Nicholas Fox WeberReseñas

Hilary Bendich

Helen Pope

A spectacular and unprecedented visual biography of the leading pioneers and protagonists of modern art and design

Josef - painter, designer, and teacher - and Anni Albers - textile artist and printmaker - are among the twentieth century's most important abstract artists, and this is the first monograph to celebrate the rich creative output and beguiling relationship of these two masters in one elegant volume. It presents their life and work as never before, from their formative years at the Bauhaus in Germany to their remarkable influence at Black Mountain College in the United States through their intensely productive period in Connecticut.

Accessibly written, the book is packed with more than 750 artworks, archival images, and documents—many published here for the first time—all tracing the remarkable lives and careers of this legendary couple.

Dispersed throughout area series of short essays on artists that focuses on the Alberses relationship with a number of important artists and architects of the 20th century, like Ruth Asawa, Marcel Breuer, Merce Cunningham, Philip Johnson, Paul Klee, Jacob Lawrence, and many more.

The beautifully cloth-bound package utilizes an elegant color palette and design that speaks to the work of both artists. This comprehensive visual biography showcases the artists’ rich and dynamic lives, and their infinite influence on each other, as they shared the profound conviction that art was central to human existence.

From Futurism to Fluxus, virtually every twentieth-century avant-garde produced art multiples of some kind, whether to defuse the aura tic power of the unique art work, or to foster a more democratic art culture. 'The Small Utopia' provides a thorough overview of this tendency, looking at Malevich's tea sets, Bauhaus textiles and toys, early audio multiples, Duchamp's readymades, artist's books and small press magazines among other examples.

Illustrators of children’s books rarely get the recognition they deserve. There are notable exceptions - Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss, and Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff being the most prominent among them.

This living-room sized book features the character of Babar, an “intrepid and well-mannered elephant.” The first story was originally created in 1930 by Cecile de Brunhoff for her children, Laurent and Mathieu. Her husband, Jean de Brunhoff, wrote it down and illustrated it. Six other books followed, one per year. Two uncles, who were publishers, produced the books, and they were a success. But after Jean died in 1937, the books stopped as well, at least temporarily.

In 1946, the author of this compendium tells us, Babar was resurrected by Laurent, who proceeded, beginning in 1965, to make over 30 Babar books. This book tells the story of the de Brunhoff family, and the stories behind the Babar books. Not only are the plots discussed, but the drawing process gets a great deal of attention as well. The book is replete with illustrations, most of which are in color and several of which occupy two-page spreads.

Evaluation: This is a delightful addition to any library. Both children and adults will spend many enjoyable hours pouring over the artwork, and reliving their favorite moments from the stories.

His tales translated into 17 languages, Babar the elephant fled the jungle and entered Western civilization in 1931 in a book by the de Brunhoffs. Here, for the first itme, is a fascinating look at the story behind Babar and his creators.

Beautifully rendered and uniquely insightful, this Freudian "side-trip" involves art, nakedness, sexuality and repression but in a strikingly unusual way. Even the loudest anti-Freudian (the fashionable position these days) will find something here to delight in and argue about.

Freud's Trip to Orvieto is an impressive book with thick, glossy pages, many beautiful color plates, and a heft that draws your attention. Unfortunately, I did not find it very readable. I would like to know more about Freud, but Nicholas Fox Weber's examination of this particular episode in Freud's life seemed too much about Weber and his reactions and not enough about Freud. I may try this book again since it's so well reviewed, but for now, it's not for me.

Freud’s Trip to Orvieto, written by Nicholas Fox Weber, is a beautiful book in design, illustration and feel. It is also a hard book to categorize and a delight to read. Weber recounts finding an offprint of an article when going through his parents’ home, which prompts a memory from his own youth when he experienced both a strong sexual memory and an observation of the authors of the article of the offprint. Weber weaves a beautiful web, discussing his own education, the trip Freud made to Orvieto and his memory loss, the homoerotic paintings of Signorelli’s Orvieto Frescos, anti-Semitism in Freud’s time and Weber’s academic study. Weber, a trained art historian with a passionate love of beauty, draws us into Freud’s trip to Orvieto and the art works Freud admired and studied. Freud’s Trip to Orvieto reads as if it were Weber’s memoir, an examination of psychoanalysis and thought with the authors of the offprint article, Freud, himself and others, Jewishness, antisemitism and Italian Renaissance art. Freud’s Trip to Orvieto is unique and easy to recommend for an interesting and informative read.

I know very little about Freud and Freudians, though I suspect there are fewer of them today than in years past. His theories and teachings seem to have fallen out of favor. Signorelli was always a forgettable painter in my mind and many tiers below the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo. Nevertheless it was fascinating to read of Freud's trip to view the Signorelli frescoes at Orvieto and what came to be known as the "Signorelli parapraxis" and repressed memory.

The book is an intriguing meditation on masculinity, Jewish identity and homo-eroticism. It was less interesting to read Nicholas Fox Weber's interpretation and psychoanalysis of these events, particularly the weaving of his own biography and personal history into the narrative.

“Freud's Trip to Orvieto is at once profound and wonderfully diverse, and as gripping as any detective story. Nicholas Fox Weber mixes psychoanalysis, art history, and the personal with an intricacy and spiritedness that Freud himself would have admired."

