If there is, indeed, nothing lovelier than a tree, Connecticut-based artist Bryan Nash Gill shows us why. Creating large-scale relief prints from the cross sections of trees, the artist reveals the sublime power locked inside their arboreal rings. Gill creates patterns not only of great beauty but also year-by-year records of the life and times of fallen or damaged logs. He rescues the wood from the property surrounding his studio and neighboring land, extracts and prepares blocks of various species (including ash, maple, oak, spruce, and willow), then makes prints by carefully following and pressing the contours of rings and ridges until the intricate designs transfer from tree to paper. The results are colored, nuanced shapes—mesmerizing impressions of the structural integrity hidden inside each tree. These exquisitely detailed prints are collected and published here for the first time, with an introduction by esteemed nature writer Verlyn Klinkenborg and an interview with the artist describing his labor-intensive printmaking process. Also featured are Gill's series of printed lumber and offcuts, such as burls, branches, knots, and scrubs. Woodcut will appeal to anybody who appreciates the grandeur and mystery of trees, as well as those who work with wood and marvel at the rich history embedded in its growth.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
It's a strangely moving experience to flip through Woodcut (Princeton Architectural Press, $30), a book of Bryan Nash Gill's relief prints of tree-trunk cross sections, which the artist harvests from felled trees, cedar telephone poles and discarded fence posts in his native Connecticut. One is struck by how Gill's method - cutting blocks with a chain saw, sanding them down, burning them and sealing them with shellac - amplifies the events in the life of a tree: lightning strikes, burgeoning burls, insect holes and, of course, the aging process, evidence of which radiates out in transfixing patterns. Verlyn Klinkenborg , who also writes for The New York Times, describes these cross sections in the book's preface as "the death mask of a plant, the sustained rigor mortis" of maple, spruce and locust. They remind us, he says, that every biological form "possesses a unique footprint." --- T: The New York Times Style Magazine
"A swell coffee table companion for hip young DIY-ers who cultivate a lumberjack look that says they've come straight from splitting firewood, the new book "Woodcut" is also likely to appeal to a much wider audience." -- Wall Street Journal
"With this mesmerizing series, Bryan Nash Gill doesn't just bridge the gap between abstraction and representation, object and subject-- he closes them. WOODCUT confirms Gill's place as one of the most inventive, inspired artists working today" -- Tod Lippy, Esopus magazine
"A swell coffee table companion for hip young DIY-ers who cultivate a lumberjack look that says they've come straight from splitting firewood, the new book "Woodcut" is also likely to appeal to a much wider audience." -- Wall Street Journal
"With this mesmerizing series, Bryan Nash Gill doesn't just bridge the gap between abstraction and representation, object and subject-- he closes them. WOODCUT confirms Gill's place as one of the most inventive, inspired artists working today" -- Tod Lippy, Esopus magazine
About the Author
Bryan Nash Gill was born and raised in the same rural, north-western corner of Connecticut were he works as an artist today. His sculptures and drawings are heavily influenced by the New England countryside but also by geographical regions as diverse as Carrara, Italy, New Orleans, and northern California where he has lived and worked.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Here's the trick: Read the other reviews that point out how this book could have been better, and get the point that this is a small book of very large prints, and be disappointed that it is not an "art" book for the coffee table. Instead, it's a $20 introduction to a fabulous line of art work I would never have found, or been able to afford, elsewise. Then, it becomes fascinating and wonderful, and full of inspiration for finding more ideas in your own line of art than you could have imagined.
Orginals of the author's work are available for +- $4000.00. This is out of my range. Some of the art books I want on my coffee table, perhaps printed in America, are now OOP and available in the used book market for > $200. Your call on whether you would be able to buy Woodcut if it were printed in America at the ideal size for its content.
If you liked / already own One Tree, by Garry Olson & Peter Toaig, you'll love Woodcut. If you love Speck, by Peter Buchanan-Smith, you'll love Woodcut. If you own both of Bruce Hoadley's books about wood, Woodcut will add more to your understanding of this material.
The book is what it is, a collection, probably not complete, of one artist's fascination with the most basic form of woodcut. Who'da thought there was that much to see, to know? I don't care what grows in Connecticut, particularly. (Not all that different from central NC, except we use holly and juniper where they have yew.)
