Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali

Book Description

During the years after the September Revolution of 1868, Barcelona experienced tremendous industrial growth and emerged as the most politically and culturally progressive city in Spain. Barcelona and Modernity examines this remarkable seventy-one-year period, when Barcelona also reigned as one of the most dynamic centers of modernist art and architecture in Europe. Focusing on the Catalan Renaixença, Modernisme, Noucentisme, avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, and artistic reactions to the Spanish Civil War, essays by an extraordinary international team of scholars offer new insights into the work of such Catalan artists as Antoni Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí, among others, by setting them in context with the art of their teachers, colleagues, and rivals.

With approximately 350 works in a variety of media—painting, sculpture, photography, furniture, decorative arts, and architectural design—this intriguing book also explores how Catalan artists derived inspiration from local traditions while contributing their own innovations to international modernism. Broader in scope than any previous treatment of the subject, this book is sure to alter popular perceptions of Catalonia and become a fundamental text for years to come.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful, but confused.......2007-04-28

The catalogue for an exhibition held at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2006 and at the Met in NY in 2007, this book is beautifully illustrated and very well written. It is a treasure trove of information on the history of Barcelona and enables the reader to discover some great and overlooked artists like the painters Ramon Casas (a sort of Spanish Manet) and Santiago Rusiñol, or the architect and designer Josep Puig i Cadafalch and many others, responsible for the intellectual growth of this city between 1868 (the September Revolution) and 1939 (the power seizure by Franco), which is the period the exhibition covers. Obviously, the most famous personalities are not forgotten (Picasso, Miro, Dali and Gaudi whose names appear on the front cover).

Now, the organization of the book is somewhat confusing. Divided into 9 chapters, from the Rebirth ("Renaixença")in the late 1860's to Modernism (seen through painting, sculpture, graphic arts, society, architecture and design)and "Noucentisme" (the classical renewal) up to the Avant-Gardes and the Civil War in the late 1930's, it follows a more or less chronological logic. However, the checklist of the artists, at the end of the book, is very confusing: it is very difficult to know the location of the paintings or works of art illustrated and you constantly have to refer to that list to have the dimensions of the works. Instead of a list by artists, I think a list by works displayed in the exhibition and illustrated in the book would have been more suitable.

On the whole, a scholarly publication, but a little difficult to follow.

Average customer rating:

should have been better
Don't waste your money!
DRAWING from the MODERN

Drawing From The Modern
Andre Breton , Paul Gauguin , Georges Bataille , Jodi Hauptman , Hans Bellmer , Constantin Brancusi , Paul Cezanne , Marc Chagall , Giorgio De Chirico , Robert Delaunay , Andre Derain , Arthur Dove , Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter , Arshile Gorky , Juan Gris , Gustav Klimt , Wilfredo Lam , Filippo Marinetti , and Joan Miro
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0870706632
Release Date: 2004-11-02

Book Description

Many of the key achievements in art of the last 125 years have been worked out on paper. From pictorial investigations that expanded the possibilities of vision to the invention of entirely new kinds of media, drawing has been the perfect laboratory for avant-garde experimentation. Drawing from the Modern traces such groundbreaking innovation through the unparalleled holdings of the drawings collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Drawing has historically been understood as a mark or line on paper--the record of a bodily gesture, an inscription of the action of the hand, an expression of the mind. Since the 1880s, however, artists have sought to interrupt these seemingly unbreakable links between mark, hand, and imagination. Defying long-held definitions of drawing and rejecting traditional materials, modern artists invented a host of practices, altering not only the field of drawing but artmaking in general. Examining masterworks from the Museum's collection of nearly 7,000 works on paper in three chronological volumes beginning in the 1880s and continuing through today, Drawing from the Modern reconsider artists' repudiation of traditional drafting methods, assault on the use of the single sheet of paper, and introduction of new materials. Going to the heart of avant-garde innovation, all three volumes showcase new formal strategies, including collage, abstraction, chance, and the integration of text and image, as well as new subject matter, including the urban experience, the body, and identity. Volume I, presented here, spans the period from 1880 to 1940, and includes work by such artists as Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Paul Cazanne, Arshile Gorky, Georgia O'Keeffe, Odilon Redon, and Kurt Schwitters. Volume II, available in Spring 2005, will cover 1940 to 1975, and Volume III, available in Fall 2005, will bring us from 1975 to the present day.

