Single Artist Research Articles

Time in the Art of Roman Opalka, Tatsuo Miyajima, and Rene Rietmeyer

AbstractIn the history of art, time is not frequently taken up as the artistic topic in itself. While time has been sporadically present in the work of certain single artists such as Claude Monet or within movements like Futurism, where speed and change were highlighted, only over the past several decades, has time become a more explicit topic in art. In this article, time is addressed by discussing the work and thoughts of three contemporary artists who have taken this concept as a guiding motif in their work: Roman Opalka, Tatsuo Miyajima, and Rene Rietmeyer. Their work makes clear that time in art is strongly related to actual and individual life-time and is concerned with creating an attentiveness to human existence in relation to time as a continuing entity.

<i>Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier Piers Britton (bio) Rhonda V. Wilcox and Tanya R. Cochran, eds, Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008. 290pp. £14.99 (pbk). Investigating Firefly and Serenity is the third published collection of essays devoted wholly to the short-lived television series Firefly and the theatrical release, Serenity, which it spawned. The other two, earlier collections, Finding Serenity (2005) and Serenity Found (2007) were edited or co-edited by Firefly scriptwriter, Jane Espenson, and include some contributions which approach the texts from a non-academic standpoint, including memoirs by the actors Jewel Staite (Kaylee Frye) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal Reynolds). Investigating Firefly and Serenity enters freely into dialogue with entries in Finding Serenity (its companion volume was clearly not yet published when this book was in preparation), often taking issue with claims made in the academic essays there. Moreover, the introduction by editors Rhonda Wilcox and Tanya Cochran seems to suggest an attempt to be even more celebratory in tone than Finding Serenity, for all the 'careful scholarly grounding' insisted upon by the blurb on [End Page 148] the back cover. The editorial introduction frequently verges on the rhapsodic, and it is hard to escape the sense that Wilcox and Cochran conceived the book as part of an ongoing investigation of – or encomium upon – the work of 'creator' Joss Whedon. This is nowhere an explicitly articulated aim, though it does seem meant as a selling point, since the back cover notes that this is Wilcox's 'third book on Whedon'. The ecstatic tone is not carried through into most of the contributions, but the introduction inevitably inflects what follows, and serves to highlight certain questionable editorial choices. For one thing, though Investigating Firefly and Serenity contains an array of engagingly varied essays, Wilcox's and Cochran's hagiographic attitude towards Whedon casts a shadow over the whole collection. The almost uniformly admiring tone of the volume may well be fortuitous, but one could be forgiven for seeing an editorial policy to whitewash the 'creator' and his collaborators, with responses to earlier scholarship on his series generally being justificatory of Whedon. More worrying is the fact that the text makes altogether too many assumptions about readers' contextual knowledge of and attitudes to Firefly (US 2002–3) and Serenity (Whedon US 2005). It is taken as a given that they will be familiar with the earlier television series which were also 'created' by Whedon, namely Buffy the Vampire Slayer (US 1997–2003) and Angel (US 1999–2004). Thus, for example, Willow Rosenberg, a character from Buffy, is mentioned in order to make a comparative point with no gloss to render this comparison intelligible (136). It is also generally taken for granted that readers will accept that these various television series, and the film Serenity, can and should be considered the unified oeuvre of a single artist. Apart from the introduction there are nineteen essays in Investigating Firefly and Serenity, divided among nine thematically organised sections. Reference to the 'norms' of Joss Whedon's work, as opposed to the internal patterns and problems of the Firefly/Serenity texts, is offered as the basis for defining every section of the book. The arrangement is not necessarily helpful to either flow or cohesion, chiefly because it artificially overrides internal connections which permeate the volume. For example, the second and third sections are entitled 'Gender' and 'Genre'. To those with knowledge of Whedon's prior work, these sections might seem likely to be the most fertile; the editors duly comment on the fact that Whedon 'writes with feminist goals' and note his capacity for the 'masterful mixture of genre' (9). Yet, partly because of current critical concerns in the academy and partly because of the nature of the texts under consideration, instabilities and equivocations around gender and genre crop up throughout the book, and the essays placed under these headings are not [End Page 149] necessarily the most provocative or interesting explorations of each theme. For instance, the masculine identity and ethics of the Han Solo-esque (anti)hero, Mal Reynolds, are intriguingly played out in Gregory Erickson...

