100 books like Dalí. The Paintings

For me, this book was a real education. It provided insight into how the greatest artists strive to break the rules and find interest in juxtapositioning different versions of reality and fantasy.  The perfect summation, to me, of what Escher strived to do is communicated in this quote, “My topics are often playful too. I cannot stop fiddling around with our incontestable certainty. It is a pleasure, for example, to deliberately mingle two- and three-dimensions, flat and spatial and to poke fun at gravity.” One of the main takeaways from this book is to always strive to reimagine reality, break rules, be playful, and never be afraid to fail.  

I bought this book twenty years ago and still love this book. It is such a clear and beautifully illustrated book with a very strong explanation of the different elements of drawing the human figure and how to render with powerful volume and gesture. It is a great learning tool for artists of all ages and experiences to learn from, be inspired by or just review basic principles of drawing the human figure. The way that Anthony Ryder uses colored paper as the midtone is one of the easiest and most visually powerful ways to add character and depth to any drawing. 

Bernini shows the culmination of the Baroque era in which the artist himself played a significant part in forming and exposing how art can be an intersection between painting, sculpture, and architecture. The level of detail and expression that he can imbue his sculptures with is an experience in itself. The book also gives insight into his process, internal rules, and definitions of art as well as the historical context behind many of his works. His larger works, along with his smaller, far more personal portrait busts, are all detailed with rich photography showcasing the incredible detail of his work. 

Rembrandt is a fascinating journey through Rembrandt’s paintings and also his lesser-known (to the general public) prints. It’s also a chronological roadmap of his works from his early years until his final period.  Watching his progression and the mastery in his latest period was a true learning process of how ‘less’ can be ‘far more.’ In the works displayed in the book, Rembrandt shows his skill at wringing every last bit of functionality out of each color in a very limited palette and also the cornucopia of atmospheric density he played with so masterfully to push and pull the viewers’ eye.  

Like any art form, fashion has its share of tortured geniuses. Perhaps none combined genius and torture with as much panache as Charles James, who dressed celebrities and socialites only to die in poverty. Vogue editor Bettina Ballard remembered that “he was constantly cutting and perfecting” his toiles, “which he turned, very occasionally, into actual dresses.” A personality as complex and demanding as his sculptural evening gowns, James knew everybody and got along with nobody—and you’ll understand why after reading Klein’s biography, which draws on recently discovered, unfiltered tapes James made for a planned autobiography that, like so many of his creations, he never he finished.

I was first intrigued by Jodorowsky’s bizarre, unforgettable films. I only discovered his fiction later, but I’m glad I did. Where the Bird Sings Best is a semi-fictional account of the author’s family history, incorporating the magical-realism tradition of Latin American literature with factual details of one family’s immigration and resettlement half a world away from their original homeland. As in Jodorowsky’s filmmaking, the images within his novel are haunting, weird, and leave the reader with the impression that she has only grasped one-tenth of the real meaning.

Some of the stories in this collection, like my own stories, use surreal metaphor, expressing poetic imagery in prose form; others are more about the thrill of absurdity. Though surrealism existed before the term or movement existed (in visual art and literature e.g. Lewis Carroll, Hieronymus Bosch, etc.), Andre Breton and his mates really went for it. Here you can read works by Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, Louis Aragon, Leonora Carrington, and more. What I love about all of these artists is their obvious joy in discovering the surreal or poetic image, a joy I know well, and their absolute passion for the importance and potency of expressing such imagery. 

This book summarizes the contributions of Otto Rank, the brilliant and influential psychoanalyst. Rank focused on two core psychological motivations, the desires for psychological security on the one hand, and for stimulation, growth, and creativity on the other. His work illuminates how these desires often work in concert but also often can be in opposition over the course of the lifespan, contributing to guilt, anxiety, and stunting growth. Rank’s analysis inspired the development of both existential psychology and humanistic psychology. Rank’s approach to psychological well-being is based on accepting and even affirming the limitations of life, understanding what you really want in life, and developing the will to move creatively toward achieving those goals so that one can live an authentic and satisfying life.   

This is a very good, fair, smart, early interpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis in general, and of its significance for culture and intellectual history in particular. It’s very well written, probably because Susan Sontag (Rieff’s wife at the time) is widely reported to have actually written the book, and in the 1960s the book became highly influential. It is easily Rieff’s best book. 

In principle, psychoanalytic theory and practice rely on evidence adduced from the clinical case studies of patients. Freud, however, presented very few such cases. With this in mind, Borch-Jacobsen has done something of permanent importance to the field: he researched and wrote 38 ‘lost’ and unofficial case studies of Freud’s patients and gathered them all into one volume. The book as such functions as a shocking disconfirmation of everything we thought we knew about Freud the man, the theorist, and the therapist. And, best of all, it does so in plain, highly accessible language.