Customer Reviews:

should have been better.......2007-09-13

I purchased book 1 & 2 from Amazon. The illustrations are far too small to be a professionally represented art book from MOMA I've decided to save my money rather than pay out for the 3rd edition. It sounds a good buy from its description but I don't consider this trilogy to be very satisfactory.

Don't waste your money!.......2007-08-09

This is not a good artbook. The images are way too small to be satisfying. This book could have been great, but falls way short of its potential. Don't buy it, you will be disappointed.

DRAWING from the MODERN.......2006-12-27

DRAWING from the MODERN is the first of a three part series published by MOMA as catalogue to accompany the chronologically arranged exhibitions of their drawing collection; in part, celebration of the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Museum.

This first book looks at the late nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. Care and preservation of these drawings dictate that they are displayed infrequently, paper being a delicate medium, subject to fading, discoloration and brittleness. The publication of this series then allows us to have at hand a history of drawings seldom seen, and a visual education demonstrating how problems of that era both evolved and worked themselves out.

The introduction by Jodi Hauptman is broad and well worth reading. Aside from her entertaining "end of art" stories, she addresses artists and process leading to the dissolution of prevalent notions: relationship of "mark" to "ground", took new form; spatial notions of an orderly page, questioned; the element of chance, explored as process; the ego relationship of an artist to work, dissolving. New imagery happened: collage, abstraction, grids, enhanced emotions, metaphors of feeling, the sublime re-imaged. New subjects explored brutalities of war, notions of "city", identity, the spiritual, and the abstract.

As perhaps with all process of art, the uncertainty of change brought forth much that is new. The 139 plates of drawings both demonstrate and give testimony by leading artists of the time to new era in process. Drawing as subject matter is fascinating. To be expected, the book is well printed. Of course, what is book one without book two and three?

Nancy Gutrich

Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems with CDROM

Average customer rating:

This is a sleeping hit book!
Must read material for anyone using state machines
Nice concept but useless in real-time embedded application
less useful than I initially thought
A Sophisticated Technique

Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems with CDROM
Miro Samek
Manufacturer: CMP Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1578201101

Book Description

'Downright revolutionary... the title is a major understatement... 'Quantum Programming' may ultimately change the way embedded software is designed.' -- Michael Barr, Editor-in-Chief, Embedded Systems Programming magazine (Click here

Practical Statecharts in C/C++ illustrates how to efficiently code statecharts directly in C/C++. You get a lightweight alternative to CASE tools that permits you to model reactive systems with UML statecharts.

Customer Reviews:

This is a sleeping hit book!.......2007-07-12

First prior to reading this book, I was finding the title unattractive. I did not know what statecharts were and what Quantum programming was. By reading this book, I have learn that statecharts were special finite state machines that could be built by deriving them from more general FSM similar to how OO classes inheritance works.

Quantum is the name of the presented framework in the book. The title is misleading because I though that Quantum programming was some weird new programming technique that I was not aware and did not care to learn. I think that it is important to find catchy names to market software but one negative point of the book, is that the author spend way too much pages to describe similarities between quantum physics and his framework to justify the name 'Quantum' for his framework. Programmers are not all quantum physics enthusiasts!

Concerning the book content, the author presents the C++ classes implementing the statecharts framework and a set of classes to make threads driven by statecharts collaborate together by communicating with message queues. It is an interesting reading and there are many places where you can learn good programming tricks by seeing the author code. However, I am not sure that I would want to use the framework because it is complex. Let me clarify what I mean. It is not the framework that is complex but implementing statecharts is complex. I believe that the author made his code as simple as possible to implement statecharts. Personally, I still have to work on a problem where a simple FSM will not be enough.