Digital images in museums: Doing the DAM: Digital asset management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Digital images in museums: Doing the DAM: Digital asset management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Psychological Effects of Music Tempi during Exercise

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of music tempi on music preference, intrinsic motivation, and flow during long-duration exercise (approximately 26 min). Subjects (n = 29) selected the music of a single artist then walked at 70 % of maximum heart rate reserve (maxHRR) on a treadmill under three experimental conditions (medium tempi, fast tempi, and mixed tempi) and a no-music control. A music preference item, the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, and Flow State Scale-2 were completed after each trial. Data were analyzed using a mixed-model (Gender x Condition) ANOVA and MANOVA. The Gender x Condition interaction was nonsignificant in both analyses (p > 0.05). Contrary to expectations, higher preference scores were recorded for medium tempi than for mixed tempi (means: 7.8 +/- 1.3 vs. 7.1 +/- 1.1). The medium tempi music also yielded the highest levels of intrinsic motivation (p < 0.001). Pairwise comparisons showed that interest-enjoyment was higher for medium tempi when compared to mixed tempi, 95% CI = 1.80-8.48, p = 0.001, and that each of the music preference experimental conditions yielded higher scores than the no-music control. Also, pressure-tension was lower for medium tempi compared to fast tempi, 95% CI = -3.44-0.19, p = 0.022, and for both medium and mixed tempi compared to control (95% CI = -5.33-2.89, p = 0.000; 95% CI = -4.24 - 0.64, p = 0.004). A main effect was found for global flow (p = 0.000) with the highest mean score evident in the medium tempi condition (14.6 +/- 1.5). Follow-up comparisons indicated that the medium tempi condition yielded higher flow scores than the control, 95% CI = 1.25-3.60, p = 0.000, as did fast tempi, 95% CI = 0.89-3.14, p = 0.000, and mixed tempi, 95% CI = 1.36-3.76, p = 0.000. It was concluded that a medium tempi music program was the most appropriate for an exercise intensity of 70% maxHRR.

Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting ed. by David Alan Brown, Sylvia Ferino-Pagden (review)

