A Year in Books/Day 42: Vermeer

Posted on February 11, 2012 by maedez

Title: Vermeer The Complete Paintings
Author: Norbert Schneider
Year Published: 2001 (Taschen)
Year Purchased: 2002/2003
Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
About: Mid-way between a coffee table book and scholarly treatise, this small, slim volume is a surprisingly stunning study of the legendary Dutch master’s entire output (35 paintings). Norbert Schneider has serious chops as an art historian, yet manages to present technical details, sociological factors and biographical information in a straightforward and engaging manner. He takes you considerably deeper than ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. His beautifully nuanced precision is well worthy of Vermeer.
Motivation: I have wildly eclectic taste. Though my preferences twist and turn, slither and lurch to a thousand and one different places, doubling back before shooting off in another hundred seemingly random, sometimes contradictory directions, one thing is always indisputable: I like what I like. And I like Vermeer. In fact, I have an overall fondness for Dutch painting. A quick thumb-through of this lush little gem and I was sold.
Times Read: Countless
Random Excerpt/Page 36: ” A peeled lemon in ‘Woman and two men’ lies on a silver dish next to a jug which has been placed on a white cloth in an arrangement which is almost like a still life; the purpose if the lemon was to reduce the effect of love potions.”
Happiness Scale: 10++
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The Dead Writers Round-Up: 19th-23rd January

Posted on February 11, 2012 by maedez

Edgar Allan Poe was born on 1/19/1809. “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
Robinson Jeffers died on 1/20/1962. “Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.” (Shine, Perishing Republic, 1941)
Lytton Strachey died on 1/21/1932. Strachey revolutionized the genre of biography, finally bringing it out of the Victorian era by infusing his profiles with wit and genuine human emotions.
George A. Moore died on 1/21/1933. “Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.”
George Orwell died on 1/21/1950. “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
Lord Byron was born on 1/22/1788. “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”
August Strindberg was born on 1/22/1849. Strindberg was an artistic triple-threat, engaging in painting and photography as well as the writing for which he is known. He also fancied himself an alchemist.
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) was born on 1/23/1783. “A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
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Posted on February 11, 2012 by maedez

Title: Mary Queen of Scots
Author: Marjorie Bowen
Year Published: First Edition-1934/This Edition: 1971 (Sphere Books Limited)
Year Purchased: 2001
Source: Book Harbor, Westerville, Ohio
About: A fine biography that gives the Scots queen her full due. A true classic.
Motivation: I have a largish collection of Tudor-themed books. Although I have never been strongly attached to Elizabeth’s cousin, I thought it was time to give a few feet of shelf space to the House of Stuart. I’m glad I did.
Times Read: 1
Random Excerpt/Page 200: “It was Sir Henry Killigrew who brought the official warning and the secret complaint to Edinburgh. He had his notes to make on the affairs, domestic and politic, of the young Queen of Scots who should, by the birth of her son, have been at the height of her triumph.”
Happiness Scale: 10
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