Anyone want to know the aesthetic relationship between modern man and beast? Then read Desmond Morris' The Biology of an admittedly fragmentary, but often fascinating, sometimes fanciful investigation into the daub and drip world of ape and chimp, so charmingly close to the best of abstract art. Congo, the Pollock of the London Zoo, whose infra human picture making becomes Dr. Morris' star specimen, went the gamut of calligraphic growth from scribble types to diagram stage, even completing circles, using both right and left hand, primitive and intermediate grip, showing a marked preference for fan pattern motifs, whether twisted, stippled, spotted or, on occasion, just a central blob. The history covers the first animal-and-casel studies (Moscow 1913) to the latest (London ); Alexander, the likes the horizontal spurt, Baltimore Betsy delights in the finger fling, Russia's Peter caters to corner marking. Some pets have even reached the phase, the latest event in Parisian galleries; many, fulfilling the Bohemian law, prefer feeding the palette to the palate. Sans a smile, Dr. Morris sums up the rise and fall of representational art (for 1900 read 16 years old, for 1960 read 2) and lays down the creator's six simple principles, whether he be Leonardo or Congo. Illustrations, color plates, comparative statistics, physiological and psychological factors accent the . What will Mathieu, Dubuffet, and Rothko do now?
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1962
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1962
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
