Fashion: A History from the 18th to 20th Century: the Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute (Taschen 25th Anniversary)

Customer Reviews:

A great book.......2007-06-06

Got this books last christmas, and I was blown away. Have always been interesting in design, fashion and history. This book has it all. Great design on the book (maybe a little hard to handle since it quite big in size), great photos, lots and lots with detail from the garments, and the best, it give you a look in to the past.

Best Illustrated Historical Fashion Volumes Available!.......2007-04-09

This is the most beautifully illustrated book available on the history of fashion. I have looked at many, but none are so thorough and definitive for the 18th to the 20th centuries. The publisher lists the book at $49.99 (unbelievable for what you get!). It has been reprinted several times since I first became aware of it. Each time I have missed my chance to get a copy -- It seems to sell out quite regularly. After almost losing hope, I was finally able to get a copy of this latest edition!
The current edition is a set which consists of two large volumes. The first covers the 18th and 19th centuries, and the second is devoted to the 20th century. These two tomes are in a sturdy outer case. The illustrations are clear and detailed, making it easy to examine the construction used for the garments, and also are displayed so that one can see the overall beauty of the craftsmanship. They are truly works of art! Text is at a minimum; the books consist first and foremost of these beautiful illustrations.

A nearly perfect tome on Fashion history.......2007-03-13

Everything is perfect in these two volumes. Was terribly upest when the first issue (single volume) was discontinued, but this one tops it. Clear photos, specific research and exceptionally well laid out. My students beg to look at it, and THE PRICE! Incredibly inexpensive for a book of this sort.

Makes a great gift- and can substitute for barbells when needed.

What a beautiful book!.......2007-03-02

When visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art I found this book, and let me tell you, what a find! It is quite impressive in size, detail, length, and quality of pictures. The books range from the 18th century to present. The set consists of two magnificent volumes. Whether you love fashion or are simply interested in how people in centuries before us lived and dressed, get this book! By the way- this makes an amazing coffee table book. Not many (female!) friends and relatives can leave my house without taking a look at the set. Would make a great gift as well. Well worth the price.

4 1/2 stars really.......2007-03-01

I bought what I think is a compiled version of these two books from a local bookstore. It is similar length and has the same title. I have long been searching for a good fashion history book and this one is fabulous. Nearly every page is a large photo of a real antique costume. There is a nice balance of close-up detail photos and full photos, as well as undergarments and accessories. You can really watch the progression of fashion through nearly 300 years. I also like the amount of text that is written; just enough to explain the style progression and the political environment of the time. A picture is worth a thousand words and trying to explain a garment in text is pointless when you can just look at the picture. The only thing I wish was different is that the modern section (from about the 70's on)features primarily avant garde experimental clothing, not the stuff we actually see on red carpets and runways.

The Complete Reprint of Physique Pictorial: 1951-1990 (Photo & Sexy Books)

Average customer rating:

Put Your Frown On
A good gift...
a visual document of the stud
I read the articles too!
just to have it

The Complete Reprint of Physique Pictorial: 1951-1990 (Photo & Sexy Books)
Taschen Publishing
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3822881864

Customer Reviews:

Put Your Frown On.......2007-09-16

A HUGE disappointment. The meager size of this triple book collection is too small to do any justice to the photographs within. In addition, many of the pages feature multiple photographs so tightly produced together they are pracitically impossible to see. The quality of the reproduced photography is substandard and in many cases so dark they lose much of the detail. The actual pages themselves are also of poor quality and appear to be on recycled non-gloss paper. The text itself is so incredibly small it is vertually impossilbe to read without a magnifing glass and the print on some of the photographs is not readable at all. I was hoping for an explaination of the symbols used on many of the pictures. If it is there I could not find it. It is a true shame and disgrace that these magnificent vintage physique models and the creative photographers that produced these classic images are wasted in this publication. These treasured glimpes back at physique male modeling on the verge of change and at the dawning of a new beginning in its infancy should be restored and reproduced in their original radiant,breathtaking, dramatic splendor and not jammed crammed into inferior books which obviously took no pride in either the models appearance or the genius of each photographer. Any true collector of vintage pictorial physique models will be dissatisfied and regret this book purchase. I know I did.

A good gift..........2007-07-16

For those people who either collect old physique pictoral, or appreciate good balck & white photography...this is a good find. It arrived quickly & in good condition. Thanks.

a visual document of the stud.......2007-05-11

this taschen collection has a high place in my personal collection. one, i like old-time smut and this is it!

but, this collection is document of a certain aspect of gay culture that was born out of the era of oscar wilde and his feasting panthers, then lost its pretty words as society became more permissive and the viewers demanded older boys that would show more flesh.

eventually they would show themselves in various states of arousal and gay porn would be with us. of course, we don't think of these boys as potential victims like women in the sex industry but, outside of their boyish faces, obvious youth and abundant muscles, do we ever think of them? do we ever consider them? or, do we just enjoy them and then pass them around--once from hand to hand but now from email to email?

