learning nature and science fun. The seasonal organization of the book is helpful in that materials are available for the projects during the time the book suggests making them. Like "Nature Crafts for Kids",(by the same author) this book contains wonderful pictures of the projects and step by step instructions. Some of the projects are more challanging than others and adult supervision is a good idea. This is a wonderful excuse to have time together with a special child, enjoy sharing ideas and make something that can be fun and rewarding.
Take the time to share the wonderful things in nature and the things that can be made from natural things by using this book with special children around you.
Books:
- Art Marketing 101 (Art Marketing 101: A Handbook for the Fine Artist)
- August Sander: People of the 20th Century (7 Volume Set)
- Bartender's Black Book, 7th Edition: 2,700 New and Classic Recipes
- Beautiful Losers
- Blessings Every Day: 365 Simple Devotions for the Very Young (Little Blessings)
- Buddhist Goddesses of India
- Cartoon Cool: How to Draw New Retro-Style Characters
- Constructive Anatomy (Dover Books on Art Instruction)
- Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels
- CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D's and Other Excerpts from Life
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
- Rules Of Play: Opposites Attract\The Heart's Victory
- Differential-Display Reverse Transcription-PCR
- JavaTech, an Introduction to Scientific and Technical Computing with Java
- History: Fiction or Science
- Monster
- PetSpeak: Share Your Pet's Secret Language!
- The Durga Temple at Aihole: A Historiographical Study
- Historic Building Façades: The Manual for Maintenance and Rehabilitation
- TIDE'S ENDING
Art Forms From The Ocean: The Radiolarian Atlas Of 1862
Art Forms in Nature (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Haeckel's Art Forms from Nature CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art)
Cabinet of Natural Curiosities: The Complete Plates in Colour, 1734-1765
Art Forms in the Plant World: 120 Full-Page Photographs (Dover Photography Collections)
