Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

El Greco (1541-1614), born Domenikos Theotokopoulos, was one of the most fascinating and distinctive artists of the 16th century. His works are immediately recognizable for their brilliant colours, elongated figures, and spiritual intensity. purportedly studied with Titian. A decade later he is documented in Toledo (south of Madrid), and he spent the rest of his long life in Spain. His paintings and writings offer a thoughtful, frequently inspired response to the varied environments in which he worked, and they reveal that he was deeply engaged with the religious and artistic thinking of his times. painting and sculpture, from his Byzantine icons to his late altarpieces. It considers his personality from both a religious and intellectual point of view, and presents the artist's religious, mythological, genre, landscape, and portrait works, providing the historical context in which they were made.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

As is the exhibition, this catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's El Greco show in New York is both inclusive and intelligently selective. In providing a vivid conspectus to the total range of this painter-genius, the authors give appropriate emphasis to the religious works. Not slighted, however, are his equally sublime exertions as a painter of mythologies, portraits, and landscapes. Although written by a variety of scholars, each of the 83 catalog entries, accompanying 175 color illustrations, is marked by a sense that these small studies should inform but not overwhelm a nonspecialist audience. These sensitively achieved ministudies are framed and complemented by essays that place the artist in his time and also articulate a sense of the artist and his development. Elliott's (modern history, emeritus, Oxford Univ.) contextual study extends our understanding of the Mediterranean milieu in which the artist developed; Davies's (Univ. Coll., Univ. of London) excellent contributions proffer the willing novice a particularly artful appreciation of the master's development and of the spiritual and aesthetic environment that informed his labors. At a moment when catalogs are marred by an excessiveness that makes them difficult to pick up and unlikely to be read, this volume should be embraced by collections that truly wish to serve and illumine their public. [In February the show travels to the National Gallery, London, which coorganized the exhibition.-Ed.]-Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Tech., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This catalogue, published to accompany a large-scale exhibition of El Greco's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery in London, presents a hearty portfolio of world-famous images alongside a comprehensive treatment of the artist¿s intellectual and religious foundations. Born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541, El Greco moved to Venice in 1567, where he rapidly matured into one of the most daring artists of his time, known for his audacious color palette and ecstatic, elongated figures who often resemble rippling reflections in dark, cosmic waters. With his swooning, mystical compositions, El Greco remains a primary figure both in Renaissance painting and in the development of modern art, a favorite of such masters as Picasso and Cezanne. Treating the early stages of El Greco¿s work, as well as his lesser-known experiments in sculpture, this authoritative, comprehensive catalogue adds yet another chapter to the artist¿s permanent record as a looming figure in the history of western art. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

CHOICE Review

Bray's highly readable essay on El Greco offers an excellent and intelligent introduction to his life and work. The complex times and variety of places in which he lived are described with both clarity and deftness. Beautiful illustrations of a wide range of work (including a sculpture) are provided, and El Greco's ongoing importance to subsequent artists is not only indicated, but given some specificity and bite. The result is admirably rich, yet concise and accessible. The booklet by curator Bray is designed for the attendees of this year's El Greco exhibition in London who might not be willing to take on the large catalog by Davies and Elliott. It fulfills this worthwhile function admirably, but will be equally useful to a more general readership, including beginning students. The 1982 catalog of a major El Greco exhibition (El Greco of Toledo, CH, Dec'82) makes an interesting foil to the volume by Davies and Elliott, written in honor of the current exhibition in London and, previously, in New York. The pictures look much better, due in some cases to cleaning, but in others simply to improved photography. The present volume is visually quite stunning. Twenty years ago El Greco was more of a Mannerist and more of a consummate artist. Now his career seems less smooth and easy, his stylistic development more complicated, his reception more various. He has become more of an individual even as he has grown less conventionally unconventional. He remains of course a learned artist coping with the Counter-Reformation, but now he is a man with secular interests and a personal viewpoint. The great Laocoon painting, which in 1982 was deemed difficult to interpret, is now taken as a political allegory, a theory discounted as mere "suggestion" 20 years ago. The author of that "suggestion" is the guest curator of the present effort, and he gives us a compelling version of a more complex career. Beautiful and highly readable. ^BSumming Up: Both books: Highly recommended. Bray: General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals. Davies: General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. P. Emison University of New Hampshire

