Product Description
A lasting contribution to the study of Japanese textiles and to the cultural history of the Inland Sea region, this volume presents a historical ethnography of the fishing villages that produced the sashiko no donza, or fishermanís coat. It provides as well an in-depth analysis of regional textile production, the sashiko tradition in the village of Hokudan, and the iconography of the eloquently stitched designs that appear on the coats. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Sashiko Fisherman's Coats
Excellent resource for those interested in this type of embroidery. Fine examples of fisherman's coats and history provided.

Beautiful photographs
Featured in this book are many beautiful examples of mingei textiles from a particular region and period in history. The focus may be narrow, but for students of textile design and sashiko in particular, this is a rather helpful book. The first essay is a bit dry, but necessary for fully understanding the factors (time, place, economy, culture) that contributed to the construction of these garments.

I would suggest this more for a serious textile and/or historical garment design student. It is certainly not a how-to book, but much can be gleaned from it for those seeking to work with historical sashiko designs.

Interesting catalog of a lost art
This handsomely photographed volume serves as a companion piece to a museum display of the Awaji Island fishermen's coats. Considering its focus, it is a fascinating depiction of a craft that had faded by the mid-20th century, and a celebration of the human skill involved in creating these intricate garments. There is some background historical information provided, and the volume concludes with full-length photos of variations of the coats. When I purchased this book, I was interested in learning about construction techniques, and seeing other related examples of Japanese coats. It is, however, rather narrow in scope, but I certainly can't fault the author(s) for staying on topic.

A Book for Fans of Sashiko and Kogin Embroidery
This is a small (80 pages) book that is worth every penny of its price. The cover and back are adorned with fabulous examples of coats done in sashiko embroidery that were produced on Awaji Island in Japan. The coats, stitched with white thread on indigo-dyed cloth, were produced in large numbers for every day and dress up into the 1920's, but production stopped when industrialization came to the fore in the Japanese fishing industry. Although there is now a revival of sashiko in Japan, many fewer garments are produced.

This book is replete with photos of life in fishing communities andboth old and newer garments. An extensive catalog of the garments that were featured in an exhibition at UCLA is appended to the text. If you own Susan Briscoe's Sashiko Sourcebook you will have no difficulty figuring out how to produce these garments or how to use the techniques in your own design efforts.

Indigo dyed Fishermen's work coats
I spent 2 weeks researching indigo dyed Japanese fishermen's coats while preparing for a new design in my own work. In doing so I found vintage photographs of men who fished for a living in Japan. They wore coats to protect themselves from the elements,made by the women in their lives who also mended them ,using the art of stitching to hold together layers of fabric.The fabrics that they used to mend with were from other garments,all in blues from indigo.

This books has a collection of these coats that truly honors the blood,sweat and probably tears from the men who worked endlessly long hours to support their families.

I love this book and count is as one of my favorite reference books in creative library.I can't say enough about the beauty of these clothes and thank all of the people behind creating such a perfect collection.

Thank you! ... Read more

Product Description
While most people are familiar with the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, few are aware of the scores of other wonderful museums throughout New England. From the Colby College Museum of Art to the Museum of Russian Icons and the National Museum of American Illustration, the cradle of American art is home to a dazzling abundance of cultural opportunities.

Traute M. Marshall has written this smart and engagingly personal guidebook for curious travelers, bringing to light the wealth of small and large art museums in the six New England states, ranging from world-class encyclopedic collections to more modest and specialized venues. While providing the information found in a traditional guidebook--addresses, websites, opening times, directions, and so forth--Marshall also offers readers informed and intimate introductions to the museums and their histories, holdings, traditions, and architecture. This guide also explains exhibition practices, the presentation of the permanent collection versus the attraction of temporary shows, the different educational activities offered, and the special relationship between a town or city and its art museum.

Each entry concludes with a special "PLUS" section designed to further enrich any visit. This might point you to other types of museums nearby, an architecturally distinctive building in the neighborhood, the home of a famous local artist, or other sites such as artist colonies or distinguished galleries, historic inns or restaurants, or even movies with some connection to the locale. Useful as both a resource for planning your next road trip and an essential glove- compartment companion, Art Museums PLUS is a must-have for New England natives and tourists alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Makes me want to buy a plane ticket!
It is often hard to imagine why an author has chosen a particular topic. In the same vein, most of us have had the experience of idly glancing at a book in which we had little interest from the cover and then finding ourselves unable to put it down. Art Museums PLUS is definitely such a book. At first glance, Boston has theGardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. What more cultural status can a region such as New England claim? Well, about 150 more, as it turns out. Author Marshall has not only visited every one of these largely unknown locales (and taken most of the vivid photographs sprinkled generously throughout) but she has managed to capture the essence of each. She is careful never to claim too much but always identifies some quaint or even inspired object or architecture or scenery that makes you want to get into your car and start driving (or, in my case, flying) in that direction.

