(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best collections, catalogs & exhibitions

People of the Book is almost pornography for bibliophiles. This book had me seriously considering going back to school to learn about document preservation.

I went through a period of wanting to read a lot of books about books about a year ago. I think I even have an old submission in r/books on the same subject. Here are a bunch of books I still have on my amazon wishlist that date to around that time. This will be a shotgun blast of suggestions, and some may be only tangentially related, but I figure more is better. If I can think of even more than this, I'll edit later:

The Man who Loved Books Too Much

Books that Changed the World

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages

How to Read and Why

The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Classics for Pleasure

An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books

The Library at Night

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Time Was Soft There

I have even more around here somewhere...

Edit: Ok, found a couple more....

Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century

At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries

Candida Hofer

Libraries in the Ancient World

The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read

A Short History of the Printed Word

Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption

Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work

The Book on the Bookshelf

A History of Illuminated Manuscripts

Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production

Library: An Unquiet History

Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms

A Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books

A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books

And yet I still can't find the one I'm thinking of. Will get back to you...

Fuck yeah, I found it!

That last is more about the woman who own the store than about books, but it's awash in anecdotes about writers and stories we all know and love. Check it out.

I was just writing a response to a question from /u/Qixotic when that question was removed. The question did adress one widely held assumption so my answer might still be of some value here:
>Fine, but what OP is saying is not incorrect from a layperson's understanding of quality/realism. Can we just pretend he meant "realism" from the start?

We certainly can pretend that he or she did but for me it was important to first convey that this widely held layperson's understanding is in fact incorrect. I tried to argue that the change in the appearance of Late Antique and Medieval sculpture is first and foremost a change in aesthetic preferences. Measuring the quality of a work of art only in how much it succeeds to imitate nature doesn't quite cut it. Non-naturalistic art can also be aestheticly pleasing. I for example really love those opus sectile lions from Ostia or the Thetis mosaic I linked to in my original answer. But such subjective views obviously can't be used to measure quality either. If the artist obviously tried to imitate nature or another work of art and failed at that, then you can talk about lower quality. One can ask how much skill it took to produce a certain piece of art. Rendering the bodies of the Laokoon group in an anatomically correct way was certainly no easy task. But so was carving all the folds in the dress of our medieval Madonna. Both display a high level of craftsmanship and artistic quality. One can also ask how effective a piece of art is in conveying its intended message. That's not easy because normally we can only guess what that message would be. I tried to show this with the portraits of the two emperors.

As already pointed out, "realism" isn't a particularly accurate label for the pieces the OP linked to. It is unlikely that the real Augustus had as much resemblance with a statue by the Classical artist Polyklet as his portrait suggests. Is it all that realistic to show a priest and his sons as some kind of bodybuilders as the Laokoon group does? The ancient artists chose to depict their subjects like this to convey a certain meaning not just to copy nature.

/u/Jvlivs and /u/farquier thankfully elaborated on the reasons as to why this stylistic change might have happened at the end of Antiquity. The rise of christianity is often talked about in this context because it is one of the lasting legacies of Late Antiquity and a defining feature of the Middle Ages as well. But I don't think that it can have been the sole reason for the phenomenon in question. Non-classical sculptoral traditions from the provinces or elsewhere were already introduced into imperial art in the 3rd century and under the tetrarchs, who activlely persecuteted the christians. And not everyone in Late Antiquity was some highly spiriual ascetic, especially not all of the aristocratic donors that commissioned many works of art. The decentralization that the Roman Empire experienced from the 3rd century onward and the rising importance of the provinces must also be accounted for.

In the end one does not have to see the artisic changes of Late Roman art in such a negative way. In Late Antiquity the almost total dominance that the traditions of Classical and Hellenistic Greece had over the artistic production of Imperial Rome was broken. Those traditions did still exist. But they ceased to be the only way to produce works of high art. Once that had been achieved, the artists of the following Middle Ages were also free to explore other ways of expressing their intended messages.

If you want to know more about the processes of stylistic change in Late Antiquity this might be of interest for you:
E. Kitzinger: Byzantine Art in the Making. Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art, 3rd-7th Century (1977);
P. Veyne: Pourquoi l'art gréco-romain a-t-il pris fin?, in: P. Veyne: L'empire gréco-romain (2005) p. 749-865 (unfortunately I know only of a german translation for this one but I found it to be highly informative)

As previously mentioned, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser is a 'classic' in terms of art crime books. I would certainly recommend it,
along with The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney! Very, very informative, focuses on a lot of different cases. It's published by Phaidon, which can be a bit pricy, but I'd recommend checking out their website if your sibling is into art/history. They're notoriously good quality, and I'm sure you can find some of their stuff for cheaper on Amazon!