REVIEWS 185 lated into Venetian pictorial dialect” (44). Examples of the half-length Madonna, the Bellini brothers’ favored type, are discussed to further exemplify this Veneto-Byzantine style, while Cretan icons of the Madre della Consolazione type are briefly contrasted as representatives of what Byzantinists would call Creto-Venetian style. Campbell is right to notice that, even though Greek and Venetian painters had different reasons for merging each others’ distinctive styles—commercial concerns or the close association Europeans made between Byzantine art and sanctity—it is not clear if any devotional distinction existed in the actual use of the emerging images (59). Unfortunately, discussions of the examples included in the catalogue do not move far beyond an all-too-familiar discourse, limited to identifying whether a painting is “Latin-inspired” or “Byzantine-looking.” Like the exhibition, the catalogue aims to blur the east versus west dichotomy , where western art is often artificially elevated. Written (in most part) from a western perspective, however, this catalogue proves how difficult it is to escape the modern borders of scholarly fields, even while looking at artists and patrons who themselves, over 500 years ago, managed to synthesize brilliantly the quintessential values of their cosmopolitan Mediterranean reality. The Italian images of Mehmed II suggest that, despite religious concerns, he admired European art and actively constructed a European image for himself. He requested established artists from various Italian courts and commissioned medals and painted portraits glorifying him as a successor of Alexander the Great. At his court, Greek scholars and bureaucrats worked alongside their Muslim peers. However, J. M Rogers and Alan Chong show that, even though Mehmed’s library and art collection joined cultures, his successors did not share his tolerance towards the occident, and thus his patronage was less influential than perhaps he might have expected. Chong’s essay, “Gentile Bellini in Istanbul: Myths and Misunderstandings,” is one of the strengths of the catalogue, disentangling the intricacies of Gentile ’s eastern visit. A close analysis of the artist’s few works securely dated to his Istanbul period clarifies their chronology and attribution. Last but not least, the artist who preceded Bellini at the Sultan’s court in 1478–1479, Costanzo da Ferrara, is firmly identified as Costanzo di Moysis. Little is known about this Italian, originally from Venice but active in Ferrara and Naples, whose oeuvre cannot be reconstructed in the absence of stylistic evidence. The second half of the fifteenth century marks the height of Italian fascination with the east. It was a period of explosive cultural dialogue—one that continues to stir our scholarly fascination today. The exhibition curators and the authors of this catalogue were successful in presenting Gentile Bellini as a case study, offering a reconsideration of an artist who, during his lifetime, was considered Venice’s most important painter. CRISTINA STANCIOIU, Art History, UCLA Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, ed. David Alan Brown and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden (Washington DC: National Gallery of Art 2006) 336 pages, 31 halftone + 162 color ill. This substantial, abundantly illustrated catalogue, created to accompany exhibitions at the National Gallery in Washington and the Kunsthistoriches Mu- REVIEWS 186 seum in Vienna, brings together some of the foremost scholars of Venetian art to shed new light on a significant moment in the history of Venetian painting. The exhibitions highlighted a period of considerable stylistic change in the painting of the Venetian schools from 1500 to 1530. The exhibitions and the catalogue were meant to illustrate this transition by bringing together the paintings of not only the three masters listed in the title, but also other lesser-known painters of the beginning of the sixteenth century like Lorenzo Lotto, Cima da Conegliano, and Vincenzo Catena. The catalogue brings together these artists seamlessly, creating for the reader a vivid picture of the artistic world of early sixteenth-century Venice. By not concentrating on a single artist, as many exhibitions do, the catalog presents a more complete idea of artistic development in all genres of paintings. Few scholars of Venetian art would doubt the significance of the three decades chosen by the exhibition organizers in the history of the city’s painting. During these thirty...

THE SCRIBES WHO PAINTED THE MATRÍCULA DE TRIBUTOS AND THE CODEX MENDOZA

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of the tlacuiloque (scribes) who participated in the production of the Matrícula de Tributos and the Codex Mendoza. I show the relevance of palaeographic analysis for documents in which the writing system is logosyllabic or hieroglyphic and most of the information is iconographic. The Matrícula de Tributos is a pre-Columbian document that recorded the tribute paid to the Mexica empire by conquered towns. It was probably painted during the last decade of Moctezuma's II rulership, although some of its pages may have been produced earlier. Its production shows the work of at least six scribes. Its content was copied by a single artist around 1542 as the second part of the Codex Mendoza, a document created to be sent to the Spanish emperor. I provide evidence of the work of the six scribes in the pages preserved of the Matrícula. I also show that the scribe responsible for folios 6r–11v of the Matrícula painted the entire Codex Mendoza at least 20 years later. I demonstrate these interpretations through comparative analysis of some elements of the iconography and logosyllabic writing in the Matrícula and the Codex Mendoza.

Relationship Between Exercise Heart Rate and Music Tempo Preference

The present study examined the predicted positive and linear relationship (Iwanaga, 1995a, 1995b) between exercise heart rate and music tempo preference. Initially, 128 undergraduate students (M age = 20.0 years, SD = 0.9) were surveyed to establish their three favorite music artists. A separate experimental group of 29 undergraduates (M age = 20.3 years, SD = 1.2) selected the music of a single artist from the three highest-rated artists from the earlier survey. They reported their preference for slow, medium, and fast tempo selections from each artist for three treadmill walking conditions at 40%, 60%, and 75% maximal heart rate reserve. A mixed-model 3 × 3 × 2 (Exercise Intensity × Music Tempo × Gender) analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results indicated there was no three-way interaction for music preference. There was, however, a significant (p < .05) two-way interaction for Exercise Intensity x Music Tempo (partial η2 = .09) and a significant (p < .05) main effect for music tempo, with large differences evident between preference for medium versus slow tempo and fast versus slow tempo music at all exercise intensities (partial η2 = .78). Participants reported a preference for both medium and fast tempo music at low and moderate exercise intensities and for fast tempo music at high intensity. Only partial support was found for the expected linear relationship between exercise intensity and music tempo preference.