Today the book is often denigrated for its lack of Google-like interactivity. Well, I defy anyone to show me a digital site that is more beautifully laid out and handier to use than this book (and, with its sleek upright format, it pops into a purse or coat pocket with ease). The maps, the suggestions of where to stay, the descriptions of each museum (and more features space does not permit me to mention), the deeply knowledgeable but infectious authorial voice--these are the hallmarks of the guidebooks we associate with the Baedekers of yore (those essential companions to any European journey) but rarely associate with travel stateside. Reading Art Museums PLUS not only rekindled my pride in things American but got me sketching plans for my own trip. Few travel books achieve either.

The Ultimate Guidebook
An Excellent Guidebook
Quality" is the best word to describe this impressive guide to the art museums of New England. I found it to be exceptionally comprehensive, well organized, and beautifully designed for easy reading and user -friendly handling. Unlike other guidebooks, you don't have to shuffle through pages to get the information you want.

Because the author actually visited each of the 150 art museums throughout New England the text rings with enthusiasm and authenticity. It made me want to stop at each venue to check out the art, the illustration, sculpture or photography and to consult the PLUS section for the special"extras" in the area.

Some of the special features that I found particularly useful were the numbered locator maps for each state, directions to each museum, operating hours, cost and the museum website. Also, included is some fascinating background related to the history and uniqueness of each place.

This guidebook is a "must have" for anyone planning a trip through New England.It's already in my glove compartment for the next vacation or getaway. And, it would make a mighty fine gift, too!

DELIGHTFUL AND INFORMATIVE
This is a great book for both visitors to and residents of New England.The charming descriptions of the museums, plus the interesting tidbits of history, whet one's appetite for planning visits to the places described.The museums are listed by state, with precise directions to their locations, plus opening and closing times, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses--all you need to know, set out in an easy-to-use, well-organized fashion.Pack it in your suitcase or send it to your New England friends--they'll find it as much fun to read and use as I have! ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: History Museums in Saudi Arabia, Railway Museums in Saudi Arabia, Mada'in Saleh, Nasseef House, National Museum of Saudi Arabia, Masmak Fort, Royal Saudi Air Force Museum, Hejaz Railway Museum, Jeddah Regional Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, Shadda Palace. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 37. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Nasseef House or Nassif House (Arabic: Bayt Nasseef) is a historical structure in Al-Balad, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As of 2009 it is a museum and cultural center which has special exhibits and lectures given by history scientists. The construction of Nasseef House on old Jeddah's main street, Suq al-Alawi, began in 1872 and it was finished by 1881 for Omar Nasseef Efendi, member of a wealthy merchant family and, governor of Jeddah at the time. When Abdulaziz Ibn Saud entered the city in December 1925, after the siege of Jeddah, he stayed in the Bayt Nasseef. During his early stays in the city he used it as royal residence and received guests here. John R. Bradley, author of Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis, described the Nasseef House as "kind of social salon" in the 1920s, as consuls and merchants gathered there. The house belonged to the Nasseef family until 1975, when Muhammad Nasseef turned it into a private library that eventually accumulated 16,000 books, which could be read by anyone visiting him. Today these books belong to the central library of King Abdulaziz University. Nasseef house has 106 rooms and the art work some of the rooms contain is admirable. Besides works on wood, others on tiles can be seen as well as Arabic calligraphy. The design style is said to be Turkish. This rather describes more the period during which it was build than relationship to designs popular in the Ottoman cultural centers at this time s...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=10250568 ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Peabody museum in 1920 in 96 pages; Subjects: Hawaii; Ethnology; History / General; History / United States / State ... Read more

Product Description

In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britian, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organized their collections, and their visitors.

Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture.

Using Foucaltian perspectives The Birth of the Museum explores how the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction, but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place.

This invigorating study enriches and challenges the understanding of the museum, and places it at the centre of modern relations between culture and government.  For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list.

