Holiday Gift Books from 2005: Arts

This week, a series of reviews and recommendations, with gifts for the discerning reader in mind...Today, a few from the arts. You might also notice the Powell's Bookstore box on this page. You can use it to search for a new or used book, and if you buy something as a result of linking from here, this site gets a teeney cut.

Contemplating Beauty: The Gift
That Keeps On Giving

SMILE OF THE BUDDHA: Eastern Philosophy and Western Art,
From Monet to Today

by Jacquelynn Baas, with a foreword by Robert A.F. Thurman
University of California Press

“It depends a lot on the particular artist, but I certainly am convinced that the mind in the moment of creativity and the mind in the moment of meditation are the same mind.” Yvonne Rand, a Buddhist teacher and a major figure at the San Francisco Zen Center for 28 years, said this to me in an interview. Jacquelynn Baas, this book’s author, calls Rand her teacher, and dedicates this book to her.

Baas selects 20 particular artists, from early 20th century stars like van Gogh, Gauguin, Duchamp and Kandinsky to more recent and widely known artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Jasper Johns, Isamu Noguchi, John Cage, Agnes Martin and Nam June Paik. Her rigorous scholarship and fine writing illuminate the connections between creativity informed by at least some exposure to Buddhist thought, art and practice, and the works we receive (many in illustrations.)

Perhaps even better, Baas looks at somewhat lesser known past(Odilon Redon) and current artists (Vja Celmins), and at the art of two well-known women whose work is seldom examined in the same spirit as other artists, namely Laurie Anderson and Yoko Ono.

MORE HERE WITH OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS