The North Light Handbook of Artists’ Materials by Ian Hebblewhite (review)

geometry and then enters the complex forms of the Alhambra and the art of Islam, which forbids the use of living creatures but creates a symphony with straight lines. Gerstner then discusses the harmony of forms suggested by Ostwald, and by Hinterreiter and Kandinsky. Kandinsky's Art and Spiritual Harmony suggested a system of color signs to Cerstner, starting with dark blue and leading to yellow, as the principal axis, with a perpendicular axis of red leading to green, producing a form like a four-cusped hypocycloid, with a series of sine curves that he calls a sinuon, developed with an IBM computer . This speculative research may lead to a realization of the expressive power of colors and forms and their effect on each other. Particularly uscfill in advertising displays and TV commercials , these patterns and correspondences should be extremely inspiring. Vincent van Gogh, in recognizing the correspondence between music and abstract art, increasingly conceived his pictures as color music. Likewise, Alexander Scriabin conceived his music I'romdhmu being played synchronously with color effects of a specially constructed organ. FUNDAMENTALS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL COMPUTERGRAPHICS by Alan M'att. Addison-Wesley, Wokingham, U.K., 1989.466 pp.. illus. Trade, $19.95. ISBN: 0-20115442 -0. Ialee\, draws heavily on their experiments . Indeed, obviously one of Galeev's dreams is to implement the light-musicfppn'rs of Scriabin's PromeIhms (p. 114). Still, Caleev does look beyond tradition: his comments on children's reactions to 'colored music' and 'sound paintings' are especially exciting, his chemical analyses are accurate and his metaphors are provocative, e.g. the light-music composition as an instrumental choreography (p. 121).His book is a plea to retain arid develop one of the most enigmatic sources of modern art-synthesis and synthesism. As such. the hook is n o t to be treated lightly. THENORTHLIGHT HANDBOOK OF ARTISTS' MATERIALS by Ian Hehblrwhite. Quarto Publishing I.td., Imndon, L'.K., 1986.288 pp., illus. Trade. $24.95. ISBN: 0-891341765. Kpoipnwd /p,](y 7'urnn-I.uke, Sludio 231, K o u I P I Rox 18. Sj~~r~yiiilk, C'A 22740, This hook is a glorified catrilogue of art supplies available in Europe and the Irnited States at the time of its publication in 1986. Most of the materials listed can still he found in art supply stores, s o the hook remains relevant even though it does not covcr all niaterials available today and iric-lurlcssoiiic not pi-csrntly011 the market. The hook is divided into six sections : Supports. Studio Furniture and Equipment. Drawing and (hlligraphy Instruments. Brushes and Painting Equipnient, (hlor and Media. There is a short inti-otluction t o each section . followed by tables that rnable the reader cithcr-t o look up an art material and find what company manufactures it, or to check the range of products marketed by a specificcompany . In addition to listing products, an effort is made to supply relevant information ,except price. Unfortunately , the author relies entirely on companyliterature and labels for this information. Since by far the largest section of the book is devoted to paints and pigments (pp. 86221), it is appropriate to treat this section as representative of the author’s approach. To give the reader an idea of the appearance of the paints listed in the table, six pages contain printed color reproductions of brush strokes,each of which are assigned a number. In the table the paints are given the number of the a p propriate color samples.After looking up a few familiar paints, it is evident that this system of identification provides only a very rough idea of the color of the paint; but it can be helpful. In the table, the paints are divided into general hue categories and listed alphabeticallywithin each category by paint name and by company. Columns are included to indicate the composition and permanency of each paint; however, the form and accuracy of this information leave a lot to be desired. Hebblewhite has chosen to report pigment identification in the traditional manner of using abbreviationsof its chemical constituents.Although difficultfor the artist to remember, this method worked reasonably well as long as the majority of...