Customer Reviews

Leonardo's Ink Bottle: The Artist's Way of Seeing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Roberta Weir has given visual artists a wonderful, enchanting work. She offers us not only a way of seeing but a way of being: open, receptive and true. It is a subtle blend of insight, very practical sugggestions for nurturing and developing one's creative work and selections of her fine drawings. It's wise, multi-layered and moving. I love this book. For visual arts students I would also recommend The Blank Canvas by Anna Held Audette.

Even a cursory reading of "Leonardo's Ink Bottle" provides a rare glimpse into the mind of a working artist. Is is unusual to find an artist who excels in a variety of media and can as easily express herself in language as in paint or clay. The author's encyclopaedic knowledge of the arts and her craft of writing make her a wonderfully adept interpreter for those of us with a modest understanding of what drives a fully realized artist. Her approach to a life in art is as a process of spiritual discovery requiring the engagement of all the faculties: the eye that sees, the mind that conceives, the heart that feels and the hand that wields the brush or the pen to create something of beauty and value. The suggestions in Weir's book are drawn from her own life in the practice of art and are designed to take us beyond the conditioned framework of thought. These sharings of the journey to the wellsprings of creativity are a useful guide for the open-minded individual. This type of broad renaissance worldview is in such short suppply in our era that Weir's voice sounds a refreshing counterpoint, one that is not mawkish, new-agey or sentimental.

Wonderful first book by a great American artist of the 20th century. Most unusual ability to make the reader understand a way to view the world in a most innocent (unbiased) way. A must read for any one searching for an understanding of one's own mind and the workings of the visual world.

but nothing new for the artist. That said, the book is nevertheless well written. The style is reminiscent of the creative flow experience itself. This book does a good job helping the newbie to understand what flow feels like and how to obtain that state. The exercises are very practical and tend to balance the "flow-like" text. I loved the illustrations. I keep going back to the book just to look at the art work.

The budding (junior high to high school) artist may find this a nice thought provoking gift, but the experienced artist will find little to nourish them here. I found some of the explanations somewhat simplistic and the language of the book itself is somewhat like the type of poetry you read and cannot remember a word of the next moment.