Saturday, November 7, 2009

Wayback Machine


Blog reader Gene Snyder has shared a great link for old art texts online. He says:

I'm a big geek when it comes to art books. I can't get enough of them, especially old ones that were written while the artists or techniques that they are talking about were alive and in full swing. There's a site at www.archive.org that has a HUGE collection of books that go way back. Here's a small list of some books that I've collected from the site so far:


- "Treatise on Painting - Leonardo da Vinci", Translated by John Riguad, 1877.
- "The Painter in Oil", by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst, 1898. (Neat thing about this book is Parkhurst was student of William Bouguereau).
- "Our American Artists", by S.G.W. Benjamin, 1879. (Has some great biographies of artists).
- "Asher B. Durand - A Memorial Address", by Daniel Huntington, 1887.
- "Velasquez", by R.A.M. Stevenson, 1906. (Goes into pretty good detail about Velasquez's technique).
Thanks, Gene!

To which I'd add:
"Aims and Ideals of Art" by George Clausen.
"The life of an artist, an autobiography" - Breton, Jules, 1827-1906
"The Science of Painting" - Jehan-Georges Vibert
"The Classic Point of View: Six Lectures on Painting." Kenyon Cox
"Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (Volume 1)" - Champlin, John Denison, 1834-1915
"Pictorial composition and the critical judgment of pictures" - Poore, Henry Rankin, 1859-1940

There's a complete annotated bibliography in the back of Imaginative Realism.
Visit Gene's website and blog.

13 comments:

SCIBOTIC said...

David Briggs has collected quite a few links in this thread: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=131116

James Gurney said...

Thanks, David! That's a great collection of books.

Steve said...

This is a rich resource...and, of course, it's always nice to hear an echo of Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman.

Oscar Baechler said...

Don't forget the complete works of Andrew Loomis! Used to be on archive.org but doesn't seem to be any more. But still free, still legal!

http://gekos.no/art/index.php/component/option,com_idoblog/Itemid,60/id,68/task,viewpost/

Eugen Caitaz said...

Hi James!!! Today I make something too!!!
Look here:

http://dispatchesfromtheme.blogspot.com/2009/11/hi-guys-other-day-i-thought-i-still.html

theresa said...

Thanks for this! Your blog is as ever a daily source of joy.

Felipe! said...

I just wanted to leave a comment saying that I think this blog is a big inspiration to me and that it was really great to see you at the panel at Hartford Art School. It was really neat to be able to see and talk to an artist I admire and specially to hear people talk out loud about all these things that I spend most of my time only reading about. It's great to see that there's people out there to whom this is as interesting as it is to me. Anyways, keep updating and I'll keep reading.

Stapleton Kearns said...

The "Practice and Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed is there also. Great text. Also 5000+ Grateful Dead concerts.
....................Stape

James Gurney said...

Felipe, thanks for leaving a comment--and tell your teachers I think you deserve an A, even though you had to cut high school to come to the symposium!

Oscar, appreciate the Loomis links. His books seem to keep turning up in new places.

jake gumbleton said...

The painter in oil is a book i had not heard of before. I have read Speeds books and found them immeasuably useful. This one seems wonderful too. Thanks so much for the link.

Josh said...

That site also has an AMAZING archive of old time radio shows that are awesome to listen to while you create!

treplovski said...

Thanks so much for that great link! I found some terrific books on lettering there, including the legendary "A Show at Show-Cards" by Atkinson and one by my hero Frederic Goudy.

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Josh and Treplovski--I'm also a big fan of showcard lettering and old radio--I didn't know they were on that site!