Fifteen volumes offer a world of worship, nature and art
Leonardo da Vinci's Landscapes, Plants and Water Studies (Johnson Reprint Corp.; $4,600; after Dec. 31, $5,500) reproduces 70 sheets of drawings, unbound and printed recto and verso, from the hand and mind of genius. Whether he drew acorns, flowers, an oncoming thunderstorm or doodles, Leonardo worked magic. This project is every bit as magnificent as its price. The drawings come in a large portfolio box, accompanied by a 250-page volume of text and notes; the whole production is partly bound in royal blue Nigerian goatskin. It would be less expensive to jet to Britain and wangle an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to browse in her private collection. But even then, the fortunate traveler would return emptyhanded. Thanks to Johnson Reprint, the closest things to Leonardo's originals are to be had and held.
To the user pottery is a craft; to the collector it is an art. How high an art can be seen in Song Ceramics (Rizzoli; 262 pages; $100) by Mary Tregear. During China's felicitously named Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1278), expanding trade provided the artists of the Middle Kingdom with new sources of income and fresh creative energies. As Oxford Curator Tregear notes, "Every class in society [could be] regarded as a patron, inspiring or encouraging either the growth or selection of a particular style of pottery." The pieces showed continuing variety: white glazes, hard stoneware, porcelain, greenware; dishes of great poise and deceptive simplicity. Even humble spittoons were elegantly designed with a finely crackled finish. Tregear includes hundreds of pictures, plus a wealth of details—the design of the kilns and the chemistry of the clays. The missing ingredient is the Song spark of genius, which disappeared with the coming of the Mongols and has never been reignited.
Sex! Horror! Humor! Fairground Art (Abbeville; 312 pages; $85) offers 1,100 illustrations (700 in glorious color) of European and American carnival equipment and advertising, many of which deserve an exclamation mark. Authors Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward provide a pictorial history of their eye-catching subject, from the primitive wedding-cake carousels of the last century to the heavy-metal speed rides of today. The history of the merry-go-round discloses an intriguing variety of national tastes. Americans preferred animals in armor; the French were fond of cats and bunnies; and the Germans liked galloping pigs. As fascinating as banners portraying the Jolly Fat Lady, the Cardiff Giant and the proverbial Two-Headed Calf were the artists who created these icons of the bizarre. The exemplary Snap Wyatt, a cigar-smoking sign painter, became one of America's midway masters in his Florida studio. He once built a 9-ft.-tall animated elephant stepping on a convicted Hindu for a traveling "torture show." Behind these neon-bright screams for attention, one can almost hear the barker . and smell the caramel corn.