Relationship Between Exercise Heart Rate and Music Tempo Preference

The present study examined the predicted positive and linear relationship (Iwanaga, 1995a, 1995b) between exercise heart rate and music tempo preference. Initially, 128 undergraduate students (M age = 20.0 years, SD = 0.9) were surveyed to establish their three favorite music artists. A separate experimental group of 29 undergraduates (M age = 20.3 years, SD = 1.2) selected the music of a single artist from the three highest-rated artists from the earlier survey. They reported their preference for slow, medium, and fast tempo selections from each artist for three treadmill walking conditions at 40%, 60%, and 75% maximal heart rate reserve. A mixed-model 3 × 3 × 2 (Exercise Intensity × Music Tempo × Gender) analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results indicated there was no three-way interaction for music preference. There was, however, a significant (p < .05) two-way interaction for Exercise Intensity x Music Tempo (partial η2 = .09) and a significant (p < .05) main effect for music tempo, with large differences evident between preference for medium versus slow tempo and fast versus slow tempo music at all exercise intensities (partial η2 = .78). Participants reported a preference for both medium and fast tempo music at low and moderate exercise intensities and for fast tempo music at high intensity. Only partial support was found for the expected linear relationship between exercise intensity and music tempo preference.

Two Russian Sculptors of the Twentieth Century

Publications on the history of Russian art are rare in these hard times, with publishers suffering from recession wary of the expense of illustrated editions on what they regard as minority interests. Books dedicated to Russian sculpture are particularly few and far between. The appearance of these two volumes, each dedicated to a twentieth-century Russian sculptor, written in an accessible style and extensively illustrated, must therefore be welcomed. This reviewer's pleasure at such a rare double treat is marred somewhat, however, by the fact that both take the form of the and work study of a single artist, a genre which, while it serves the market well, is problematic for scholarship, tending toward uncritical celebration, and even hagiography, rather than analysis. Seemingly, publishers will only undertake to publish on art when a named individual genius is placed at the center, thereby making the individual life the explanation of the work. While Marie Lampard et al.'s multiauthored study of Sergei Konenkov succeeds to an important extent in transcending the limitations of this genre, Albert Leong's Centaur: The Life of Ernst Neizvestny demonstrates some of its pitfalls. If monographs are to be written, both Konenkov and Neizvestnyi clearly make fascinating subjects. Apart from any artistic merit they might have, their long and eventful lives brought them into contact, and sometimes confrontation, with major historical events and players. Konenkov's life spanned a century-from the heyday of the Peredvizhniki, Narodniki, and national revival to the Brezhnev era. Both are major figures of Russian twentieth-century sculpture, yet stand somewhat aside from the mainstream of either of the major tendencies of the period, modernism or Socialist Realism. They also make an interesting and potentially fruitful comparison.

Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth‐Century American Art

Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century American Art Sarah Burns. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. In Painting the Dark Side, Sarah Burns argues that the canonical narrative of nineteenth-century American art describes a quest for a national visual identity, while at the same time, a number of artists unmasked a darker side of the narrative in which anxiety, fear, superstition, and madness ruled. This book presents a thoughtful, rigorous examination of the side in nineteenth-century American art. Burns claims that an exploration of the dark world lurking beneath the surface of nineteenth-century art actually allows us to understand the mainstream more fully. Thus, she explores the work of eight artists in biographical and historical, social, and cultural terms to reveal broader cultural anxieties about social, political, and economic instability in a rapidly changing, industrializing society. Burns traces the personal demons and artistic anxieties in the art of four artists working in antebellum America (Thomas Cole, David Gilmour Blythe, Washington Allston, and John Quidor), and of four artists active in postbellum America (William Rimmer, Elihu Vedder, Thomas Eakms, and Albert Pinkham Ryder). Each chapter is dedicated to a single artist and contains expansive but detailed explorations of how local anxieties prove symptomatic of larger societal insecurities. The nineteenth-century society that Burns describes was one that prized enlightenment, industrialization, imperialism, hard work, self-help, science, order, and progress, and sought to establish a stable and balanced society in which everyone had a well-defined place and a clear set of proscribed and prescribed behaviors. Fissures caused by rapid industrialization, slavery, immigration, and urban poverty, however, generated fears of societal chaos and disorder. Painting the Dark Side explores how the particular fears of eight artists-plagued by self-doubt, torn between their public personae and private selves, caught between the rational and irrational world-are indicators of larger social and cultural anxieties. Burns explores how fears of Jacksonian democracy, downward social mobility, poverty and anarchy in the modern city, fear of violent slave uprisings, terrors of internecine struggle, brutal clashes among the immigrant under classes, a clamor for women's rights, and even suspect scientific practices were viewed as symptoms of a wider social malaise that, left unchecked, could lead to chaos. In chapter one, the author analyzes Thomas Cole's rejection of his modest origins to gain entree into the elite society of his patrons, and whose antipathy for and fear of mob rule grew as he rose in society. Burns expands this argument to show how the dominant classes increasingly portrayed the rising industrial city as physically and philosophically sullied, a diseased and depressed body politic. In chapter two, Burns argues that David Gilmour Blythe painted Pittsburgh from a thug's eye view to critique self-satisfied middle-class dabblers in social reform. He courted an elite market for his paintings, yet painted in a strange muddy style of scrubby lines, sketchy faces, rubbery surfaces, [and] smeary paint that antagonized potential patrons (68). Burns proposes that Blythe's belligerent and acerbic art, as well as his drunken cynicism, points to larger apprehensions about the volatility of immigrant populations and an antagonistic, bellicose, and often drunken underclass. Chapter three describes how Washington Allston lived a double life of a Southern slave-holder and a cosmopolitan artist embedded in a strongly abolitionist Boston society. Burns's study of Allston's individual guilt and fear as a slave owner is expanded to suggest that his fears were indicative of widespread uneasiness in white Southern antebellum society. In chapter four, John Quidor is portrayed as an artist who aspired to acceptance into the artistic mainstream by basing most of his art on the writings of Washington Irving, but who actually earned local fame and a good sum of money by painting New York city fire trucks, and who lived the rough, coarse, drunk, and disorderly life of the working classes. …

Multifractal Fingerprints in the Visual Arts

The similarity in fractal dimensions of paint “blobs” in samples of gestural expressionist art implies that these pigment structures are statistically indistinguishable from one another. This conclusion suggests that such dimensions cannot be used as a “finger-print” for identifying the work of a single artist. To overcome this limitation, the authors have adopted the multifractal spectrum as an alternative tool for artwork analysis. For the pigment blobs, it is demonstrated that this spectrum can be used to isolate a construction paradigm or art style. Additionally, the fractal dimensions of edge structures created by luminance gradients on the canvas are analyzed, yielding a potential method for visual discrimination of fractally similar paintings

Susan Fast. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. vii, 247 pp. ISBN 0-195-14723-5 (paperback)

Susan Fast. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. vii, 247 pp. ISBN 0-195-14723-5 (paperback). Un article de la revue Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes (Volume 23, numéro 1-2, 2003, p. 1-256) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

From sausage rolls to sushi and back again: Lessons for successful travelling block-buster loans