The best feature of the book is its presentation of a base class to implement FSMs and compares it with traditional table based FSMs and a OO FSM like the one presented in the Design Pattern book and it is highly convincing that his FSM implementation is superior to the other 2 in size, performance and ease of maintenance. Another interesting topic is the author method to emulate C++ in C. You cannot beat the real thing with an emulation but when you have to go write C and you are used to do OO programming, this method might become handy.

I would say that for the FSM pattern and the C++ in C methodology alone, even if it represents a small proportion of pages in the book, it justifies the purchase of this book.

Must read material for anyone using state machines.......2007-01-23

Book is excellent in covering state machines and has many practical examples. It did not come short in covering different approaches used by real programmers to implement STMs. In second half of the book author is going into more advanced stuff and proposes what seems like an original new idea of Quantum Programming. Word "Quantum" in itself is very misleading in this context plus there is nothing new in tackling complexities of the real world dependencies in terms of State Machines. In fact author going further in creating entire new Object Oriented methodology with State Machine flavor. I doubt if most of practitioners will find more advanced chapters practically applicable, but it does not in any means reduces the values of the book as whole.

Nice concept but useless in real-time embedded application.......2006-11-22

Since I saw quite a few excellent reviews on Amazon as well as on some other websites, I decided to purchase the book hoping it would give me some fresh new ideas in implementing FSM for real-time embedded system. I was quite disappointed when I received the book and had a chance to read it. Here are my own personal comments:

- The text is too verbose and quite disorganized. Reading this I had the feeling of listening to someone rambling on and on.

- The concept is unique and quite interesting. However, it is useless as far as embedded system implementation. Think of how you are going to debug this in a real-time environment. It would be a nightmare!

- Lots of the detailed codings are encapsulated by the house-keeping codes. This is a definitely NO-NO for embedded system application if one must know every single line of executable code. (You have to know if you want to do size and speed optimization.)

- It would be a nightmare to maintain an application written using this concept. It is just not consistent with the natural flow of thinking. Don't forget that the human element can never be detached from any application.

- Debugging the state machine written using this concept is extremely difficult. (Believe me! I tried.) The concept of simply returning to the parent state if no special handling is required can be very very misleading during real-time debugging.

Simply put, if you want to read some new interesting idea, this book is for you. But if you are looking for practical idea to apply to your SW development project, I suggest you look elsewhere. The 5-star rating is very very misleading. If you are still curious, you might want to check it out first at your local Barnes&Nobles or Border before buying.

(In case anyone wonders about my background, I've been doing software development & architecture for the past 18 years.)

less useful than I initially thought.......2006-06-02

A couple of months ago I would have fully agreed with most of the reviewers: yes, statecharts is an important topic, and Samek covers it well. Indeed he does: The book is chock-full of (working!) code and will give you a head-start at tackling difficult behavioral control problems. I do not develop real-time software, but thinking of _every_ software as if it were real-time can increase quality. I feel I gained a lot of insight, and it made me rethink some architecture issues.

You can brush over the quantum-babble, mainly because it's irrelevant and an already overstreched analogy-for-everything. With regards to Statecharts, no harm is done that Samek is evangelizing a little bit too forcefully.

