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5. HIDDEN TREASURES REVEALED By Albert Kostenevich (Abrams; $49.50). If you didn't have the frequent-flyer miles to pop over to St. Petersburg last year for the "Hidden Treasures" exhibition at Russia's Hermitage Museum, be advised that the show has been extended until March 31, 1996. Or consider these 74 reproductions of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from the museum's previously covert collection. Most of these works by Monet, Renoir, Degas and other French masters were "liberated" from private German collections after World War II and for many years were thought to have been destroyed in the conflict. Preserved during the cold war, the pictures are back in circulation, as ageless and apolitical as ever.
6. GIOTTO By Francesca Flores d'Arcais (Abbeville; $95). That Europe's old churches are monuments to high art as well as the Holy Spirit is nowhere more evident than in Italy, especially in the work of Giotto di Bondone (circa 1266-1337). His achievement, acclaimed in clear word and luminous illustration, was to introduce naturalism and drama to Byzantine and medieval art. Flores d'Arcais's scholarship is a reminder that what was revolutionary in the 14th century can still seem visionary today.
7. GEOFFREY BEENE Text by Brenda Cullerton (Abrams; $49.50). This harmonious retrospective shows that in skillful hands, fashion can be both bold and fad-free. Over 30 years, Beene has gone his own American way, far from the hot spots of Paris and Milan. His knowledge of fabric is extensive. Better still, he drapes closely to the contours of a real woman's body. Dramatic pictures by several photographers illustrate how the style of this tactile artist evolved, and a spirited coda offers some tart bits of Beeniana. For example: "Dressing for success is something unsuccessful women do." 8. FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED: DESIGNING THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE By Charles E. Beveridge and Paul Rocheleau (Rizzoli; $70). Anyone who strolls through Central Park, the campus of Stanford University or the grounds around the U.S. Capitol can give thanks to Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), America's greatest landscape architect. Add to those legacies his designs for green spaces around cities, his progressive writings and a tireless concern for social reform. This superb survey documents a major civic achievement.
CULTURE
9. CREATING FRENCH CULTURE Edited by Marie-Helene Tesniere and Prosser Gifford (Yale; $65). A lavish labor of love that perhaps only libraries, in this case France's Bibliotheque Nationale, can inspire. Twelve centuries of manuscripts, from medieval illuminations to the writings of De Gaulle and Sartre, are reproduced here with an informative if dry text. It argues that in France, the link between libraries and power is important, perhaps never more so than now, when the state is moving the vast resource to a new site at the rate of 50,000 artifacts a day.