Booklist Review

No other cooking process can compete with bread baking for sensory satisfaction. The mixing of powdery flours; the living, rising yeast; the tactile pleasure of kneading; the house-filling aroma of baking; and the savor of the final loaf offer a full range of stimuli. Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads updates a baker's classic, and any library that missed the first edition or finds its copy in tatters will want to add this new edition. Clayton comprehensively addresses the home baker's craft, covering white, bran, whole wheat, rye, barley, oat, buckwheat, and sourdough exemplars. Festive, cheese, herb, and flat breads round out this encyclopedia. Chemically leavened quick breads, such as cornbread and biscuits, are also covered. There's even a chapter on baking for dogs! Estimated preparation times for each step of the recipes help bakers avoid sequencing errors. Both the book's breadth and the instructions for storage and troubleshooting add to its reference value. Serious cooks tend to turn up their noses at the thought of commercially packaged mixes, fearing the boxes to be chock-full of chemical additives, but there's no doubt that using them saves time. Parks' The Mason Jar Soup-to-Nuts Cookbook demonstrates that a cook can prepare personalized combinations of ingredients at home and thus enjoy the mixes' advantages without their drawbacks. She produces breakfast bread mixes, cookies, cakes, soups, stews, and a few beverage bases. Each mix fits in a quart or pint canning jar. For those who, a la Martha Stewart, like to create culinary gifts, Parks demonstrates how some fabric, ribbon, and cunningly penned instructions to the recipient enhance the jar. This blend of cookery and crafts will appeal to a cross section of readers. Stews make an ideal wintertime meal. Simple versions of beef or chicken can express affection to a gathered family, while more complex stews based on veal or seafood work as grand centerpieces for the most sophisticated parties. In Simple One-Pot Stews, Robbins approaches stews from just about every conceivable angle, using fish, shellfish, chicken, and virtually every meat save game. Her four season-by-season vegetable stews show remarkable finesse and attention to fresh flavors. Beef stews reach as far as Japan for inspiration. Robbins' stews also adapt to the energy-saving slow cooker, but those violate the one-pot paradigm and require some stove-top work for essential browning of meats. redating the Crock-Pot was its opposite in cooking speed, the pressure cooker. Contemporary pressure cookers take much of the guesswork and anxiety out of their operation and make them a boon for the cook who needs to get something on the table fast and with minimum fuss. Pressure Perfect not only gives dozens of recipes for the pressure cooker, but Sass also shows how to modify each recipe to create an ever-varying series of dishes. Her beef in beer and mustard gravy not only gives the cook a choice among brisket, chuck, oxtails, or short ribs but also offers alteration in sauce structure to create either horseradish cream or chili versions. Tables throughout the book explain how to adjust standard recipes to take advantage of a pressure cooker. Among the many victims of communism in Russia was authentic Russian cooking. Deprivations and food shortages kept an ancient and elaborate cuisine from modernizing and flourishing. Visson, whose first edition of The Russian Heritage Cookbook relied on recipes brought west by emigres, has now brought together recipes from contemporary Russians still residing in the motherland. Those who relish borscht will discover multiple regional and ethnic variations of Russia's ubiquitous beet soup. Zakuski, Russia's response to Sweden's smorgasbord, offers a vast array of nibbles suitable for any party, not just Russian-themed ones, either. Among the desserts is a clever "Russian salad" cake whose many bits of chopped fruits resemble that classic vegetable salad. A Taste of the Past serves as both historical record and cookbook. Author Koerner tells the story of his great-grandmother, a Jewish woman growing up in a nineteenth-century Hungarian town and assimilating into the dominant gentile culture. She left behind a trunkful of recipes, and from these, Koerner has reconstructed a culinary tradition, updating the recipes to make them reproducible in a modern kitchen. Recalling (but not replicating) traditional Ashkenazic cuisine, these recipes exhibit distinctive spicing and Hungarian influences. Those looking for new desserts would do well to prepare Koerner's unique recipe crossing noodle kugel with bread pudding. Line drawings bring the text to life, and these recipes bring fulfillment to the curious cook seeking a challenge. Sufferers of celiac disease used to find it hard to pursue a gluten-free regimen. Thanks to a growing awareness of this disorder and of food allergies, nutritionists and chefs have come together to generate a balanced diet with plenty of flavors and extensive variety to assuage the celiac's appetite. Hagman's Gluten-Free Gourmet series of cookbooks has added another volume: The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods. Her latest recipe collection begins with a review of the various grains that lack gluten and the flours that can be produced by milling them. Mixtures of rice, potato, tapioca, and cornstarch--plus flour from exotic beans--provide texture, flavor, and nutrition to foods without resorting to forbidden wheat. This allows celiacs to relish formerly taboo comfort foods such as "macaroni" and cheese, chicken-fried steak, lasagna, rye bread, biscuits, pie, and a host of other heretofore inaccessible foods. The unhealthiness of juvenile diets has generated new concern about excessive fast food and nutritionally suspect mass-produced meals in children's daily fare. Dieticians Bissex and Weiss have written The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers specifically to show just how to go about enhancing the nutritional value of everyday home cooking. Despite the title's somewhat sexist assumption (Are dads by nature uninvolved in, ignorant of, or averse to their offspring's good nutrition?), the book presents relatively simple ways of bettering recipes' nutrition by substituting lower-fat and lower-sodium ingredients and by always paying attention to labels. Each recipe has a table comparing fat, protein, carbohydrate, sodium, and fiber levels of both the standard and improved recipes. Desserts are scarcely known for their nutritional value, being meant primarily to satisfy yearnings for something sugary at meal's close. Pellegrin has developed Power Desserts that are not just sweet and nearly fat free but that also provide some necessary vitamins and minerals. For example, loads-of-carrot cake yields almost double the daily need for vitamin A with only one gram of fat per serving. The recipes' nutritional goals are accomplished through the use of egg substitutes and fat-free margarines and dairy products. Cake icings begin with instant pudding mixes, and higher-calorie desserts derive their fats from nuts, which contribute both minerals and fiber. This is a very specialized cookbook, but it does show how one can alter ordinary dessert recipes to control excessive fats. Nutritional analyses accompany each recipe. Many oenophiles find themselves stumped when it comes to proper pronunciation of names of even familiar wines. How to Pronounce French, German, and Italian Wine Names offers a simple approach to this problem. Bellucci's carefully crafted pronunciations are easy to follow, and only the strictest linguists will quibble with her results. Her phonetic approaches to French's accents and uniquely pronounced consonants give good approximations of the originals, and she has helpful suggestions for dealing with German's umlauts. Although not noted in the book's title, there are tables of Spanish and Portuguese wine words as well. The comprehensive lists of chateaus, personal names, and grape varieties make this a very helpful addition to any reference collection of books on wine. DonnaSeaman.