So why 3 stars only? After working with the concepts and coding a number of statemachines the Samek-way, I started to notice that Samek's approach does not quite deliver as promised:
* Be prepared to be disconnected from the community: Samek's statecharts part in a lot of aspects from the UML 2.0 statecharts (although there is a website w/ quite a lot of activity). Looking at UML-compliant statecharts from fellow developers you will realize that you cannot transcribe them easily using Samek's framework. Main reason: UML has functionality (= non-statemachine code) in transition actions and event guards, Samek in state event handlers.
* Samek's statemachines are "run-to-completion", which results excessive self-posting of events and queuing. Although the code is not spaghetti, the execution is - and debugging is _very_ difficult.
* After a while, it is very difficult to infer the statechart semantics from the code. I certainly want to believe Samek that there is no real value in separating semantics (= statechart description) from functionality (= code which uses the statemachine), but this turned out to be a maintainance nightmare.
* Samek's statemachines do not offer orthogonal states, but for bigger projects you will need orthogonality to model concurrent aspects of a system. The lack of orthogonality is salvaged by the publish/subscribe framework also included in the book: You just use a number of statemachines and connect them via a message bus. This might work in the real-time space but it's obviously not something you will be able to include in your software. As a consequence, it is difficult to use statemachines in a "tactical" fashion.

David Harel (the inventor of statecharts, see his paper from '87, e.g. on citeseer) designed statecharts as a visual language to enable thinking (alone and in the team) about the behaviour of systems. Samek disagrees: coding and thinking go hand in hand. This might seem to be very "agile" but there are pitfalls. Actually he seems to be as strict in his assertions than Harel is - not agile at all.

There are approaches which are more balanced in that they mimic statechart semantics "better" (= more UML-compliant) than his. Take a look at SCXML (XML-driven, Java-interpreted) or at CHSM (C++/Java code generation). Also take a look at the roundtrip modelling tools which (most likely) ship w/ your preferred development environment.

Samek is very up-beat and a strong believer in what he says. I bought into his vision and hoped for a productivity / morale boost comparable to using unit tests (like JUnit). It never really turned out that way, and statemachine coding à la Samek remained a trial-and-error business until I decided to use a different approach.

It's an important, very original book, and an interesting read. My advice: Give it a try, but don't get carried away.

A Sophisticated Technique.......2005-06-01

It's not an easy-to-read book because the topic is complicated.
But the technique described in this book which is developed by Samek is very sophisticated - the library code is light weighted, the interface is easy to use, and the logic mapping from the statechart to the implementation is straight forward. This is the conclusion I got after applied this method in the development of a complicated behavior control for a medical device.
Many technique books were put together quickly without solid practical value, not this one!

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The definitive book on Miro

Miro
Jacques Dupin
Manufacturer: Flammarion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 208030450X
Release Date: 2004-05-07

Book Description

One of the most significant Spanish painters of the twentieth century, Joan Miró (1893-1983) was also an imaginative creator of ceramics, sculpture, costumes, tapestries. Miró was also a poet, and his art always expressed a highly personal mix of humor, reverie, and intense emotion. In this rich examination of the man and his art - from his early interpretations of Fauvism and cubism to his later "enchanted realism" and grotesque "savage paintings " French art critic and historian Jacques Dupin, a friend of Miró, gives us a unique look at the artist's sketchbooks, poems, and correspondence to which the Miró family gave him privileged access.

This classic monograph-featuring 450 color images-spans the entire career of this highly prolific artist, and gives detailed descriptions of the various phases of evolution in his style. First published in 1962 and expanded in 1994, Dupin's informed text is complemented by detailed notes, an extensive bibliography and chronology, and an exhibition history, all of which have been updated for this new edition.

Customer Reviews:

The definitive book on Miro.......2007-08-05

This is a magnificent art book, written by a leading authority on Miro, replete with high-quality illustrations and served by a brilliant text. Undoubtedly the best available work on the Spanish master, it enables the reader to wander through Miro's oeuvre with almost the same enjoyment as if the paintings were actually before your eyes. The entire career of the painter is covered and the text is historically informative as well as enlightening in its explanations of major works. A must-have in any fine arts library.

