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Title: Desert Dreams: The Art and Life of Maynard Dixon by Donald J. Hagerty, Maynard Dixon, John Dixon ISBN: 0-87905-826-9 Publisher: Gibbs Smith Publisher Pub. Date: September, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Maynard Dixon may be our most underappreciated artist
Comment: This is a wonderful book to own, both for the enjoyment of the art and to read and know more about Maynard Dixon. I am an aspiring watercolor painter myself and a lover of Western art. Several years ago I noted the stunning art work on the cover of the western Novel "The Streets of Laredo" in the Lonesome Dove series of books. I had no idea at the time who Maynard Dixon was, but I couldn't forget the image of the desert and the sky making the figures on horseback appear so small and fragile. This book provides so many great pictures, including my book cover, and it is also a fine biography of an inspiring life. If you like Western art, this might be described as a bridge between Remington and Russell and Edward Hopper. I know this is probably not technically a valid observation, but I think it the best way that I can describe Maynard Dixon's work.
Rating: 5
Summary: American Artists whois missing in America Art!
Comment: If you've seen other books on Maynard Dixon, as I have, they will usually have strength more in one point rather than all points. For example: his landscapes, Indians, or pencil drawings. This is good but it would require another book to get satisfation on say "landscapes" if your book is on Indians or "Indians" if it's on landscapes! Desert Dream is a balanced, indepth and updated book that combines and augments all the previous books on Maynard Dixon that I have seen.
But it also does something more than tell us about an important, underrated American nationalists in the fine arts; Desert Dreams reveals in the first page the post world war II mentality that took over in the teaching of fine arts in 1946 which quite effectively eliminated the stature of native influenced Americans such as Maynard Dixon to whom Europe was not the panecea for himself as an artist or a man who thought deeply about art. In otherwords, the deliberate internationalization of art history in America has ill served the national appreciation of "cultural nationalism" within the context of fine arts in this country.
This small point is pregnant with implications.
At nearly 300 pages, the price is a real bargain!
What I also enjoyed about this book is the man himself and how unashamed he was to paint this country. It's land. It's people with an individualism that not only built his character but also builds countries, and sustains them as well.
As the husband of Dorethea Lange, it is unfortunate that his name is less well known than her's considering his place in California as an artist. Today, I cannot think any artist that could wear the mantle he did, from about 1900 until his death in1946, as California's most famous artist.
Color reproductions give a form and substance to this man and his art that is hard to come by otherwise, and this is due to the depth of Maynard Dixon's on own words which also are generously used in the book.
Though I'm writng about him as an artist, Maynard Dixon made a good accounting of himself as a poet too. Insightful, poignant words that are a far cry from the packaged language one often hears today. We need good poets to remind of deeper things, sublime things, good things. Like his painting, Maynard Dixon's poetry is also immortal.
I'd urge all to get a hold of this august book about and august man who can still teach us fundamentals in what is means to be American, an individual, a man. His constitution was written with brushes, pens, pencils, and other art means, but it still speaks freely, clearly, and with power to anyone who is willing to listen.
Take me at my word , but buy the book anyway.
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Title: Escape to Reality: The Western World of Maynard Dixon by Linda Jones Gibbs, Deborah Brown Rasiel ISBN: 0842524770 Publisher: Brigham Young University Press Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Beyond the Visible Terrain: The Art of Ed Mell by Donald J. Hagerty ISBN: 0873586514 Publisher: Northland Pub Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Hawthorne on Painting by Charles W. Hawthorne ISBN: 048620653X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1960 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Confessions of a Starving Artist: Art and Life of Harley Brown by Harley Brown ISBN: 1929834284 Publisher: International Artist Publishing Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $70.00 |
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Title: Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Alwin Payne ISBN: 0944699022 Publisher: Derus Fine Arts Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $48.00 |
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