Caribbean Elegance

Book Description

Here is an exotic interior-design book for anyone who has ever dreamed of escaping to a different way of life. The elegant lifestyle, magnificent homes, and varied furniture and decor of the French, Dutch, Spanish, English, and Danish islands of the Caribbean from the late 18th century to the early 20th century are revealed as never before in this sumptuous volume.

With some of the most beautiful tropical islands on earth as a backdrop, dazzling photographs reveal the homes of the sugar barons who made their fortunes there. Tables and beds from St. Thomas and Ste. Croix, armoires and chairs from Martinique, cupboards and chests from the Spanish Antilles, settees and cabinets from the English islands; all are works that combine the grace and opulence of European and North American styles with the vernacular island forms and decorative motifs. These gorgeous examples give the reader a unique view of the casual refinement of aristocratic Caribbean living.

Customer Reviews:

Glad to Have This Book.......2007-04-28

Not so long ago I saw Caribbean Elegance at a friend's house. My friend was gracious enough to lend it to me to read. After reading it, I felt I should have my own copy, so I ordered a copy from amazon.com.

Not only is Dr. Connors' narrative comprehensively informative and enjoyable, but Bruce Buck's photographs are absolutely beautiful.

Together they have introduced me to a heretofore, to me at least, world of fascinating furniture and decorative arts. Kudos to Dr. Connors and Mr. Buck.

I look forward to acquiring the rest of their work.

Furniture is the Focus.......2006-01-25

This book has great pictures of West Indian furniture and its focus is only on the furniture. I was looking for some ideas on how to design using this style, but not much can be gotten directly on how to do this from this book. However, I did come away with a good sense of the various influences on the West Indian style.

Moderately interesting.......2005-08-15

This book had some interesting facts, but as an interior designer who was looking for inspirational pictures for room designs I thought it had moderate value.

FABULOUS!.......2005-04-10

I have owned this book for over a year and always thought it was an excellent book but wasn't inspired to write a review until just recently, when I received a new book I purchased called "Caribbean Style". This book, "Caribbean Elegance", is everything that the other book is not. I love this book! The photography is incredible, encompasing everything from the smallest furniture detail or accessory, to entire historical exteriors & interiors, and exquisite scenery!
The text gives a detailed history of the settlers and islands, really giving you an understanding of how the various styles of West Indies architecture and furnishings came into being. It also distingushes the furnishings by their various European influences, such as Spanish, English or Dutch, among others. As an interior designer I found this book fascinating and educational. But even for someone who just has a love of the islands, the photography alone is worth the price of the book.

Caribbean Elegance.......2004-06-17

This book was exactly what I was searching for. Not only is it visually stunning, but it provides a wealth of historical information on Caribbean style and furnishing. A wonderful resource if you want to understand how this very unique style of interior design came to be.

Caribbean Architecture: Exclusive Designs by Gianfranco Fini in Marina Casa de Campo

Average customer rating:

Great BOOK !!!
Caribbean Elegance
A place to visit before you dies.
The Best Keep Secret in the Caribbean unveils.

Caribbean Architecture: Exclusive Designs by Gianfranco Fini in Marina Casa de Campo
Giancarlo Gardin; Massimo Rosati
Manufacturer: Archideos
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 8887653089
Release Date: 2006-11-15

Product Description

This is a book that for the first time opens the doors to the public of the Marina at the luxurious gated community and Resort Casa de Campo in the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic. It is one of a king peace of art printed and bounded in Italy, with more than 300 breathtaking full color photographs and original drawing throughout. The book is a first class guided tour of the Marina at Casa de Campo in the hands of its creator, the architect Gianfranco Fini. Stunning aerial views, with never before seeing original drawings that will allow you enter into the mind of the architect to see the way of living that he was planning to create and vivid pictures of it actual beauty and style. The full size pictures throughout the book portrays a whole range of Caribbean style an elegant properties from inside out, from chic waterfront apartments and townhouses of less than 2,000 sqf. to magnificent Villas and Mansions above the 16,000 sqf. The foreword by Eduardo Martinez Lima (Central Romana Corporation CEO) will tell you the story of how two entrepreneurs convince them from an architectural and business point to build the Marina. Carmen Ortega (Arquitexto Magazine Editor) will introduce you to the Dominican Republic and Casa de Campo, while Carlo Montanaro (Editor of Dove, Dove Case and Style) will show you the way of living in the all year round summer at the Restaurants, Yacht Club, Art Galleries and, seaside houses of this luxurious destination.