Customer Reviews (4)

Dense but satisfying
Bennett's language may be theory dense, but it is rarely unclear while outlining the social and cultural trends which gave "birth" to the museum in its many formats, historical, anthropological, art, etc. This book is really a collection of essays previously written by Bennett on the museum and combined here; I would recommend not reading it all at once as it can be a bit much. However, it clearly looks at the historical and social reasons for how the museum came to be, particularly in its nineteenth century origins. It also relates museums to other social institutions: fairs and cabinets of curiosities as precursors, the 19th c. developments in prisons and the advent of expositions as contemporaneous to the birth of the museum, and amusement parks as a mix of the fair and the museum. Definitely located in the field of cultural studies.

More to it than theory-speak
It's true (as other reviewers have complained) that Bennett's analysis can be a little too slick at times. But even if the Foucault-inspired arguments are overstated, this book still offers interesting discussion of specific historical examples. If you take a "social control" theory too literally, this sort of analysis will become wrongheaded. But Bennett and other researchers in this vein are asking serious questions: how do the ways we order and represent knowledge (as museums are designed to do) shape what we can know?

Rediculously complex
As a museum professional with over twelve years experience designing and producing exhibitions for a wide variety of subject matter i was immediately interested in Tony Bennet's book. The summary on the back mapped out, in plain english, a book that detailed the social and political forces that resulted in and shaped the modern concept of the museum.
However once i had purchase the book and actually tried to read it I found myself drowning in Foucault -ian language that ultimately obscures any observations that Mr Bennet may have had. This book is only for those with a college degree in philosophy,as it seems more focused on showing us all how clever Mr Bennet is than actually dealing with the subject matter. Completely inaccessible to all but the most acedemic minded scholars

pop-Foucault
A glib account of the history of the museum, written in easi-Foucault language which simply adapts the traditional 70s sociological model of 'social control'- museums form part of the bourgeois plot to control thepeople, along with schools etc. In the end, the account is nothing morethan conspiracy theory. ... Read more

Product Description
Indigenous museums and cultural centres have sprung up across the developing world, and particularly in the Southwest Pacific. They derive from a number of motives, ranging from the commercial to the cultural political (and many combine both). A close study of this phenomenon is not only valuable for museological practice but, as has been argued, it may challenge our current bedrock assumptions about the very nature and purpose of the museum. This book looks to the future of museum practice through examining how museums have evolved particularly in the non-western world to incorporate the present and the future in the display of culture. Of particular concern is the uses to which historic records are put in the service of community development and cultural renaissance. ... Read more

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How did the rise of metropolitan art institutions influence modernism and the modernization of art in England? This volume explores the artist as creator, notions of class and taste, and the power of institutions to affect creativity and artistic expression. Topics discussed include the radicalism of engravers and how their claim to be artists is an important and neglected aspect of the nineteenth-century art world; and how the aesthetic dispute over the Chantrey Bequest epitomized conflicts of taste, cultural independence between opposed art institutions and the Treasury. ... Read more

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Popular as a resource on museums and on the history of collecting, The Ashmolean houses the University of Oxford's unrivalled works of art and antuiquies from Europe, Centrial Asia and the Far East. ... Read more

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On a daily basis remnants, scraps, rubbish, and junk are filtered through both formal and informal salvage operations in urban centers throughout the world. The essays included in this volume--"Muffler Men, Menecos and Other Welded Wonders: Occupational Sculpture from Automotive Debris," "Streetwise: The Mafundi of Dar es Salaam," and "Castoff/Outcast: Living on the Street"--explore the process of recycling within distinct environments. What emerges is a remarkable justaposition of diverse material behaviors informing the "lived experiences" of residents of Los Angeles, Tokyo, So Paulo, and Dar es Salaam. ... Read more

Product Description
Chinese Cultural Art Treasures. National Palace Museum Illustrated Handbook. Contains both color and black & white pictures. 115 printed pages. 138 pages of photographs of art treasures. ... Read more