I read the articles too!.......2003-03-22

"Physique Pictorial" spanned the entire era of the "physical culture" magazine boom. The magazine, and the era ended soon after the death of its' editor Bob Mizer in 1993. There is not much to say about the pictures that other reviewers haven't said already. (Although it is sad to see the models metamorphose from clean cut, boys-next-door to dull-eyed, druggie/hustler types as the 1970's wore on.)

What really amazed me was the hard-hitting commentary by Mizer in issue after issue. A genuine libertarian, the intense public opprobrium towards homosexuals (the word "gay" wasn't yet in wide use) fazed him not at all. He insisted on his rights as an American citizen and insisted his readers do the same. His eloquent arguments against censorship carried the day in several court cases where various bluenoses sought to ban distribution of his magazine. He frequently had to contend with anthropoids from the LAPD vice squad who did everything possible to make things difficult for him. I marvel at the guys' self-possession and courage. Mixed in with the commentary are mordant and amusing photo captions regarding some of the models. Mr. Mizer was nobody's fool.

For those who can afford it, this is a marvelous historical document as well as a fun read. More proof that the gay community of today didn't just pop out of nowhere in 1969.

just to have it.......2001-09-27

Taschen does a wonderful job of making available work that's likely to appeal to only a small audience; they do it well. This is no exception. Even if you only go through it all once, anyone interested in the male body should own this reprint. It's an important artifact of our cultural history, a milestone in the evolution of the man as an object of desire. And the pictures are hot, too.

Amazon.com

In 1902, the year Edward Weston was given his first camera, few people regarded photography as more than a craft. But along with innovators like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, Weston revolutionized the ways photographers chose subject material and used photographic techniques to create what gradually came to be accepted as fine art.

This is an elegant book, designed and printed in Germany, with an essay by Terence Pitts, of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. It presents 180 of Weston's finest images, including many--such as the pines of Point Lobos, the sand dunes of Oceano, and his stark, unadorned nudes--that have become icons. Whereas the photographs of Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy were, to Weston's eyes, hopelessly mannered, his images are elemental, organic, and in harmony with nature's rhythms. Weston spent most of his working life in Mexico and California, and much of his work, replete with shadows, is illuminated with the harsh light of those places. In 1932, he and Ansel Adams founded the influential photographic collective Group f/64, named after the lens-aperture size that exposed an image at its most detailed and clear. This was Weston's aesthetic: to show the real world in its unrelieved integrity rather than create an imaginary construct. He was concerned with visual truth, not with character or storytelling. Weston was a true pioneer whose rigorous vision permanently changed the ways we see the world around us. --John Stevenson

Customer Reviews:

Natural Goodness -- "Form Follows Function".......2000-12-01

This book will appeal to all of those who appreciate high quality reproductions of Edward Weston's finest works. Dunes, cypress, nudes, and portraits are all conjured up by the name of Edward Weston, and each is well represented in this gorgeous volume.

Before going into a description of this book, let me further caution those of you who do not know Edward Weston that he much favored nude photographs of women and had intimate relations with many women in his life which are described in Terence Pitts' interesting essay. If such things offend you, I suggest that you avoid this volume.

"Edward understood thoughts and concepts that dwell on simple mystical levels." -- Ansel Adams

It is appropriate that this volume contains some comments by Ansel Adams about Edward Weston. The two have many similarities in their work, and were friends. Both were attracted to the underlying grandeur of nature, and looked for the connectedness in all things (a sort of fractal-based perspective on unity). Weston was especially successful in integrating images of people with his nature images.

The works speak for themselves. "Edward Weston, contrary to so many now practicing photography, never verbalized on his own work." -- Ansel Adams

The potential for each of us from considering these images is very great from Adams' point of view. "You might discover, through Edward Weston's work, how basically good you are, or might become."

Edward Weston was formally trained to be a studio photographer, and soon sought to escape the limitations of doing commercial portraits. He was very skilled in this area, and there was always demand for his work. After 1930, he was able to stop retouching portraits which was a great relief to him.

Nature always fascinated him, and in the latter part of his life he was able to focus on the potential of his work rather than on eking out a living. In the 1930s he received the first Guggenheim Fellowship to travel for photography, and made good use of this to see locales he would not otherwise have reached.

Weston's influence is important in the 20th century for establishing photography as an art, rather than as representation.

Weston did his best work in California and Mexico, where he traveled extensively. I was also impressed with his industrial photography, which I had not seen much of before. He had an amazing eye for form in industrial settings and in designs of mundane objects.