Summary Special temporary exhibitions and travelling shows offer museum and gallery professionals an opportunity to bring together specific collections to demonstrate a particular movement, represent the complete oeuvre of a single artist, or present simply a group of works for the general public to enjoy. Whatever the theme or subject matter of the exhibition, the movement of works of art inevitably puts them at risk. Many factors must be considered before agreeing to participate in travelling shows. Using an exhibition that travelled from Manchester City Galleries to six venues in Japan as a case study, this paper discusses some of the questions that need to be asked in advance of shipping. It also aims to show lenders some of the steps that should be taken in order to ensure the safe delivery to and display of precious works of art in host venues. Specific examples of challenging situations met are offered not to criticize either the lending institution or borrowing organization, but rather to examine ...

Pop Goes the Spiritual

Pop Goes the Spiritual

A Painter's Eye Movements: A Study of Eye and Hand Movement during Portrait Drawing

The mental processes that al-low an artist to transform visual images-e.g. those of his model-into a picture on the canvas are not easily studied. The authors re-port work measuring the eye and hand movements of a single artist, chosen for his detailed and realis-tic portraits produced from life. His eye fixations when painting or drawing were of twice the duration of those when he was not painting and also quite different from those of novice artists. His eye-hand co-ordination pattern also showed dif-ferences from that of novices, be-ing more temporally consistent. This preliminary work suggests that detailed and quantitative analy-sis of a working artist is feasible and will illuminate the process of artistic creation.

Animation as Art Work

In 1915, Max and Dave Fleischer inaugurated a series of animated cartoons called Out of the Inkwell. The Out of the Inkwell name, with its evocation of a single artist's pen-and-ink drawings, conjured up an image of individualistic creativity and implied an unproblematic trajectory from the pen to the moving picture.

A postcolonial reading of mural art in South Africa

Introduction Most residents of South Africa's larger cities will, when prompted, immediately recall having noticed one or more wall paintings, or murals, somewhere in town. Fifteen years ago, it can be ascertained, the response to such a question would have been very different--mostly due to circumstances associated with South Africa's political situation under an oppressive apartheid regime. While there were a few murals in South African cities and townships during the 1970s and 80s (1), urban mural art has only recently emerged as a highly visible phenomenon and tremendously flourished ever since. This paper will focus mostly on so-called `community murals' (a term to be elaborated upon below) as opposed to muralised advertisement, graffiti, and commissioned wall decorations, often executed by a single artist, as well as all forms of traditional African rural homestead paintings (2). Community mural art is mostly a post-apartheid phenomenon, its emergence closely connected with political change and liberalisation in South Africa. Despite this close correlation with political processes, mural art appears to be strikingly unpolitical and uncritical in content. Murals are often perceived to be unchallenging, boringly re-iterating what we already know. They have a long tradition of being associated With advertisement or graffiti, justifying the fact that they are not taken seriously as art. (3) This paper will suggest that there is more to murals than meets the eye. It aims to challenge some of the common stereotypes and assumptions associated with urban community murals and question the customary (and often dismissive) ways of reading their contents. This attempt to reposition mural art is based on the premise that the reception and perceived meaning of murals may be a very different one to different communities (4) and that the current perception of mural art within academia rests solely on one societal group's reading and frames of reference. Postcolonial theory will provide the theoretical framework to first expose the subversive character of community murals as a form of visual arts practice located in opposition to `fine art', and then illustrate with reference to a few examples how a critical dimension manifests itself in the imagery of mural art in South Africa. `Community art' versus `fine art' Despite the current rapproachement of `high art' and `low art' realms in artistic practices and strategies of display, South Africa is still largely polarised between `fine art' on one end of the scale, and various forms of `low art', including craft, commercial art and what has been labelled `community art' on the other. `Fine art' usually implies academic training according to European (or more generally Western) models, although this may be substituted by more informal training if the artist is invested with great natural talent in accordance with the concept of `genius'. `Fine art' entails, knowledge and mastery of a specific norm of artistic ability, which is closely associated with Western aesthetic standards and artistic practices. `Fine art' in South Africa clearly follows international trends as evidenced, for example, by the recent 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Trade Routes--both in terms of art production and modes of display. After the end of South Africa's pariah status under apartheid and in particular the cultural boycott, South African artists clearly enjoy taking part in and meeting the challenges of a wide international competition in a global art world. `Community art' on the other hand, of which mural art plays an important part, is a collaborative art form that may involve the participation of non-trained artists, who do not necessarily adhere to `fine art' aesthetic standards and artistic techniques. Most importantly, community mural art often places more emphasis on the artistic process than on the final product, the painting itself. As opposed to such public art works as conventional monuments or sculptures, which could be called `fine art in public places', `community art' is highly site specific and presumes an active engagement of the local community in one form or another. …