Freud's Trip to Orvieto, by Nicholas Fox Weber, is multifaceted autobiography, art history and criticism, memoir, and psychoanalysis. Freud visited Orvieto in 1897 and was spellbound by the then 400-year old 'Last Judgment' frescos (1499-1504) by the painter Luca Signorelli (1445-1523) in the Cappella Nova of the cathedral in Orvieto, Italy. That the then 41-year-old Freud could not recall the artist's name to a colleague, this a the time the inventor of psychoanalysis was in the forefront of his genius, was frustrating to such extent that Freud's The Psychology of Everyday Life (1901) opens with three chapters devoted to "Forgetting Proper Names", "Forgetting Foreign Words", and "Forgetting Names and Order of Words" (The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, Modern Library, 1938).

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Mr. Weber attempts to present Freud from an angle that is fresh and very personal. This trip is very symbolic to Freud and Mr. Weber includes himself to a great degree in the narrative of the book, trying to understand the power and identity of Freud. It is wonderful to see how artists like Signorelli had an impact on Freud, these visuals offer a lens into the soul of this man.

Many thanks to Library Thing for sending this book for free, it is a very interesting tool into Freud and I promise to treasure it.

Freud fell in love with Luca Signorelli’s frescoes in Orvieto, calling them the greatest artwork he’d ever encountered. A scant year later, he could picture the works clearly but couldn’t remember Signorelli’s name; when he finally did, he forgot what the artworks looked like. A fascinating mystery, ripe for Freudian analysis, right?

Unfortunately, this book isn't about that. Or it is, but it's just as much a memoir about Weber finding a manuscript on Freud's Signorelli amnesia written by two psychologists friends of his parents. Weber somehow ties this manuscript to a memory of something sexual he did with another of his parents' friends, and about his mixed feelings about his Jewish heritage, sprinkled with conversations he's had with big-wigs like Philip Roth. Not so fascinating, I have to say. I would have preferred a book squarely focused on Freud.

To be fair, Weber really knows his Freud and his Signorelli, so if you're in the market for a Freudian, self-analytical book, then this might be for you.

This book concerns a trip that Freud made to see the paintings of Luco Signorelli at the cathedral at Orveito. The paintings are entitled The Damned Cast Into Hell. Freud made the trip during the eleventh month of a twelve month morning period following the passing of his father.

Several days later (or maybe longer depending on the source) he was unable to recall Signorelli’s name, although he could still see the paintings in his minds eye. It is reported that once he did recall Signorelli’s name, his ability to see the paintings was gone.

Now the question over the years has been why did he have this experience? Most psychologists have related Freud’s repression to the fact that the first three letters of his name and that of the painter are the same. But Weber has a much different take on the issue: he believes that the real issue lies in the visual sensations that Freud experienced when viewing the paintings. He takes us on a long and detailed journey through the visual effects of the paintings that Freud could of encountered and along the way relates his own feelings and knowledge to supplement the argument.

This book – if the thesis is valid – gives us a totally different view of Freud the father of psychoanalysis: here we encounter Freud the man. This fact makes the book an intriguing read.

Along the way we encounter a Freud in grief and concerned with dying; a Freud who had questions about human sexuality; a Freud who was experiencing deep human emotions brought on by visual stimuli. In addition we are exposed to some of the issues that Freud experienced about his own Jewishness.

All in all this is an engaging and very interesting journey that the author takes us on. Whatever one may think about Freud’s value as an analyst, this book opens a whole new chapter into Freud the man – here we find him beset by his attempt to come to terms with what it means to be a human being with limited understanding of life and with the knowledge that it will end one day.

Freud's Trip to Orvieto is an intensely analytical book dedicated to Freud and his perspective on seeing Signorelli's frescoes at Orvieto.

Weber goes into deep detail regarding Freud's reaction to not only viewing the frescoes, but also to remembering them and the artist who painted them. I found it interesting that he had difficulty remembering the artist's name, even though the frescoes touched his very core. And, also he often had difficulty remembering the frescoes. It was one memory loss or another. He seemingly had memory issues that were possibly due to the intensity of the paintings themselves, depicting gruesome scenes.

Conflicts abounded. Jewish identity and antisemitism are embellished within the confines of Freud's own essence, bringing a clarity to both his wonderment over the paintings and his own insecurities after viewing the extremely detailed artwork. It seems he found it difficult to reconcile the two.

Many scenes illuminated nakedness, strong and bold men overcoming weak individuals, and sexuality at its deepest level. Freud seemed to identify with the paintings as far as masculinity and Jewish identity is concerned. The imagery was bold, overpowering, leaving nothing to his imagination, from dying and struggling individuals on the cusp of death, to the power of those who were the destroyers of humanity.

The psychological struggle that took hold of Freud is portrayed with the utmost of analytical brilliance, academia and intelligence. Weber's psychological insight is masterful, in my opinion. His analysis and psychological determination depicts Freud like I have never seen him portrayed, before.

I enjoyed reading Freud's Trip to Orvieto, encompassing memory, identity, power and struggle.

Thank you to LibraryThing for the Early Reviewers copy.

Depero p.44