Forgotten Delights Shop

From Portraits to Puddles: New York Memorials from the Civil War to the World Trade Center Memorial (Reflecting Absence) (Amazon Kindle edition)

Surely we can offer the victims of 9/11 a better tribute than Reflecting Absence, a gloomy piece of landscape architecture with lists of names. But what makes an effective tribute? What makes a memorable memorial? More

Stop, look, and discover—the streets and parks of Manhattan are filled with beautiful historic monuments that will entertain, stimulate, and inspire you. Among the 54 monuments in this volume are major figures in American history, icons of New York, and works by some of America's best sculptors. More info (including reviews and list of works discussed)

The Statue of Liberty: Timeless Art, Political Hot Topic - $.99 (Amazon Kindle edition)

A look at the Statue of Liberty as a timeless work of art and as a political statement by those who conceived it and by their 19th-c. contemporaries. This began as the first essay in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide, published in 2007, but is expanded for this Kindle edition with archival illustrations, close-up views of Liberty, more quotes from sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi and his contemporaries, out-takes, and tips on photographing outdoor sculptures in New York.

Informal transcription of short biography of Alexander Hamilton, originally presented during a walking tour of Manhattan's sculptures of Hamilton. The biography covers the important events of Hamilton's life and the ideas that drove him, with substantial quotes from Hamilton's writings, illustrations of Hamilton and places that figure in the biography, and photos of the 4 Hamilton sculptures in Manhattan. 17K words, 18 illustrations, timeline.

The four sculptures on the tour are by Carl Conrads, William Ordway Partridge (2 sculptures), and Adolph A. Weinman.

Getting More Enjoyment from Art You Love (Kindle book)

A favorite artwork can provide you with enjoyment and inspiration, help you recall important events of the past, and help you project a course into the future. Get even more enjoyment from a work of art you love by approaching it with an active mind: studying its details and asking questions about its meaning. This essay illustrates that process for Henry Kirke Brown’s George Washington and Anna Hyatt Huntington’s Cid, and then explains how to judge these and other works re content, style, and the emotional reaction they evoke.

This article was originally published as "Getting More Enjoyment from Art You Love," The Objective Standard, A Journal of Culture and Politics, vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer 2006) - available from The Objective Standard in print

How to Analyze and Appreciate Paintings (Kindle book)

Via discussions of Holbein’s Sir Thomas More and Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert, we work through a series of questions to help you systematically observe the details of a painting, state what effect they have, and set them in the context of the rest of the work. As we go, we work out tentative themes and then a final statement of the theme. Then we evaluate the works in emotional, esthetic, philosophical, and art historical terms. As practice for doing this independently, I include a series of questions on Vermeer’s Officer with a Laughing Girl.

You could think of this essay as part 2 of Getting More Enjoyment from Art You Love (which dealt with sculpture), but it can also be read on its own. The paintings illustrated are mostly in the Frick Collection, New York.

Originally published as “How to Analyze and Appreciate Paintings,” The Objective Standard, A Journal of Culture and Politics, vol. 2, no. 3 (Fall 2007). The print version is sold out; TOS subscribers have access to this issue online, but unfortunately without illustrations, since the permissions have expired.

Seismic Shifts in Subject and Style: 19th-Century French Painting and Philosophy (Kindle book)

What caused the seismic shifts in subject and style over the course of the 19^th century – from Madame Recamier, by Jacques-Louis David (1800), to Luxe, Calme, et Volupte, by Matisse (1904)? Dominant artistic trends are not the result of a collective consciousness working its will. They are simply the styles that the majority of artists choose to embrace - and each of those artists makes his own choice of style. This 30,000-word essay seeks the reasons for the changes in a combination of art analysis and philosophical detection.

During the 19^th century, France was the epicenter for artistic change. We survey the works of 18 French artists: Neoclassicists David, Ingres, and Corot; Romantics Gros, Gericault, and Delacroix; Naturalists Millet and Courbet; Manet; Impressionists Monet, Renoir, and Degas; Post-Impressionists Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin; Pointillist Seurat; Symbolist Moreau; and Academic Bouguereau.

In the philosophical-detection sections of the essay, we read what these artists plus a few influential art critics (Baudelaire, Ruskin, Zola) had to say about four issues crucial for artists: the role of training; the role of reason vs. emotion in creating art; the importance of style vs. subject; and qualifications for judging art.  Then we see how these statements relate to the subject and style of these artists’ works, and to the philosophical context of the time, particularly the ideas of Immanuel Kant.

Originally published as "19th-Century French Painting and Philosophy," The Objective Standard, A Journal of Culture and Politics, vol. 1, no. 3 (Fall 2006). The article is available from The Objective Standard in print.

"Art History Through Innovators: Painting and Sculpture" - click here for formats and here for order instructions

Internationalism, in the series Key Concepts in American History - available from Amazon.

From a note I published in 2010, when the book first appeared:

I announce, with mixed feelings, the recent appearance of a book with my name on the title page: Internationalism, in the series Key Concepts in American History. It’s a high-school text on American foreign policy from World War II until ca. 2000. I wrote it as work for hire 2 years ago.

The idea for the series seemed a good one: a set of 10 books to be used as supplementary texts for high-school students, each giving an overview of a major issue (2500 words) followed by shorter essays (500-2000 words) on specific topics. The topics in my volume, which were chosen by the series editor, range from “Atlantic Charter” through “Democracy and Human Rights” to “Yugoslavia, Breakup of.”

At least 2 editors (non-Objectivists) had whacks at the manuscript. They were the sort who firmly believe that no high-school student can comprehend a polysyllabic word or a compound sentence. They also edited the content, albeit in a rather haphazard, concrete-bound fashion. The opening lines of the entry “Iraqi War of 2003,” which ought to be an essentialized summary of the topic, now include the statements that Iraq was “mistakenly believed by some to be accumulating weapons of mass destruction” and that the war “grew increasingly unpopular with the American people.”

On the other hand, the editors let pass, almost unaltered, 3 pages discussing 1) the distinction between direct democracy, representative democracy, and democracy under communism or socialism, and 2) the difference between individual rights as used by the Founding Fathers and economic or social rights.

I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Internationalism, particularly at the list price of $45 for 118 [!] pages. I suspect there are some appalling editorial changes that I haven’t even noticed yet, since I haven’t had the brute discipline to do an autopsy of the finished product. I learned a tremendous amount while writing it. Those who need a broad survey of American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century may find it useful.

Informal transcription of short biography of Alexander Hamilton, originally presented during a walking tour of Manhattan's sculptures of Hamilton. The biography covers the important events of Hamilton's life and the ideas that drove him, with substantial quotes from Hamilton's writings, illustrations of Hamilton and places that figure in the biography, and photos of the 4 Hamilton sculptures in Manhattan. 17K words, 18 illustrations, timeline.