On a sidenote, I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger by Ken Perenyi is also a good read. It's the autobiography of an art forger who was active largely in the 60's-70's. It's moreso a memoir than anything else, but there's still some good chunks of information in it, and he does discussing running into trouble with the FBI. Personally, I really enjoyed it.

Some more suggestions: Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman (haven't read it, but it gets good reviews on Amazon), The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Moore (very basic, contains mostly well-known mysteries, but still good), Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith (fiction, nonetheless a good read, focused on art forgery), The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (won the pulitzer prize for fiction a couple years back, one of my favorite books).

Hope this helps! I'll add more if I think of any! :)

Another conservator piping in: you might also want to consider if you need anything special in terms of health and safety for display cases where you might put radioactive geological samples (you may or may not do that but 'earth sciences' always makes me think 'ooh, Geiger counter time!').

I'm not American so I can't recommend any training or workshops but there are a good deal of decent books out there to explore:

• Exhibition Design: An Introduction (2nd Edition) by Philip Hughes
  
  
• Creating Exhibitions: Collaboration in the Planning, Development, and Design of Innovative Experiences by Polly McKenna-Cress and Janet Kamien
  
  
• Exhibition Design by David Dernie
  
  
• Museum Exhibition Planning and Design by Elizabeth Bogle
  
  
• Basics Interior Design 02: Exhibition Design by Pam Locker
  
  
• Affordable Exhibition Design by Francesc Zamora
  
  They aren't cheap but you might be able to find some through libraries in your area depending on where you live.
  
  Congratulations, this is an amazing opportunity! Good luck and have fun. :D

The problem with "Hidden Meanings" is that they are only hidden to certain people. To others, it's absolutely plain and obvious.

Here's the real problem:

Any and all anime you watch will be full of hidden meanings to some extent because we (westerners) aren't swimming in that culture for all of our formative years.

Consider one of J.C. Staff's recent shows: Ookami-san and her seven companions.
We get the Red Riding Hood and Wolf dynamic. That's interesting, and fun. The tortoise and the hare episode was a very interesting new take on an old story - and it was great.
But when Momo-chan goes ogre hunting... well, that's a take on Momotaro's oni-hunting - with the help of a dog, monkey, and pheasant (and Momo-chan has three guys who... well, have dog/monkey/pheasant characteristics).
But most of us won't have heard that one - It's hidden, to us. Any 9 year old Japanese child would have no problems with it.

The title itself comes from "the Wolf and the Seven young Kids", which is uncommon as far as even western fairy tales go. Ryoushi's aunt references Yuki-Onna, Urashima and Otohime are based on that story (Urashima Tarou), and so on.
We miss most of this.

And it's all over. There's allusions to Urashima's Story in dozens of anime. Even Love Hina not only does it, but considers it old hat, and subverts it: (Kei)taro Urashima ends up in love with Naru even though it is plainly apparent that he and (Mutsumi) Otohime are a better match - they even have names that fit the story.

Even the venerable Dragonball is in on that one - Master Roshi is the aged Urashima. But Dragonball has so many references to quintessentially Eastern stories that it'd be easier to list the ones that it doesn't reference in some way. It's worth simply stating that it starts out as a (surreal) take on Journey To The West, and goes from there.


All Anime have hidden meanings to us, and allusions we won't get, using symbols we don't understand. That doesn't make it so that we can't enjoy anime, and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to watch it. But the topic of "hidden" is fluid and complicated, and a panel on it is going to be more of "I didn't know this, isn't it awesome?" than a scholarly look. And if that's what you're going for, then please do it, and tell stories like Urashima Taro, and Orihime, and Journey to the West - it will certainly enhance the enjoyment of a lot of Anime for a lot of people to be told those stories that are such a part of Japanese culture.

I'll leave you with this:

My (Chinese born and raised - immigrated in his 30s) art professor had us get this book for our study on East Asian aesthetics. He said it was a good book, but he hated the title. According to him, not one thing in that book, not a single darn thing was "Hidden", in contrast to the claims of the title. They were "hidden" from western understanding because we have our own system of symbols, but to a Chinese man, they are simply the way things work. Similar things are afoot in any study of any text that comes from outside your culture.