Product Description
Written over a thirty-five year career, the essays in Civilizing the Museum introduce students to thepowerful, sometimes contested, and often unrealized notion that museums should welcome all because they house the collective memory of all.
Drawing on her experience working in and with museums in the US and throughout the world, Author Elaine Heumann Gurian explores the possibilities for making museums more central and relevant to society.
The twenty-two essays are organized around five main themes:
* museum definitions
* civic responsibility and social service
* architectural spaces
* exhibitions
* spirituality and rationality.
And these themes address the elements that would make museums more inclusive such as:
* exhibition technique
* space configurations
* the personality of the director
* the role of social service
* power sharing
* types of museums
* the need for emotion humor and spirituality.
Without abandoning the traditional museum processes, Gurian shows how museums can honor tradition whilst embracing the new.
Enriched by her experience in groundbreaking museums, Gurian has provided a book that provokes thought, dialogue and action for students and professionals in the field to realize the inclusive potential of museums. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Important Book
"Civilizing the Museum" is an important book that looks at the ways in which the public and museums interact with each other in the historical and contemporary moment. Gurian looks critically at what museums are and what they could and should be. Her call for free admission to museums is one which points the way to a more participatory sense of what it means to be a public institution. Gurian has been at the forefront of the critical conversation around the evolving role of public museums for many years, offering much insight, analysis and advise to those both working in these institutions and those frequenting them. An invaluable book that provides rich food for thought. ... Read more

Product Description
Why did the Victorians collect with such a vengeance and exhibit in museums? Focusing on this key nineteenth-century enterprise, Barbara J. Black illuminates British culture of the period by examining the cultural power that this collecting and exhibiting possessed. Through its museums, she argues, Victorian London constructed itself as a world city.

Using the tools of cultural criticism, social history, and literary analysis, Black roots Victorian museum culture in key political events and cultural forces: British imperialism, exploration, and tourism; advances in science and changing attitudes about knowledge; the commitment to improved public taste through mass education; the growth of middle-class dominance and the resulting bourgeois fetishism and commodity culture; and the democratization of luxury engendered by the French and industrial revolutions. She covers a wide range of genres--from poetry to museum guidebooks to the triple-decker novel--and treats three London museums as case studies: Sir John Soane's house-museum, the Natural History Museum, and the exemplary South Kensington.

While On Exhibit provides a fascinating analysis of Victorian society, it also reminds us how modern the Victorians were--how, in crucial ways, our culture derives from the Victorian era. Forging connections among museums, urbanism, and modernity, Black provokes us to examine cultural imperialism and the costs and advantages of cultural consensus. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the leading collections of African art in the world, the African collection at Berlin’s Ethnological Museum contains important masterpieces from many different regions of the continent.

This stunning book includes more than two hundred color and black-and-white reproductions of masks, ceremonial figures, musical instruments, and objects of everyday life from throughout Africa. Among the jewels in the museum are the Ife Collection from Nigeria; rare Benin bronzes; Afro-Portuguese ivories; magical figures from the Lower Congo and a host of East African sculpture and masks that have gained increasing attention in recent years. Essays by leading ethnologists supply important cultural and historical information on each region, as well as fascinating insights into the ways European and African art have traded influences over the centuries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

From the Ethnographic Museum.
A large heavy book with lots of nice pictures. A survey of art from central and western Africa in the Berlin Ethnographic Museum. Some works were stolen, some purchased. It goes into some details about the meanings behind the symbols and the cultures who created them. The meanings of some symbols have been lost, but it's still a good introduction to the region.

Art And Culture
Page 235 was missing from the publication but, I had two page 234's!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Old Poisons, New Problems is a timely and welcome practical guide to identifying, testing for, and dealing with contaminated cultural materials archived in museum collections. With increasing indigenous involvement in the collection, handling, and_more recently_the repatriation of cultural artifacts formerly held in museum archives, there is an increasing need to educate both the museum community and tribal members about the potential risks of pesticide contamination on museum collections, and provide the means to test for, identify, analyze, and safely handle these artifacts. Special features include worksheets for performing basic tests, charts of scientific and historical information on known pesticides, data resources, and illustrations. This book will be widely used by members of the museum community, as well as the tribal groups, involved with the managing of these collections. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

excellent resource for both paid and non-paid museum staff
This attractive handbook emphasizes the need for adequate training of museum volunteers, for developing structures which enable volunteers totake responsility for their own programs, and for museums to recognize thatvolunteer programs require the same kind of attention as that given toother departments within the institution. The resource guide in the lasthalf of the book is extremely helpful, as in addition to giving some sampleforms, it enables volunteer program administrators to network with othersthroughout the country. This is a workmanlike and very useful volume. ... Read more

Product Description
This pioneering two-year project explored the legal, technical, and practical issues involved in using digital images of museum collections for educational purposes. The report includes essays by project participants for the fourteen museums and universities that participated in this project, and recommends terms and conditions for distributing digital museum images via the Internet and university campus networks. ... Read more