Aleijadinho e Thebas: afirmação e negação na realidade turística brasileira

How hisloric and artistic values are' constructed for mobilisation of Brazilian tourits? Only a little part of the turism has in art and history his first motivation. The researcher role is to investigate how the values and images are built and fixed at the tourist mind. We can observe that the attention is directed and reinforced to a single artist, to the detriment of lhe others. The comparison of two different that lived in Sao Paulo city -Thebas- and Vila Rica -Aleijadinho-, in the XVIlI century, arises the question: How and why some names were appropriated for the tourism industry. It is a process of affirmation and negation in lhe Brazilian tourist reality.

Brown's Atlas of Regional Anaesthesia, 2nd edition

This is a lavishly produced book, as befits an atlas, and is more attractively designed than its 1992 predecessor. The new edition is 60 pages longer than the first edition and contains four new sections on infraclavicular brachial plexus, sacroiliac joint, superior hypogastric plexus and facet joint blocks. There is also an expanded chapter on epidural blocks with thoracic and cervical approaches covered in more detail. It is strongly bound, printed on high-quality paper and the front cover design actively encourages the reader to open the book and begin to explore, which is exactly what a trainee and I did when teaching some new techniques. Unfortunately, we searched in vain for the penile block (and all paravertebral block approaches). In addition, anatomical errors transcribed from the first edition in the diagram for inguinal field block remain uncorrected — the iliohypogastric nerve does not lie deep to the transversus abdominis muscle. Hardly an auspicious start! There is a consistent format throughout the book with a separate section for each block and the easily read text arranged conveniently around the full colour diagrams. Each section contains Indications, Patient Management, Block Performance, Complications and Clinical Pearls (practical tips and ‘tweaks’ to maximise the success of the block). One of the strengths of a single author work is the extent to which their obvious enthusiasm and expertise can be conveyed to the reader. The choice and detail of the techniques described reflects Dr Brown's own experience and it is fairly easy to work out the blocks with which he is most familiar. The text is more detailed and confident and the diagrams more informative. This gives the book a slightly unbalanced feel; for example, head and neck blocks occupy 25% of the book whilst only 15% is devoted to all central neural blocks. Some quite important peripheral nerve blocks are dealt with rather perfunctorily; blocks around the ankle meriting only one diagram and a single page of text and only two of the four approaches to the sciatic nerve are described. The author's views regarding the relative ease, success rates and usefulness of some techniques and the value of equipment such as peripheral nerve stimulators are somewhat didactic and will cause disagreement in other quarters and may confuse a trainee, especially as the strongly American emphasis means that a number of the drugs recommended are not available in other countries. The diagrams throughout the atlas are the work of a single artist and whilst the diagrams are drawn to a very high standard and often complement the text admirably, they lend the book a slightly dated appearance as many of them have a sepia tone background. There are a number of pencil drawings, which although accurate and informative, reinforce the incongruous ‘period’ feel, especially as several very informative MRI scans and plain X-rays contrast strongly with the rather dated style of the artwork. The book is well indexed and the comprehensive reference section concentrates on the practical aspects of the subject matter, although many references are somewhat dated for a new edition. So who should buy this book? It is probably not ideal for the novice practitioner as its size and cost do not lend it to being carried around the operating theatres but they should have access to a reference copy and any department with an interest in teaching regional anesthesia should have a copy on its library shelves. The emphasis on techniques for chronic pain management would certainly make it useful for specialists interested in developing their skills in that field.

