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SWISS PAINTING by Florens Deuchler, Marcel Roethlisberger and Hans Lüthy. 198 pages. Skira/Rizzoli. $45. One calumny on Switzerland runs that 500 years of democracy produced the cuckoo clock. Naturally, the three Swiss academicians who produced this book dispute the insult. They also show some indecision about whether there is such a thing as Swiss art, as opposed to art that happened to be created in Switzerland. The country never fostered the influential art centers that flourished in Italy and France. It did give birth to at least two masters—Holbein and Fuseli. This volume includes them but concentrates on a host of lesser-knowns who moved uneasily—and not always satisfactorily—between wider European and narrower native traditions.
$29.95 TO $40.00
BIRDS OF THE WEST COAST. VOLUME I. Paintings and Drawings by J.F. Lansdowne. 175 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $40. Lansdowne is one of today's leading bird painters. In this, his latest work, he turns to the bird life of his native Canadian West. Of his childhood on Vancouver Island Lansdowne writes, "I vividly recall the plummeting, erratic nighthawks of summer evenings, the flocks of plaintive waxwings and the great, flame-crested pileated woodpeckers that hammered at the roadside stumps." For Volume I the artist has selected 53 species to illustrate, including numerous sea birds and the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the endangered national emblem of the U.S., which thrives in western Canada.
PEOPLE OF THE FIRST MAN. Edited by Davis Thomas and Karin Ronnefeldt. 256 pages. Dutton. $29.95. The Plains Indian warrior was not only proud but prosperous as well. Sioux, Minnetaree. Assiniboin, Cree and Mandan were among the tribes who lived in high style before the European invaders manifested their destiny. The Indians' chief sources of wealth were the bison and the horse. In 1883 the German explorer and naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied and his Swiss-born companion, Artist Karl Bodmer, traveled among the tribes. The result was Maximilian's diaries, packed with details of Indian life and Bodmer's stunning watercolors. It was a happy marriage of ethnology and art, as the reader is now able to see in this finely produced book.
STAINED GLASS. Photographs by Sonia Halliday and Laura Lushington. 207 pages. Crown. $39.95. The authors traveled throughout Europe selecting and photographing the world's finest examples of sacred and profane stained glass. The result is a comprehensive guide, from the llth century Old Testament windows in Augsburg Cathedral to the 20th century revival of the craft as seen in modern churches as well as the temples of commerce and art. The text and layout by Lawrence Lee, George Seddon and Francis Stephens provide a rich historical context; a final illustrated chapter explains the methods of stained-glass artisans.