The images here are well reproduced in almost all cases, and the size of the pages is excellent for the images involved.

Here are my favorites from the images in this superb book:

Epilogue 1919

Sunny Corner in an Attic 1920

Ruth Shaw 1922

Armco Steel 1922

Lois Kellog 1923

Rose Roland, Mexico 1926

Shell 1927

Shells 1927

Cabbage Leaf 1931

Cypress Root, Seventeen Mile Drive 1929

Cypress Root and Succulents, Point Lobos 1930

Bedpan 1930

Charis 1934

Sheels and Hill, San Juan 1934

Dunes (5), Oceano, 1936

Iceberg Lake 1937

Juniper, Lake Tenaya 1937

Nude (#4 and #5) Oceano 1936

Dante's View, Death Valley 1937

Church Door, Hornitos, California 1940

Potato Cellar, Lake Tahoe 1937

Stonecrop and Cypress, Point Lobos 1939

I believe that a rewarding way to enjoy this work even more is to give yourself the equivalent of a Guggenheim fellowship for a shorter period of time, and visit many of the locales where Edward Weston produced these images. Take along your camera, and see what you can capture for yourself. It will increase your appreciation of what he saw, and the issues of capturing it for others.

Enjoy the beauty around you, in all of its natural forms.

a modern classic.......1999-08-13

An excellent and well documented introduction to Weston's oeuvre and philosophy. One of the true and underrated innovators in photography. If you love Adams, Depardon or Cartier Bresson's landscapes,welcome home ! Some stunning pictures of the desert. Very very good repro quality. Buy with confidence.

Average customer rating:

"Squaw before a teepee"?

Native Americans (TASCHEN Icons Series)
Malcom Green , Catherine Henry , and Edward Curtis
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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15th Century Paintings (TASCHEN Icons Series)

ASIN: 3822813532

Book Description

The most important images from our photo series volume of Edward S. Curtis' work have been included in this wonderful new (and compact) homage to the great photographer.

Customer Reviews:

"Squaw before a teepee"?.......2007-03-02

Whenever I read something that labels our Native women as "squaws," I think whoever wrote it has "heap little brains".

Edward Curtis made many beautiful pictures of Natives. However, he was also the prototype of today's Photoshoppers, heavily staging and retouching his pictures of Natives. So while his pictures are often beautiful, they should not be taken as photojournalism or documentary. They should just be viewed for their artistic and technical value, I think.

But the "squaw" writing? It should have been left in the 19th century, not brought into the 21st.

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Erotica Box Set: 17th-20th Century
Gilles Neret , and Taschen
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3822830453

Encyclopedia Anatomica (TASCHEN Icons Series)

Average customer rating:

Wow! X Files meets the Medicis!

Encyclopedia Anatomica (TASCHEN Icons Series)
LA Specola Florence Museo , and Museo La Specola Florence
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3822855103

Book Description

Gathering together photographs of stunningly realistic wax anatomies from Florence's Museo La Specola, Encyclopaedia Anatomica is a fascinating journey through the human body. Each chapter from the original volume is reduced here, though the most important views and studies have all been included.

Customer Reviews:

Wow! X Files meets the Medicis!.......2001-03-12

I ran across this book in a small shop in Rome (wish I had seen it here first) - while the text of my copy is all in Italian (And I don't read Italian) the pictures were enough to sell me on wanting to see the exhibit it represents. It is chalk full of beautiful photographs of the human anatomical exhibit at La Specola, a zoological museum in Florence, Italy - kind of on the strange macabre side, but if you like that, you will love this book. The focus of the human exhibit is a number of incredible 18th century wax sculptures that were done for the study of medicine and strange ailments of the body. As a figure drawing student, I am very interested in learning as much as I can about anatomy - this book has some beautiful artistically well done photographs of these various anatomical structures which are a wonderful study tool for me. Hey, all I can say is that the price was so good and I loved the book enough to buy a couple copies and give one as a gift - and I will add that the price here on Amazon is better than what I paid.

Christo & Jeanne Claude: Early Works 1958-1969 (Taschen Specials)

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Christo & Jeanne Claude: Early Works 1958-1969 (Taschen Specials)
Alexander Tolnay , and David Bourdon
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3822858811

Book Description

The roots of an extraordinary pursuit

Never before has a comprehensive survey been brought together to demonstrate the developments of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's early works.

Beginning with pieces created in Paris and Europe between 1958 and 1964 -Packages, Wrapped Objects, Oil Barrels Structures, Show Cases and Store Fronts, the first proposals for Urban Temporary Objects, and Wrapped Public Buildings, 1961 - the book continues to the early 60s, a period during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude began moving their work out of the studio into open spaces to involve the general public with their art, such as the realizations of Dockside Packages, Cologne Harbor, 1961, and Wall of Oil Barrels-Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris 1961-62.

