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ellenguyenphuonglinh's reviews
953 reviews
Bai Ganyo: Incredible Tales of a Modern Bulgarian by Christina E. Kramer, Victor A. Friedman, Aleko Konstantinov, Grace E. Fielder, Catherine Rudin
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch
3.0
Everything, anything that is a thing, comes up from the deepest level. Modern physics calls that level the Unified Field. The more your consciousness—your awareness—is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source, and the bigger the fish you can catch.
Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura, N.T. Wright
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
Gardens of Awakening: A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto's Zen Landscapes by Kazuaki Tanahashi
3.0
Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, in his book Zen to Bijutsu (Zen and Fine Arts, 1976), speaks of Zen aesthetics with seven characteristics: asymmetry (fukinsei 不 均 ⻫ ), simplicity (kanso 簡 素 ), loftiness (kokō 枯 高 ), naturalness (shizen 自然), subtle profundity (yūgen 幽玄), unworldliness (datsuzoku 脱俗), and serenity (seijaku 静寂). These are all accurate, and this is a very helpful pioneering analysis. Hisamatsu says, "The fine arts of Zen must embody these seven characteristics fully harmonized as one."
The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel
3.0
Despite my efforts to create a linear narrative for the purpose of clarity, the 'story of art' is not straightforward and narrow, and certainly not limited. And this is just a fraction of non-male artists who have contributed to this story. History is constantly being, and will continue to be, rewritten day by day.
The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World by Jennifer Higgie
4.0
To trust in art is to trust in mystery. The suggestion that no serious artist would attempt to communicate with, or about, the dead or other realms falls apart with the most perfunctory scrutiny. Across the globe, the spirit world has shaped culture for millennia. In the West, the Bible was the source of most pre-modern art – and it's full of magic, the supernatural and non-human agents. Where would the Renaissance be without its saints, angels and devils, its visions of humans manipulated by powers beyond their comprehension? Or Ancient Greece without its gods and goddesses, who shape-shifted at the drop of a hat? Or, for that matter, the many riches of First Nations art? But then art itself is a form of alchemy – the transformation of one thing (an idea, a material) into another. It is in its nature to be allusive rather than literal, to deal in association, symbol and encryption, to honour intuition and imagination over reason – all of this chimes with much magical practice. It's as unconcerned as a prophet with accuracy.
The Mirror and the Palette by Jennifer Higgie
4.0
She paints a self-portrait because, as a subject, she is always available. (This is putting it mildly.) She's been barred from so many other places, so many other bodies. Sometimes, she's unclear about why and who she's painting her picture for. (Does anyone really know what a painting is for?) All she knows is that something compels her to look at herself for hours on end, for reasons that have nothing to do with vanity – quite the opposite. What draws her back to her reflection again and again is the raw self-scrutiny that stems from unknowing; from the confusion she's experienced between the reality of living in her body and the lies that she's been told about it that have been drummed into her since the moment she arrived on earth. She looks at herself in order to study what she's made of, to understand herself anew and, from time to time, to rage against the very thing that confines and defines her. She paints herself to develop her skills, to converse with her contemporaries and with art history. In the act of painting herself she makes clear that she is someone worth looking at, someone worth acknowledging. Her paintings assume shapes that she does not always predict. Against all odds, she discovers what she is capable of.
Hundred: What You Learn in a Lifetime by Valerio Vidali, Heike Faller
3.0
There are many things that I have never—or, at least, have not yet—experienced. Which is why I decided to ask other people what they've learned in life. I talked to elementary school kids and ninety-year-olds; men and women who are much respected in our society as well as those who have lost their status. I sat with the former director-general of an East German company (Kombinat) in his garden in a village not for away from the high-rise buildings of Marzahn, a neighborhood in Berlin, and with a Syrian refugee family on the concrete floor of their basement apartment in Istanbul. The question I asked all these people was always the same: What have you learned in life?