The TOP 5 ART BOOKS I Couldn't Live Without

Art books are like openings into other worlds. Looking into them we can see without doubt what we admire and what we find beautiful. Welcome my dear friends to our home library of art books. We have books here on drawing, painting, sculpture, art history, art theory, anatomy, different crafts from different cultures. Most of these books my husband Joshua purchased over the years. We both care very much about how art was made and we love being inspired by beauty and mastery in art. A lot of these art books were donations. Sometimes I add a few books to the collection depending on what I'm interested in. Today I want to show you some of my favorite art books, books that have inspired me the most over the years. First I would like to show you some books from our sculpture selection. As much as possible we try to keep our art collection categorized which is not always that easy. We have large shelves covering each wall. Behind me is a little room only dedicated to anatomy books and anatomy references. After I would like to show you some of my favorite monographs, books on specific artists that I cherish very much and I will add all the titles and authors in the description box below and at the end of the video I will give a few tips on how to purchase art books affordably online. I picked five art books. It was a hard decision to make. Maybe do a part two video. The first book I want to be talking about today is Bernini's Sculpting in Clay. It was distributed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. It originally was a catalog for an exhibition that took place 2012 in the Met and they had about 50 something pieces of his clay models on display for the first time ever. Now Gian Lorenzo Bernini is one of the greatest sculptors who ever lived. He gets credited for creating the baroque style of sculpture. He is known for these monumental marble sculptures. I was not able to see the exhibition at the time. I wish I had. I was in Austria. I ordered the catalog as soon as it came out. Why I was so interested in seeing his clay models was because I was working in clay for many years and eventually also wanted to carve in stone. Seeing his models gave me so much inspiration on how he prepared his works to be carved in stone. I absolutely love the clarity of his forms and often you get to see the working ways on how he treats the surfaces and the folds and sometimes you get to see how he prepares designs and sketches to to be shown to patrons. I remember at the time working on commissions in my studio and in my breaks I would be opening that book and get ideas on how to solve problems to continue my work. Modeling and Sculpting a Human Figure by Edoard Lanteri. Now this is Edoard Lanteri's Modeling and Sculpting in Clay. This is a classic among figure sculptors but I think it's very interesting for non-artists too. I read this book many many times. Edoard Lanteri wrote this how-to book in the late 19th century. He himself is French but he wrote it in England and is therefore probably our only publication that sort of bridges the lineage of traditional sculpture with today's form of education. I use this book to look into all the time and I use it to teach and I also like reading with what care the artists at the time had to also describing their processes. You can tell by reading the text that the craftsmanship was very highly valued at the time. So for all these reasons also the images are great. I love this book very very much. Okay next one is Gandharan Arts of North India. Gandharan Arts of North India and the Greco-Buddhist tradition. Greco-Buddhist art is a synthesis of ancient Greek art and Buddhist art that was discovered in Gandhara, North India. How this happened could be when Alexander the Great intruded on the area sometime in 300 CE but according to this book it flourished much later. Yet Gandharan Buddha statues are among the oldest depictions of Shakyamuni we have. I find the art in these monasteries in that area so fascinating as to express sacred devotion with such carefully crafted forms. The simple clear forms allow the feeling of the essence of what the art is depicted and that is something that I keep looking for in my own art as well. Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered by Carmen Bambach. Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered by Carmen Bambach. This is an art historical biography on Leonardo da Vinci and it was published in 2019 so it is fairly new. This is volume one out of four. It describes his early years on how he became that genius that we all admire. Carmen Bambach worked 23 years on these four volumes. I read the first one and I'm very much looking forward to reading the next this winter when it gets really cold outside. She had all of Leonardo's notebooks re-translated. That is also why the work is called Rediscovered and what I like about it is that with her careful investigation of how Leonardo worked, she in a way humanizes his journey, meaning he was not simply born a genius. He worked very hard on everything he was interested in. I feel that Carmen Bambach is very sensitive to the artist's growth. She studied a lot of drawing herself. I think that gives her a deeper insight and sympathy how Leonardo was endlessly working on his paintings and for many years and often he would be disappointing his patrons for it. So his story is highly inspiring. And lastly, this is 400 years old by Odoardo Fialetti. Now this is the most valuable book in our collection. It is 400 years old. It is by Odoardo Fialetti and I'm being very careful as I'm turning the pages as the book is so old. It is from the original edition of probably the first printed manual on drawing the human body. It was a rare find. A Spanish antique dealer offered it and we purchased it from him. Odoardo Fialetti was a painter in the late renaissance and he also was a printmaker and teacher. This gives us insight into how art was taught when some of the greatest old masters were still alive. Now this was my little tour on art books. I hope you enjoyed it. Books that have inspired me the most over the years. If you wanted to purchase art books, my number one tip is try to find art books used versus new. My favorite website to go to and search for art books is Ape Books. I will put the link below. My second favorite website is Etsy. Surprised you find beautiful art books on Etsy to an affordable price. And lastly, I would love to hear what your favorite art book is. Please put it in a comment below. I would love to hear about that as well. And I hope you enjoyed my tour and I see you in my next video.