Customer Reviews:

Great BOOK !!!.......2007-04-29

If you want to know more about architecture in the Caribbean, you have to read this book!

Caribbean Elegance.......2007-04-11

Through his work at la Marina, Casa de Campo, Gian Franco Fini captures the essence of refined architecture with a perfect air of Caribbean elegance.

A place to visit before you dies........2007-04-10

This is a book about one of those magical places that once you get there you don't want to leave. It's in the path of boats coming from Miami to the West Indies and is the place to see in the Caribbean before you die. Casa de Campo is the Caribbean most complete resort by far where any possible hobby in the world could practiced at world renowned conditions -besides skiing, except if you change it for water-sky-. The book about the Casa de Campo's Marina is definitely a 5 start in class, quality and content. This is the real thing in Caribbean Elegance and Luxury where you'll be able to find some of the most exclusive houses in the region.

The Best Keep Secret in the Caribbean unveils........2007-03-02

This is the only book available about Marinas from an architectural standpoint. Blueprints, sketches and more than 300 full-color pictures are a never ending source for one of the most luxurious approach to Caribbean Architecture. It's about the renowned Marina at Casa de Campo, La Romana, Dominican Republic and is a must for anyone willing see from the inside out as many options as possible to recreate a tropical paradise despite if it's and apartment or a houses under 2,000 sqf or a masterpiece above 20,000 sqf.
In contrast with W.R. Blain's book for "Marina Developments" -That is an excellent and maybe the only book about Marinas from a structural standpoint- this one is an architectural approach to Marinas and all the elements around it such as Yacht Club, Apartments, Houses, Restaurants and all related services. It's full of details and references in a text that is catchy and easy to read. My only concern was that I thought it was pricy in the first place despite that it was printed and bounded in Italy, but Blain's book is above the $250 and this one is more related to interior design and architecture so it's worth 5 out 5 starts.

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La Panaderia: 1994-2002
Cuauhtemoc Medina , Guillermo Fandanelli , Eduardo Abaroa , and Miguel Calderon
Manufacturer: Turner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Museums & Collections | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 8475066496
Release Date: 2004-08-02

Book Description

Throughout eight years of existence, La Panader'a served Mexico City as a vibrant non-profit space for exhibitions, residencies, and cultural events involving local and international artists. This retrospective catalogue exists as a collective testimony on the artistic productions and exhibitions that resulted from the space, which was founded in 1994 in a former bakery by local artists Yoshua Okon and Miguel CalderAn. La Panader'a emphasized, by way of its inherent nature, the integration of eclectic marginal practices. Young artists were invited to exhibit video, photography, installation, and performance based works, but the space was also characterized by parties and concerts, reflecting a lifestyle and a social dynamic that opposed a rigid set of paradigms which dictated how art should be. La Panader'a: 1994-2002 is a visual and theoretical digest representative of the national and international art scene, presenting a selection of 60 exhibitions by foreign and Mexican contemporary artists via photographic documentation, a brief descriptive text, and ephemera such as invitations. Six critical texts consider the relevance of the space, while anecdotes from artists and the visiting public pay testimony to it. Dozens and dozens of artists are represented here, including Carlos Amorales, Chris Johanson, Emily Jacir, Francis Als, Gelatin, Kirsten Stoltmann, Las ultrasAnicas, Luis Felipe Ortega, Miguel CalderAn, Minerva Cuevas, Semefo, Shepard Fairy, and Uri Tzaig. The book is accompanied by a CD with music by Silverio.

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Armando Reveron

Armando Reveron
John Elderfield , Luis Perez-Oramas , and Armando Reveron
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0870707116
Release Date: 2007-03-01

Book Description

This first U.S. retrospective of the work of Armando Reveron (1899-1954), exhibited this spring at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, introduces the celebrated Latin American artist to an international audience. Well-known in his native Venezuela, but little known outside Latin America, Reveron deserves to be ranked alongside the great early European Modernists. By the 1920s, he had fused post-Impressionistic idioms with an extremely tactile surface and an almost monochromatic palette, creating unmistakably original paintings that are both mysterious and radical. In addition to Reveron's paintings, the exhibition includes life-sized dolls and other objects that he and his partner, Juanita Rios, created to fill their secluded Caribbean home. Reveron's figurative works seem to replicate the perceptual experience of puzzling out forms in shadowy interiors; increasingly over the years, the subjects of these paintings came to be not human beings but his own life-sized dolls. This volume, the first major publication on Reveron in English, features more than 100 paintings, drawings, and objects, accompanied by texts by MoMA curators John Elderfield, Luis Perez-Oramas and Nora Lawrence.

Customer Reviews:

Armando Reveron.......2007-05-26

As far as I can tell this is the only English publication on the life work of Reveron so a review is somewhat redundant, it has no competition and anyone who wants to see this stuff is limited to this book. Having said that it is a brilliant effort and having seen his recent retrospective exhibition in New York at the MOMA I have to say it is a perfect reflection of the paintings and the man.

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Botero: Abu Ghraib
David Ebony
Manufacturer: Prestel Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 3791337416

Book Description

The world was shocked in 2003 by photographs revealing abuse of prisoners by U.S. guards at the notorius Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. In response, the reowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero created a series of riveting paintings and drawings that constitute an acerbic and poignant statement against violence and man's inhumanity to man. The 73-year-old artist, drawing on his knowledge of Renaissance art, has produced a body of works that are timely yet timeless, a vision of hell on earth belonging to a long tradition of artistic statements against war and violence that incluedes Goya's Caprichos and Picasso's Guernica, works by the Mexican muralists, the American artists Philip Guston and Leon Golub, and Botero's own 1980s responses to drug violence in Colombia.

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Readings in Latin American Modern Art

Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0300102550

Book Description

This important and welcome volume is the first English-language anthology of writings on Latin American modern art of the twentieth century. The book includes some fifty seminal essays and documents-including statements, interviews, and manifestoes by artists-that encompass the broad diversity of this emerging field. Many of these materials are difficult to access and some are translated here for the first time. Together the selections explore the breadth and depth of Latin American modern art as well as its distinctive evolution apart from American and European art history. Included in this collection are fascinating ideas and insights on the impact of the avant-garde in the 1920s, the Mexican mural movement, Surrealism and other fantasy-based styles, modern architecture, geometric and optical art, concrete and neo-concrete art, and political conceptualism. For students and scholars of Latin American art, the volume offers an invaluable collection of primary and secondary sources.

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Excellent Investment
Nice Introduction to Mexican Art
Combines scholarship with passionate storytelling

Mexican Art Masterpieces
Marcus Burke
Manufacturer: Universe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Criticism | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Mexico | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0883635984
Release Date: 1998-07-28

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Investment.......2006-01-28

I read this book for months and months and months. It is a rich investigation into the history of Mexican art /its creators/ and the confluence of cultures that brought it about.

Nice Introduction to Mexican Art.......2003-02-07

Whenever such a subjective titile is chosen such as "Mexican Art Masterpieces" there are bound to be ommissions and unlikely selections. For the most part this book is a good,quick study, covering in abbreviated form the art of Mexico in four sections: Prehispanic,Viceregal or Colonial, briefly the Nineteenth Century and more extensively the Twentieth Century. Most of the art featured is familiar to those who have even the most remote understanding and scope of Mexican Art. With just under fifty color plates to cover some 3,500 years of monumental art, as previously stated, this is a good introduction but by no means an exhaustive study. One of the strengths of this book is the one page synopsis given to each piece that gives a history lesson covering the social and political climate,a biography and an interpretation of the art piece pointing out the little details and nuances. The information provided is not earth shattering but helpful nonetheless and is not overly analytical and very easy to follow. The other strength is the magnificence of the chosen pieces, reflecting both ancient and modern themes by Mexican masters. I found it curious that missing from the Prehispanic section were such items as the wood carved Aztec drum or huehuetl from the Toluca Basin, considered by many to be the consumate representation of artistry achieved in woodcarving by the Aztecs or the figure of Chacmool, which is found throughout Mesoamerica, most notably in Chichen Itza and Tenochtitlan. From the Colonial period there is not an oil painting by Cristobal de Villalpando , who along with Juan Correa is considered to be the most represenative from the Baroque period. Surely his "St. John the Evangelist and Mother Maria de Jesus de Agreda" is worthy of being featured. The image of the revered La Virgin de Guadalupe is also missing from this time period. Miguel Gonzalez's exquisite oil, gilding and mother-of -pearl inlaid masterpiece,"Virgin de Guadalupe," which is housed in the Museo Frantz Mayer in Mexcio City should have been included in my humble opinion. From the Nineteenth Century Rodrigo Gutierrrez's "The Senate of Tlaxcala", housed in the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexcio City, is also missing. With it's luminous light on the orator and Romanesque posturing it is truly a masterpiece. In the Twentieth Century, Francisco Goitia, considered to be to be the most Mexican of Mexican painters is nowhere to be found. His landscapes reflecting the turmoil, pathos and beauty of Mexico are absent from this collection of masterpieces. With many works to choose from, his masterpiece"Tata Jesucristo"(Father Jesus) is one that could easily have been included. These minor discrepencies and personal observations aside, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the art history of Mexico. This is a good introductory book to the masterpieces in Mexican Art.