Glad you enjoyed The Art of the Japanese Sword, it's #1 on my 3-book crash course for new enthusiasts (in the wiki).

Satō Kanzan's book The Japanese Sword has a strong focus on the early development of nihontō and an entire section on famous meitō 名刀 (renowned swords). However the images for that chapter are B&W and somewhat "analog" in appearance. Plus the book as a whole is more about the text than the images. It's a terrific book but not quite what you are after I think.

Slightly more expensive (but still quite affordable), the Metropolitan Museum's Art of the Samurai is probably ideal for this. It's essentially the exhibition catalog from their historic 2009 show, which was quite simply the finest display of Japanese arms & armor that has ever taken place outside of Japan. 34 National Treasures, 64 Important Cultural Properties, and 6 Important Art objects. It was a landmark event, I went six times and I regret not going more. Anyway, the book is big (9" x 11", 344 pages), has beautiful full-color printing, etc. The examples are all super-famous. Although the text itself is very good, even without it still serves as a beautiful browsing sample.

Here is an Imgur gallery of example pages I just took. You can see it's a very attractive book.

Uncategorized:

Thoughts On Design: Paul Rand


Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

Paul Rand

Paul Rand: Conversations with Students

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design

Bauhaus

The Vignelli Canon

Vignelli From A to Z

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible

It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book

Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)

Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design

Popular Lies About Graphic Design

100 Ideas that Changed Art

100 Diagrams That Changed the World

Basics Design 08: Design Thinking

Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965

Lella and Massimo Vignelli (Design is One)

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice

History of the Poster

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer

The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics

George Lois: On His Creation of the Big Idea

Milton Glaser: Graphic Design

Sagmeister: Made You Look

Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?

Things I have learned in my life so far

Covering the '60s: George Lois, the Esquire Era

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993012/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=VEJ64Y4T0U6J&coliid=I1WMMNNLTRBQ9G)

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)

I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now

The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Envisioning Information

The elements of dynamic symmetry

The elements of content strategy

Corporate Diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising

Book Design: a comprehensive guide

Meggs' History of Graphic Design

Ooh ooh! I have some books for you, then :) I assume that you can probably find a lot of these through your school library:

• Inside Designed for Pleasure the essay "Suzuki Harunobu: The Cult and Culture of Color". (IMO, if you get nothing but this and read this essay, it'll probably write whatever you're researching for you.)
  
• Inside The Commercial and Cultural Climate of Japanese Printmaking the essays "The Cultural Milieu of Suzuki Harunobu" and "'This is What We Accomplished': An Osaka Print Collector and His Circle" (the second one isn't about Harunobu in particular but it can help you understand the dynamic of poetry circles, of which Harunobu was an active participant).
  
  I also have two catalogues of Harunobu prints, Harunobu and his age (British Museum) and Suzuki Harunobu (Philadelphia Museum of Art) (out of which the latter is the better book, when in doubt, go with the book that was more-recently published, Ukiyo-e scholarship has greatly improved over the past 40 years). I really want to find this catalogue: Suzuki Harunobu (Chiba City Museum) but haven't been able to find one yet.
  
  Hope this helps and enjoy - Harunobu is fascinating! Let me know if you have any questions.

here are some of my favorite art books,
Malvina Hofman races of man kind she is an amazing sculptress and this book highlights her creation of 91 sculptures for the Chicago field museum exhibit in 1930.
The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh the way he speaks about painting and color is amazing
any book with the drawings of the old masters, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, growing up with them as abase for drawing will only make her a better artist.
Jean-Antoine Houdon an aming sculptor, his busts are outstanding!
Félix González-Torres 2nd Edition one of my favoriate artist but it might be over her head as his work deals alot with the 90's, AIDs, and homosexuality during that time in america and many other issues, but he is an incredible example of modern art that is layered and deeply moving.
Caravaggio: A Life i think this is the bib on Caravaggio i read almost 10 years ago it was good,
Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece great read about art theft.
hope this helps,

Ah, excellent question!

There is much debate on the subject. There are some authors, such as Timothy Brook who believe that the Yuan and Mongol rule over China disrupted Chinese society. This is evident, according to these historians, by the division of China into four classes, with the majority Han Chinese occupying the lowest rung of this social order. This flipped traditional Chinese culture and ethnic hegemony on its head, drastically affecting the power of Han Chinese over China proper. This discrimination fostered resentment and anger, leading to the eventual founding of the Ming dynasty.