Usefully, to me, the interview / explanation at the end of the book provides a lot of detail about how the prints are made and how the artist works. Inventory management is, to me, the most interesting part of many (non-painting) artists' work; how do they keep and manage the material that becomes their artwork? Gill shares.
I've put Woodcut on the shelf above my desk I look at every day, next to Art and Fear (as a perfect example of "find a way of working and follow it"). I may not take it off the shelf every day but simply looking at the spine reminds me there's way more art within arm's reach than I have even scratched the surface of making. I'm pretty sure the author and publisher didn't not intend to create a book of creative inspiration, but it's way more useful, again to me, perhaps not to you, in this line than ANY of the "improve your creativity with these 20 exercises" genre.
I am VERY happy I was able to get a copy of this book.
Orginals of the author's work are available for +- $4000.00. This is out of my range. Some of the art books I want on my coffee table, perhaps printed in America, are now OOP and available in the used book market for > $200. Your call on whether you would be able to buy Woodcut if it were printed in America at the ideal size for its content.
If you liked / already own One Tree, by Garry Olson & Peter Toaig, you'll love Woodcut. If you love Speck, by Peter Buchanan-Smith, you'll love Woodcut. If you own both of Bruce Hoadley's books about wood, Woodcut will add more to your understanding of this material.
The book is what it is, a collection, probably not complete, of one artist's fascination with the most basic form of woodcut. Who'da thought there was that much to see, to know? I don't care what grows in Connecticut, particularly. (Not all that different from central NC, except we use holly and juniper where they have yew.)
Usefully, to me, the interview / explanation at the end of the book provides a lot of detail about how the prints are made and how the artist works. Inventory management is, to me, the most interesting part of many (non-painting) artists' work; how do they keep and manage the material that becomes their artwork? Gill shares.
I've put Woodcut on the shelf above my desk I look at every day, next to Art and Fear (as a perfect example of "find a way of working and follow it"). I may not take it off the shelf every day but simply looking at the spine reminds me there's way more art within arm's reach than I have even scratched the surface of making. I'm pretty sure the author and publisher didn't not intend to create a book of creative inspiration, but it's way more useful, again to me, perhaps not to you, in this line than ANY of the "improve your creativity with these 20 exercises" genre.
I am VERY happy I was able to get a copy of this book.
24 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The purchase of this book by me is really a testament to good writing, as I pre-ordered this book after reading a glowing review of it in the NYT.
I don't ordinarily buy an art book without having first seen it; however, the review coupled with the publisher (Princeton) made this a compelling choice.
I was so excited about its arrival that I even blurted out to a bookseller I know that I had just purchased a fantastic new book title 'Woodcut' etc.; a brag that I reserve for my best finds/sales.
Upon opening the packaging, I was immediately disappointed by the small size of the book (at the time of pre-ordering I didn't see any size stated).
Folks!!! This book is only approximately 10" x 10" in size (and maybe 3/4" thick in approx. 120 pps.): A laughably small size when you consider that some of the prints the author made were more than 4 FEET per side.
As such, you can imagine how small the actual reproductions are. In fact, only a single, solitary print even spills onto a second page and it doesn't fill it. The editors even went so far as to cram as many as four reproductions on to a single page: Not excusable.
The printing and binding of this book were done in China. Once again, nobody who cares about producing an art book is going to send the job to China for, her production skills are just not up to snuff at this time.
Here's why the points I have just made about this book are critical. One of the things I had wished for in this book was that the artist had taken on the task of reproducing a wide variety of tree species that occur around his studio. In other words, I had hoped a high art book with a scientific/naturalist angle enabling a reader to see, in cross-section, the species of the forest as found in his neck of the woods, Connecticut.
This the artist failed to do. He, instead, chose to reproduce pretty patterns. Again, this would have been great, but for the diminutive size of the book and prints and the less than stellar quality of the paper and reproductions. As such, these are mildly interesting but do not in any way do justice to the underlying death mask, I think.
For me, a lover and collector of art books, this book is a bit like that porridge served to David Copperfield, I, though, won't ask for more, sir!