Combines scholarship with passionate storytelling.......2001-02-14

In Mexican Art Masterpieces, Marcus Burke showcases forty-eight unique and fascinating pieces of Mexican art that range from ancient ceramic statues and mosaic masks from the Mayans and Aztecs, to tomb facades and interior temple reliefs. Also represented are feather pictures, monstrances, classically inspired paintings by artists of the viceregal period (including Baltasar de Echeve Orio and Juan Rodriguez Juarez); 19th-century masterpieces by Obregon and Velasco; and 20th-century favorites including works by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Frieda Kahlo, and others. Burke combines scholarship with passionate storytelling in each of the forty-eight essays that accompany the works and reveal the complicated connections between Mexican politics, society and art. Mexican Art Masterpieces is especially recommended for students and enthusiasts of Mexican history, art and culture.

Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art

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Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art
Beverly Adams , Juan Ledezma , Mari Caremen Ramirez , Suely Rolnik , and Sonia Salzstein
Manufacturer: Merrell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Pop | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Private | Museums & Collections | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1858943922

Book Description

This book presents the very best in modern and contemporary Latin American art. It features not only the work of artists from Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean, but also works by American and European artists working in Latin America and Latin American artists based in North America and Europe. Illuminating essays consider some of the region's leading practitioners and examine such prominent issues as introspection and identity, theatricality and performance in the visual arts, and the rise of multiculturalism and globalism in contemporary art. Lavishly illustrated throughout, this book is the perfect introduction to one of the finest private collections in the United States of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Book Description

Lavishly illustrated with oil paintings, drawings, personal photos, and other memorabilia, Tamayo explores the work of one of Mexicos most revered artists. Acclaimed for his luminous colour, Tamayo first became well known through a 1978 exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., followed by a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 1979.

Customer Reviews:

Tamayo's Impeccable Charm.......2005-11-28

Despite this books biting price, this collection of works and interviews is a piece of art by its self. Teresa del Conde's book has achieved a level of completeness neverbefore reached by a collection of the late Tamayo's work. I have looked for many a good book on the subject and this is, by far, my favorite. If you want a mediocre jumble of art, buy some other book on Rufino, but if you want a quality biography and collection there is only one book that stands out, Tamayo.

Rough Guide to World Music Volume Two: Latin and North America, the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific (Rough Guide Music Guides)

Average customer rating:

Extraordinary: Overwhelmingly Wonderful
Everything V. 1 was for Middle-East, African, & European ...

Rough Guide to World Music Volume Two: Latin and North America, the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific (Rough Guide Music Guides)
Simon Broughton , and Mark Ellingham
Manufacturer: Rough Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1858286360
Release Date: 2000-10-19

Customer Reviews:

Extraordinary: Overwhelmingly Wonderful.......2000-12-28

The research here is remarkable. The scholarship is first-rate, the information exhaustive (although never definitive since world music grows with leaps and bounds moment by moment).

I love dipping into this attractively illustrated, logically organized, and utterly helpful guide to find whole realms of sound which I not only didn't know existed but also could not even have imagined existed without the help of these fine fans of the music about which they write so clearly and well.

The world today is a depressing place. Sorrow is everywhere one turns. But this celebration of music continually energizes and revivifies. Buy it; enjoy it; and expand your CD collection.

Everything V. 1 was for Middle-East, African, & European ..........2000-12-20

... this one is for Latin & North American, Caribbean, Indian, Asian/Pacific idioms. I picked up the original '94 edition to explore World Beat rhythms in improvisatory settings, and was excited to hear the new edition would cover two volumes. I am NOT displeased !!

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