Confessions of a Depression Muralist by Frank W. Long (review)

Frank W. Long. Confessions of a Depression Muralist. Columbia: University ofMissouri Press, 1997. Foreword by Sue Bridwell Beckham, Afterword by Harriet W. Fowler. Illustrated, 179 pages. Writting in the first person, Frank Long reminisces about his ten years in Berea, Kentucky, 1932-42, when he was commissioned and hired by the Works Progress Administration and then the Treasury Department's Section ofFine Arts to paint public murals for American federal buildings. Frequently he confesses his dislike for painting murals, his distaste for being a part ofa "chauvinistAmerican art" as espoused by the section and his anxiety that the contemporary and future art world would know him only as a Kentucky muralist. His anxiety aside, fifty years later Ms. Beckham writes: "Frank Long created more mural panels for more Depression post offices than any other single artist" and during the period was considered Kentucky's foremost artist. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Long had his art education in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Paris, and at the Art Institute of Chicago. Before leaving Chicago, he had been asked by the architectural firm of Philip Mahre to paint a mural in the home of Carbon Petroleum Dubbs, Wilmette, Illinois. From Chicago he came to Lexington, Kentucky, to assist his father, who was painting movie theater murals. Upon arrival in Lexington, he met Henry Warder Rannells, an Art Institute of Chicago graduate and head of the art department, University of Kentucky, who told him of a Public Works of Art Project for the newly built University of Kentucky Library. Bert Mullins, a wood turner and student at Berea College, sought out the Longs in Lexington for painting lessons and in turn found Frank a high ceilinged studio on the top floor ofthe Berea Bank and Trust. Long and Mullins shared this studio for a number ofyears and all ofLong's succeeding section mural commissions, except the Berea post office mural, were painted in this studio. Long painted two ten-feet-plus panels for the UK library, four lunettes and six mural panels for the Louisville federal building, three lobby panels for the Hagerstown, Maryland, post office, a six feet by twenty feet panel for the Drumright, Oklahoma, post office, a panel painted in tempera on a chalk ground for the Morehead, Kentucky, post office, a mural for the newly constructed Berea, Kentucky, post office, and an eight feet by twenty feet mural for the Crawfordsville, Indiana, post office. A number ofthe section commissions came as consolation prizes after Long was not awarded the project for which he had applied. Long's muralist career ended when he joined the U. S. Army in 1942. 65 Long's reminiscences include short discussions about Mary EIa, Louis Smith, Doris Ulmann, John Jacob Niles, and various Berea personalities with whom he hunted, gambled, and drank or who left memorable impressions because of conversations or actions. This is not a text for art historians but is a narrative written in a conversational style which often begs the reader's indulgence. The "Confessions" has a table of contents but no index. Long seldom gives dates ofprojects or events; his narrative needs more discussion about processes and techniques; and in a few instances his Berea recollections are historically incorrect. However, his honesty and candor about Berea events and persons is an important community record seen through the eyes and life of "an outsider." It might be ofnote that upon leaving Berea to join the army, Frank Long left his tools, supplies, materials and numerous paintings with Mary EIa and the Berea College Art Department. He returned to Berea, built a home, and became active in the Southern Highlands Handicraft Guild as a jeweler. He was a field representative for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska, New Mexico, and Florida. More recently he has resumed easel painting. In 1992 he gave Berea College thirty paintings, most ofwhich are original studies for the section murals. —Robert Boyce Patricia M. MacNeal, Bonelyn L.Kyofski, Kenneth A. Thigpen, editors. Headwaters and Hardwoods: The Folklore, Cultural History, and Traditional Arts of the Pennsylvania Northern Tier. Mansfield, Pennsylvania: Northern Tier Cultural Alliance, Mansfield University. 1997. 197 pages...