Miro Engravings V 3 1973-1975 (Miro Engravings, 1973-1975, 1973-1975)

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Miro Engravings V 3 1973-1975 (Miro Engravings, 1973-1975, 1973-1975)
Jacques Dupin
Manufacturer: Rizzoli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0847814440
Release Date: 1992-03-15

Average customer rating:

Great Book

Joan Miro
Rosa Maria Malet
Manufacturer: Rizzoli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0847825884
Release Date: 2003-09-13

Book Description

This book showcases the talent and work of one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Born in Spain, Joan Miró was a leading figure in the Surrealist movement. This monograph includes a concise overview of the artist's life and career. This book not only details his pictorial output but also looks at the artist's incursions into areas as diverse as graphic work, ceramics, sculpture, tapestry, and theatre.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2000-11-16

This was a great book and it was very interesting. I learned many things about Miro and his styles of painting.

Terra Sculptura, Terra Pictura: Ceramics from the Classic Modernnists : Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Raoul Dufy, Joan Miro, Pablo Pic

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Terra Sculptura, Terra Pictura: Ceramics from the Classic Modernnists : Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Raoul Dufy, Joan Miro, Pablo Pic
Georges Braque
Manufacturer: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9065380329

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I loved the exhibition and I love the book
wonderful catalogue

Calder/Miro

Manufacturer: Philip Wilson Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 085667575X
Release Date: 2004-10-21

Book Description

he sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and the painter Joan Mir (1893-1983) first met in Paris in 1928 and became life-long friends. Both artists were pushing forward the boundaries of convention in their art. This original and vis-ually stimulating book tells for the first time the story of their friendship and examines the artistic influences between them. The book assembles 130 works to illustrate this visual dialogue and examines the artists' written correspondence and their exchanges of artwork and photographs over a period of forty years. This brilliant new book includes a foreword by Mir's grand-son Joan Punyet Mir, as well as a preface by Ernst Beyeler, co-founder of the Basel Artfair and head of the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland. Themes explored are signs of friend--ship, shared projects, and the recovery of childhood in art. Selected examples of their work are highlighted alongside of an exhibition checklist, and a chronology of their lives. Calder/Mir is destined to be the definitive book on these two artists.

Customer Reviews:

I loved the exhibition and I love the book.......2007-04-14

This is a wonderful catalogue that accompanies the landmark exhibition that was held at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland in 2004, and at the Phillips Collection in Washington. Apart from the groundbreaking comparative study of both artists, which is very well written and highly informative (a trove of previously unpublished documents), the illustrations are fantastic. One of the most moving series by Miro, the Constellations, some 40 watercolors painted in 1941, are wonderfully echoed in a three-dimensional space by Calder's delicate mobiles of the same period. Highly recommended.

wonderful catalogue.......2004-09-01

it is always interesting to see how artists and friends influence one another and here is another brilliant examination. alexander calder and joan miro couldn't have been more different, yet, it seems that this factor propelled their friendship. they true friends from the beginning the artists, and their families, remained close throughout their careers. often collaborating on works, sharing ideas or simply exchanging artistic gifts their friendship shines through to their art. this show brings commonalities and collaborations together under one roof (some for the first time ever) and explores the influences behind the objects. bravo to the curators for bringing this to our attention and thanks for the fantastic catalogue that accompanies it!

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Miro the beuty

Joan Miro: 1893-1983 (Basic Art)
Janis Mink
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3822859753

Amazon.com

This title in the Modern Masters series focuses on the work of Joan Miro, one of the painters most often associated with surrealism. Miro studied art in his native Barcelona before joining the Paris art scene in the 1920s. Fantasy, dreams, and myths played an important role in Miro's early works, many of which are included in the more than 70 full-color reproductions of paintings, sculptures, and tapestries in this collection. This is a fine introduction to the monumental works of one of the foremost artists of the 20th century.

Customer Reviews:

Miro the beuty.......2001-01-19

This book is one that shows how Miro and maybye how people felt in that time period,which he lived so long.He made many beutyfull pictures and some that were just nonsense.I like his paintings so much i belive this book and him have inspiered me to be an artist one day.I am not very good but miro did not paint good but it was what he felt and that made him care and that is all that really matters.

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The Indelible Miro
Yvon Taillandier , and Phyllis Freeman
Manufacturer: Leon Amiel Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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