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CLOCKS & WATCHES by Johann Willsberger. Dial. $30. Telling the time was once a minor reason for looking at a clock. In ages more leisurely than the present, timepieces were objects of art as well as of utility, as this album of nearly 130 examples amply proves. Watches were decoratively (and ingeniously) grafted on to fans, necklaces, needle cases and hand mirrors. Clocks were emblazoned with statuary and paintings. Yet Photographer Willsberger presents more than just a collection of pretty faces. Even his earliest samples, dating from the 15th century, are marvels of mathematical complexity. One clock by Abraham Louis Bréguet (circa 1810) not only gave the time; it also recorded the lunar date, the earthly day, date, month and year—and the temperature.
$16 TO $29.95
BUTTERFLIES by Thomas C. Emmel. 244 pages. Knopf. $29.95. Some of these rare Lepidoptera are so luminescent they produce optical shock. Even the commoner varieties blend the lyrical with the clinical, intriguing both scientist and layman. Accompanying facts are as remarkable as the closeup images. The ubiquitous orange monarch, for example, is the only true round-trip migrant among the world's 20,000 species. Although only one family of butterflies is called satyrs, most males exhibit an aggressive libido as soon as they emerge from the chrysalis—they can detect females by odor, flight signals, and ultraviolet waves imperceptible to the human eye. Any colors that are perceptible are gathered here in a great rainbow of a book for collectors of butterflies, books, or examples of classic nature photography.
NORMAN ROCKWELL'S AMERICA by Christopher Finch. 313 pages. Abrams. $29.95. Rockwell's forte was home-town America, the sort of country that people still draw in their hearts. Here are his best, including every one of his Saturday Evening Post covers. The section on soldiers' goings and homecomings recalls the days when wars seemed just, and how proud and fine it was to welcome home the boys-become-men who fought them. The 1960s are reflected in some trenchant paintings, among them an indelible portrait of a little black girl on her way to an integrated school, surrounded by U.S. marshals.
THE SEEING HAND: A TREASURY OF GREAT MASTER DRAWINGS by Colin Eisler. Harper & Row. $29.95. The appreciation of drawings tends to be an extremely private pleasure—with good reason. Easily affected by light and air, sketches by the masters are usually kept locked safely away in museum cellars or, more inaccessible, stashed in private collections. Art Historian Colin Eisler combed the museums and collections of the world before allowing more than 300 illustrations to go public. He includes some of the finest examples of draftsmanship, from the French, German and Italian Renaissance to such moderns as Klee, Mondrian and de Kooning. Nearly half of the drawings are meticulously reproduced in their original tints.