Degas
Degas

Author: Theodore Reff

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0870991469

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"More than any other artist in the Impressionist group, Degas was fascinated by ideas and consciously based his work on them. "What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters," he once confessed, "of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament I know nothing." Yet his work has been understood very inadequately from that point of view. Publications on him, once dominated by memoirs inspired by his remarkable personality, are now concerned with cataloguing and studying limited aspects of his complex art. Its intellectual power and originality, which were evident to contemporary writers like Duranty and Valery, have not been studied sufficiently by more recent critics. It is this side of Degas's art--as seen in his ingenious pictorial strategies and technical innovations, his use of motifs like the window, the mirror, and the picture within the picture, his invention of striking, psychologically compelling compositions, and his creation of a sculptural idiom at once formal and vernacular--that is the subject of these essays. Inevitably, given the range of his intellectual interests, the essays are also concerned with his contacts with leading novelists and poets of his time and his efforts to illustrate or draw inspiration from their works. Throughout, the author makes use of an important, largely unpublished source, the material in Degas's notebooks, on which he has recently published a complete catalogue"--Publisher's description.

The Artist's Mind
The Artist's Mind

Author: George Hagman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-06-18

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1136896538

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This book examines how contemporary psychoanalytic theory provides insight into understanding the psychological sources of modern art.

Art on My Mind
Art on My Mind

Author: bell hooks

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2025-05-27

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1620979292

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The canonical work of cultural criticism by the “profoundly influential critic” (Artnet), in a beautiful thirtieth-anniversary edition, featuring a new foreword by esteemed visual artist Mickalene Thomas Called “one of the country’s most influential feminist thinkers” by Artforum, bell hooks and her work have enjoyed a huge resurgence of popularity since her passing in 2021. Her 2018 book All About Love has sold upwards of 700,000 copies, and posthumous tributes have credited her with being “instrumental in cracking open the white, western canon for Black artists” (Artnet). To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of her groundbreaking essay collection Art on My Mind, The New Press will publish a handsome, celebratory edition, featuring a new foreword by Tony-nominated producer and all-around creative phenom Mickalene Thomas and a new cover featuring original photos of bell hooks shot by African American photojournalist Eli Reed. This classic work, which, as the New York Times wrote, “examines the way race, sex and class shape who makes art, how it sells and who values it,” includes what Artforum calls “incisive essays” on the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Isaac Julien, Carrie Mae Weems, and Romare Bearden, among others. Her essays on Black vernacular architecture, representation of the Black male body, and the creative process of women artists, are complemented by conversations with Carrie Mae Weems, Emma Amos, Margo Humphrey, and LaVerne Wells-Bowie, which Kirkus Reviews calls “excellent indeed,” and “a real contribution to our understanding of the situation of black women artists.”

The Artist's Way
The Artist's Way

Author: Julia Cameron

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2002-03-04

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1101156880

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"With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.

Bridges in the Mind
Bridges in the Mind

Author: Marianne Roccaforte

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 9780981516356

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Literary Nonfiction. Art. Psychology. Finally—someone is saying what successful artists have always known. This practical book helps the creative mind to thrive, not just survive, in the everyday world. A systematic approach to the fascinating and complex topic of the artist's imagination as revealed in ordinary situations is explored in Dr. Marianne Roccaforte's useful, honest, and encouraging book. Drawing on well-grounded psychological research and theory—and informed by years of direct experience counseling and teaching college-student artists—Dr. Roccaforte examines the realities, delights, and challenges of having a strong sense of wonder and an imagination that's constantly "on." In a tone that both honors and guides the reader, the author weaves in voices of successful writers, visual artists, musicians, actors, and dancers, and offers easy-to-practice techniques for such situations as transitioning from an absorbing session of art-making, communicating effectively in social and business settings, managing intense sensory and emotional experience, and sustaining a healthy and active creative life. Insightful and applicable for any person possessing an artistic sensibility—as well as for parents and teachers of young artists—this book enlightens, validates, and empowers, ultimately helping to build new bridges of understanding.

Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art
Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art

Author: Jacquelynn Baas

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780520243460

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"Eminently readable and extremely meaningful. The contributors tackle essential questions about the relationship of art and life. The book is also very timely, offering a way to approach Buddhism through unexpected channels."--Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, New York University

Creative States of Mind
Creative States of Mind

Author: Patricia Townsend

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-04

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0429620942

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What is it like to be an artist? Drawing on interviews with professional artists, this book takes the reader inside the creative process. The author, an artist and a psychotherapist, uses psychoanalytic theory to shed light on fundamental questions such as the origin of new ideas and the artist’s state of mind while working. Based on interviews with 33 professional artists, who reflect on their experiences of creating new works of art, as well as her own artistic practice, Patricia Townsend traces the trajectory of the creative process from the artist’s first inkling or ‘pre-sense’, through to the completion of a work, and its release to the public. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, particularly the work of Donald Winnicott, Marion Milner and Christopher Bollas, the book presents the artist’s process as a series of interconnected and overlapping stages, in which there is a movement between the artist’s inner world, the outer world of shared ‘reality’, and the spaces in-between. Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process fills an important gap in the psychoanalytic theory of art by offering an account of the full trajectory of the artist’s process based on the evidence of artists themselves. It will be useful to artists who want to understand more about their own processes, to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in their clinical work, and to anyone who studies the creative process.

Reductionism in Art and Brain Science
Reductionism in Art and Brain Science

Author: Eric R. Kandel

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-08-30

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0231542089

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Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism—the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher animals. In Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Kandel shows how this radically reductionist approach, applied to the most complex puzzle of our time—the brain—has been employed by modern artists who distill their subjective world into color, form, and light. Kandel demonstrates through bottom-up sensory and top-down cognitive functions how science can explore the complexities of human perception and help us to perceive, appreciate, and understand great works of art. At the heart of the book is an elegant elucidation of the contribution of reductionism to the evolution of modern art and its role in a monumental shift in artistic perspective. Reductionism steered the transition from figurative art to the first explorations of abstract art reflected in the works of Turner, Monet, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, and Mondrian. Kandel explains how, in the postwar era, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Louis, Turrell, and Flavin used a reductionist approach to arrive at their abstract expressionism and how Katz, Warhol, Close, and Sandback built upon the advances of the New York School to reimagine figurative and minimal art. Featuring captivating drawings of the brain alongside full-color reproductions of modern art masterpieces, this book draws out the common concerns of science and art and how they illuminate each other.

An Artist's Book of Inspiration
An Artist's Book of Inspiration

Author: Astrid Fitzgerald

Publisher: Lindisfarne Books

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13:

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This collection of thoughts from artists and thinkers of the past and present has been lovingly gathered over many years in the personal journals of the artist Astrid Fitzgerald and reveals something of the mystery in which creativity finds its way from the energies of the cosmos into the imagination and faculties of the individual artist and eventually into the solitude of the studio and finally into a work of art. From the reports of mystics to the observations of scientists, these passages have been arranged in this volume to provide brief glimpses into the recesses of artistic being, into the tentative formations in consciousness, the first glimmers of imagination, the distinctive faculties of the creative mind, and the tensions of artistic expression in the workshop and the creative life. Fitzgerald's great contribution has been to gather into a meaningful collection the words of 2,500 years of genius as a resource and inspiration for all those who would break out of creative limitations and take a bold step into the future. Illustrated with the art of the author and others. CONTENTS: The Ground of Artistic Being The Field of Creative Play The Universal Qualities and Forces of Creativity The Flowering of Creative Energy The Faculties of Creative Expression The Nature of the Calling The Ideals of Artistic Expression Infinite Forms of Expression The Dynamics of Creative Work The Experience of the Creative Life Bibliography and Index of Authors

The Drawing Mind
The Drawing Mind

Author: Deborah Putnoi

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2012-04-03

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 159030943X

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When we drew as children, we never worried about making mistakes—we took risks and trusted ourselves, and had fun in the process. But as we become adults, anxiety steps in: “Am I doing this right?” “What is expected of me?” “This is wrong!” And from drawing, we can extrapolate into the rest of our lives. The fear of making a mistake hinders us from being as creative as we could be. Deborah Putnoi’s interactive sketchbook helps us reconnect to that open, nonjudgmental state, which she calls the “drawing mind.” Her bold, lively drawings and encouraging instructions lead you on a process of self-discovery, first reclaiming the freedom to express yourself through drawing and then learning how to take that freedom into the activities of your daily life.