However, I would say that these historians are the minority. Most consider the Yuan dynasty as a legitimate Chinese dynasty, akin to the Qing. The Yuan maintain traditional political structures and cultural practices during their rule, and the leaders of the Yuan dynasty were careful not to portray themselves as Mongol overlords but rather the legitimate and rightful heir to the mandate of heaven, and thus, a legitimate Chinese government as opposed to a imperial fixture within the Mongol Empire. In fact, many structures established and perfected by the Yuan dynasty were continued and tinkered with by the Ming. Furthermore, the Yuan dynasty was instrumental in both the economic and cultural growth of China , connecting the country to larger trade networks and promoting and expanding art, drama, and poetry as well during the period. For more, check out Watt and Guxi's work on the period. Not a lot has been written in English on the subject, though the topic is fairly well contested and discussed in Chinese historiography.

So overall, I think it comes down to what one defines as a "Chinese" dynasty. If we are defining it through some sort of ethnic criteria (which I would not), then no, the Yuan dynasty clearly flipped existing ethnic hierarchies upon their head. However, if we are defining it alongside political and cultural traditions, then yes, the Yuan is a Chinese dynasty despite foreign rule, much like the Qing some three centuries later.

https://www.amazon.com/Management-Art-Galleries-Magnus-Resch/dp/0714873268

great book about art galleries.

for a gallerie you need clients. clients willing to pay money for art. and in the best case willing to pay MUCH MONEY for art.

i dont want do discourage you but i think nature and travel are very very hard to sell as "art" - there are tons and tons and tons and megatons of realy nice pictures available - why should someone buy from you?

you want to be an art gallery and not some sort of "nice picture" shop where you can buy some nice pictures printed on a mug.

you will need a realy realy strong USP - not just "nice photos of animals and nice travel pictures from italy".


but art is the worlds greatest business ;) do your research - and shere it with us!

It's not really diabolical, but it was less of an accident than many people may realize. Sotheby's effectively "invented" the art market as we know it in the 60's-70's. It was done in a very deliberate way, and they knowingly aimed to sell it as a wealth transfer, and tax avoidance vehicle for an international wealthy clientele. You can actually read books about it if you like.

https://www.amazon.com/Sothebys-Inside-Story-Peter-Watson/dp/0679414037

https://www.amazon.com/Sothebys-Bidding-Class-Robert-Lacey/dp/0316511390


I could PM a report I wrote about this subject if you like, but those two books are extremely fascinating reads and would be more fun than my report I think.

Art is very easy to buy, and nearly impossible to sell, so assume that anything you buy will hang on your wall forever (or sit in storage).

I prefer to actually buy things at a distance - usually by email. I don't like to buy expensive things in-person because tends to stir up a hot emotional state that encourages bad decision making (this is how I buy cars, too).

I walk through a gallery, find something interesting, ask if they have anything else by the artist and the price list if they aren't on the labels. Try to get a sense of how I'd rank all of the pieces in order of preference - what makes one of them more interesting than another, etc. And get the story about the work from the person at the gallery.

Then I go home, do some of my own homework on the artist, think about where I might put it, block off a section of the wall with painter's tape, and sleep on it for a while. For discretionary purchases, I've always had a rule of thumb that I must sleep 1 night for every $X something costs. If I still like it at the end of my waiting period, then I'll email them and tell them I'm interested in whatever piece.

If your tastes lean toward pop surrealism/lowbrow/street art, 1xRun is a good entry point. A lot of different artists have prints there.

Otherwise, find galleries that represent the artists or types of art you like, and just sign up for their mailing list. SAM has a rental gallery, too - it's a good way to try before you buy.

There's a few places around town that do estate auctions, and once in a while I find something interesting in those catalogs.

The book Art Collecting Today is a good introduction. So is The Intrepid Art Collector.

Hi! I went in November and had a great time. I'd suggest staying centrally in Cairo, I stayed in Giza and it was a chore to get into the city center.

I also have noticed the most of the recent security issues have been in Giza and outlying areas. (Let me know if you want to know more, I can dig up my other reddit posts about Egypt Security.)

As to what to do I highly recommend a day tour to Dahshur and Saqqara. Dashur's ticket includes entry to the Red Pyramid. I literally was the only person in there, and felt like I had my own Indiana Jones moment. And Saqqara also has so many unique & beautiful tombs, pyramids, and you'll also be one of the few tourists out there. Then the Great Pyramids of Giza is also a must do. If you are doing the Egyptian Museum on your own, pickup this book its incredibly helpful! Also if you are looking for more resources or blogs to read on Egypt, I complied an extensive list.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Norman, The Rapier & Small-Sword - the classic work. Out of print, but can be found second-hand.