Finally, the book features the art created after they moved to New York in 1964, including preparatory studies (drawings, collages, and scale models of proposals for urban and rural temporary works) and realizations of the first Wrapped Public Buildings, Kunsthalle Bern Wrapped, 1968, Wrapped Tower and Wrapped Fountain, Spoleto 1968, 5,600 Cubicmeter Air Package, documenta IV, Kassel 1967-68, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Wrapped, 1969.

Early Works 1958-1969 ends with Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia 1968-69. The monumental wrapping of that coastline was only a taste of things to come in the following decades.

Book Description

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) took over 10,000 photographs of the trades, architecture and street scenes of Paris and its surroundings. Atget modestly called his images 'documents for artists'. Yet since his death, his reputation has grown into that of one of the world's pre-eminent photographers.

Other artists in this series include: Mathew Brady, Wynn Bullock, Julia Margaret Cameron, Joan Fontcuberta, David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Graciela Iturbide, Andre Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Boris Mikhailov, Lisette Model, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Eadweard Muybridge, Eugene Richards, W. Eugene Smith, Shomei Tomatsu, Joel-Peter Witkin

Customer Reviews:

Pocket Sized Atget.......2004-06-17

Eugene Atget spent his 30 years in photography making over 10,000 large-plate negatives of the art, architecture, and lives of Paris. His photographs capture the beauty and emotion of Paris in the late 1800s. Atget does an amazing job of engulfing the viewer into the Paris city life. His pictures of storefronts and street scenes are amazingly lit and present a romantic yet true to life view of Paris.
This small but powerful book is one of many in the Phaidon 55 series. The small size is great for carrying around, and even though the pictures are smaller then those in most photography books, they still hold true to the original prints. There is a short introduction and history of the photographer at the beginning. Each picture is accompanied by a brief description and insight into the photograph. Even though the size is smaller then most photography books, the images are still great quality, and for the price you can't go wrong.

A superbly presented and invaluable contribution.......2001-03-02

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) spent almost thirty years photographing details of often inconspicuous Parisian buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures. In Focus: Eugene Atget brings together more than 50 of the J. Paul Getty Museum's 295 photographs by Atget, with commentary on each image by associate curator of photographs at the Getty Museum, Gordon Baldwin. Atget's photograph and Baldwin's commentary are enhanced with a chronological overview of Atget's life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career. In Focus: Eugene Atget is a superbly presented and invaluable contribution to the history of photography.

19TH CENTURY PARIS PASSIONATELY DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY.......2001-01-18

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is the undisputed photo-documentarian of 19th century Paris. With studious attention to detail, Atget seemingly photographed every intimate corner of his much-loved city. Leaving the well-known monuments and boulevards to others, Atget instead concentrated on the atmospheric fabric of everyday Paris, photographing shops and window displays, cobbled streets, doorways, stairways, vehicles, churches, amusement parks, street-peddlers and prostitutes.

Unraveling the mystery of Eugène Atget's life and work is easier said than done. Now considered to be one of history's most important photographers, Atget was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Posthumously famous for his photographs, Atget in fact made only a humble living selling his prints to architects, artists, and institutions.

Atget wrote in 1920, "I may say that I have in my possession all of Old Paris." His systematic method of photographing Paris street by street is spellbinding, and the result is a detailed catalogue of 19th century Paris. The result of Eugène Atget's life's work is gathered here in a heartbreakingly beautiful book for lovers of Paris, architecture, and photography.

breathtaking views of Paris in the past.......2000-12-30

I received this book as a gift because not only do I collect photography books but I also frequently go to Paris because I love the city. This book is full of full page photos of Paris in the past and has a dreamy quality of the day to day events and sites of Paris and the surrounding areas. It's a great collectible book for photography fans and Paris lovers.

Atget's Simple Documents.......2000-08-12

The J. Paul Getty Museum's latest photography book installment - focusing on the work of Eugene Atget, offers the best example of curators creating much ado about an artists work, through speculation and second-guessing. This merely justifies the curator's reason for employment, while boring the reader with a treasure trove of euphemisms and art-speak banter. That we learn more about each speaker's own Rorschach test interpretation of the photographs and less on the artist is not the point. The point is, why does the final third of the book contain this colloquium, when it could easily have been filled with more samplings from the Museum's 295 Atget holdings? Atget's images of Paris are brilliant for what they represent: a visual recording of what he considered worth preserving in pictures. His subject matter ranged from buildings and statues - to interiors, street merchants, and anything worthy of pursuing photographically in and around Paris. Atget's photographs gain their strength due to their simplicity; any further interpretation renders them less for their intent - which was purely documentation. Skip the verbiage contained in "Eugene Atget: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum", and just enjoy Atget's simple photographs of his beloved Paris.