I don't ordinarily buy an art book without having first seen it; however, the review coupled with the publisher (Princeton) made this a compelling choice.
I was so excited about its arrival that I even blurted out to a bookseller I know that I had just purchased a fantastic new book title 'Woodcut' etc.; a brag that I reserve for my best finds/sales.
Upon opening the packaging, I was immediately disappointed by the small size of the book (at the time of pre-ordering I didn't see any size stated).
Folks!!! This book is only approximately 10" x 10" in size (and maybe 3/4" thick in approx. 120 pps.): A laughably small size when you consider that some of the prints the author made were more than 4 FEET per side.
As such, you can imagine how small the actual reproductions are. In fact, only a single, solitary print even spills onto a second page and it doesn't fill it. The editors even went so far as to cram as many as four reproductions on to a single page: Not excusable.
The printing and binding of this book were done in China. Once again, nobody who cares about producing an art book is going to send the job to China for, her production skills are just not up to snuff at this time.
Here's why the points I have just made about this book are critical. One of the things I had wished for in this book was that the artist had taken on the task of reproducing a wide variety of tree species that occur around his studio. In other words, I had hoped a high art book with a scientific/naturalist angle enabling a reader to see, in cross-section, the species of the forest as found in his neck of the woods, Connecticut.
This the artist failed to do. He, instead, chose to reproduce pretty patterns. Again, this would have been great, but for the diminutive size of the book and prints and the less than stellar quality of the paper and reproductions. As such, these are mildly interesting but do not in any way do justice to the underlying death mask, I think.
For me, a lover and collector of art books, this book is a bit like that porridge served to David Copperfield, I, though, won't ask for more, sir!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By E J Hilty jr
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I would encourage anyone interested in art and humane expression to read and view this book. Then live with it for an extended period of time. Any art book must give us small images of usually larger works of art. But if you want to see sixteen pages reproducing full sized excerpts from the originals that will show you clearly the difference between a careful and caring printing process and its transformative power compared to a simple photograph, Buy this book. These are printed in black and white on paper as are many of the originals. If you want to experience one exceptional source of the shear beauty of intricate designs and textures hidden in trees, Buy this book. If you want to grasp the special sense of time and change held in the hearts of trees, Buy this book. If you want to understand a different and difficult printing process, Buy this book. I suggest you run through the preview selections until you find one of the full sized excerpts. Five stars from this reader.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The secrets of trees
Nature is endlessly fascinating, and trees, I think, most of all. They can span generations, and tell their stories in their hearts. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Tracy Rowan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Esoteric artsy
Clearly I was not the audience this book is written for, however, the book is really well written and includes the entire series of various wood prints. Read more
Published 1 month ago by InfoFish
4.0 out of 5 stars
book
I like this book, it was interesting to me
I gave it to my brother for Christmas, he hasn't said whether he likes it or not
I gave it to my brother for Christmas, he hasn't said whether he likes it or not
Published 1 month ago by D. Davis
5.0 out of 5 stars
this was given as a gift
The recipient of this book hasn't read it yet but says he will find it interesting since at present he is dealing with a slice from a 150 year old tree which willl probably become... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Joan S. Groner
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Book
My nephew loved the book. He is a restoration artist and loves to work with wood also. He found the book to be very interesting.
Published 3 months ago by Leslie Cirko
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the coffee table
Bryan Nash Gill has created a real treat here. I devoured this book, thinking "well hey, this may be hipster bait but it's pretty cool". Read more
Published 4 months ago by runningoutofideas
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting
Book is interesting with some lovely pictures. I would have like greater descriptions, however, the pictures are quite nice. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Alyson Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating and Beautiful
This book is a collection of prints of wood grains. Gill is a print artist based in Connecticut. In this book, he presents a collection representing several decades of work with... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Erika Mitchell
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well...
As far as art books go, this is rather small. And as for the subject matter, I can't say I was taken with any of the prints made from cross sections of tree trunks and limbs. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Alan Beggerow
3.0 out of 5 stars
Woodcut
My husband loves to read books about wood and so when I saw this book as a potential Vine book I picked it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Gail Rodgers
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