Capwell, The Noble Art of the Sword - available, pretty, and the next best after Norman that I know of. It's a prettier book than Norman.

A few ideas.

“In a major act of historical reconstruction, Wulf draws upon sources... in order to recreate the daily experiences of women.... With its substantial population of unmarried women, eighteenth-century Philadelphia was much like other early modern cities, but it became a distinctive proving ground for cultural debate and social experimentation involving those women. Arguing that unmarried women shaped the city as much as it shaped them, Wulf examines popular literary representations of marriage, the economic hardships faced by women, and the decisive impact of a newly masculine public culture in the late colonial period.”


https://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Wives-Colonial-Philadelphia/dp/0812219171/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467301333&sr=1-1&keywords=Philadelphia+women



“This fully updated and beautifully redesigned handbook is the essential guide to the encyclopedic collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Divided into four sections—Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Contemporary—the handbook features more than 500 masterpieces from the museum’s world-renowned holdings, each handsomely illustrated in color and accompanied by a brief text written by the museum’s curators.”


https://www.amazon.com/Philadelphia-Museum-Art-Handbook-Collections/dp/0300207999/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467301426&sr=1-2&keywords=art+in+philadelphia

In general there is not a ton of written stuff written about Scandinavia before the medieval period besides Tacitus' "Germania" and Jordanes "Getica" (that I can think of right now) thus most information we have is based off archaeology. There isn't really a ton of books in English as most of it is scholarly articles/journals from Scandinavian countries or Germany.

If you want Vendel period (or Sweden during the Migration Period) with Viking Age there is "The Scandinavians from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective". In general Migration Period Germanic tribes would have more sources and while not directly about people living in Scandinavia, many of the tribes came from parts of Scandinavia and have strong cultural ties. This fact can be displayed through the fact that there are 13th century Icelandic sagas that tell stories of conflicts during the Migration period and the characters that are the heroes with stories being told about are ideally distant kin for them to be sagas worth telling. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks discusses the fighting between the Goths(the original Goths coming from southern Sweden) and the Huns. Völsunga saga discusses the fighting between the Burgundians and the Huns.

Thus if you want to look at Migration Period Germanic tribes, maybe start with "The Early Germans (The Peoples of Europe)". I don't know a ton about mainland Europe during the Migration Period and would like to learn about other books or articles that would expand my knowledge there too.

If you want to look at Bronze Age artifacts there is "Gods and Heroes of the European Bronze Age" which I found was fun to look through.

For exhibit labels (text and graphics that accompany exhibits), try Serrell's Exhibit Labels. ADA, or your local equivalent, is either required or strongly advised; beyond that The Smithsonian has published a guide for Accessible Exhibition Design.

​

For environmental control for collection care, it depends on multiple factors, especially the type of collections housed. For example, The Art Collector's Handbook by Rozell works best for general art objects, while you would probably want to read something like Ogden's Caring for American Indian Objects for objects of similar materials and make. I've seen Nitrate Won't Wait by Slide, and A Light Affliction by Binder on the shelves of my friend who works in film preservation. Otherwise, as far as I know, there aren't any "standards" like the CE or ANSI for collections preservation.

​

Hope this helps.

It sounds like you need more than just some comments. I would advise reading some books. Here are some that I have and would recommend:

• The Art Directors' Handbook of Professional Magazine Design: Classic Techniques and Inspirational Approaches by Horst Moser
  
• Magazine Design That Works by Stacy King
  
  And for some inspiration:
  
  
• We Love Magazines by Andrew Losowsky
  
  But if you have any specific questions I might be able to help.

I know you mentioned her book in the initial question but I urge you to check out other works by Michelle Brown. I linked her guide to illuminated manuscripts.

Here are some others to get you started. I have used Brown and Capelli recently.

• Bischoff, Bernhard. 1990. Latin palaeography : antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  
  
• Cappelli, Adriano, David Heimann, and Richard Kay. 1982. The elements of abbreviation in medieval Latin paleography, University of Kansas publications. Lawrence: Universiy of Kansas Libraries.
  
  Already mentioned by /u/butter_milk, but here is the full citation
  
  
• Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. 2007. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca, N.Y.; London: Cornell University Press.