Bram Dijkstra - Reception

Reception

Hieroglyphics of a New Speech

• “Dijkstra catches the excitement of this period of revolutionary art, reveals the interactions between writers and painters, and shows in particular the specific and general impact this world had on Williams’s early writings.” – Literary Studies: Art

• “In this good book, with competence in matters of both painting and poetry Dijkstra most usefully clarifies an area of literary history that has hitherto been somewhat uncertainly documented.” – American Literary Scholarship, 1970.

Idols of Perversity

• “Idols of Perversity is one of those…books that…changes the rules forever, engaging the full sweep of fin de siècle European painting right alongside the aggressively political feminism that stormed campuses in the wake of the women’s movement of the 1970s.” – Publishers Weekly, Oct. 14, 1996.

• “Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture is an ambitious interdisciplinary study, reviewed favorably in newspapers from the New York Times to the Baltimore Sun, which called it 'a monumental labor of profound importance.'” – Publishers Weekly, Oct. 14, 1996.

Evil Sisters

• “An ideological study tracing the roots of distorted ideas of gender, sex and race.” – San Diego Magazine, Dec. 1996.

• “ has a way of refocusing the lens of cultural analysis on images and texts, so that the once taken for granted is seen wholly anew. Virtually every page is sprinkled with nuggets of insight, evidence of scholarly command of the material and expository skill.” – San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 20, 1996.

• “…so thorough is its critique of pseudo-scientific views of race and gender.” – Publishers Weekly, Oct. 14, 1996.

• “Dijkstra provides another scholarly work that reveals the historical basis for gender and race imagery and conflict in modern culture, especially in film and television…This compelling, thought-provoking work is recommended especially for academic libraries and gender studies collections.” – Library Journal, Oct. 1, 1996.

• “Dijkstra writes so compellingly that in his hands what might be portentous is a page-turning good read.” – Booklist, Oct. 1, 1996.

Georgia O'Keeffee and the Eros of Place

• "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Eros of Place… rewards the persistent reader by shedding new light on a remarkable career.” - Michael Berry, The Moving Finger, Feb. 20, 1999.

• “…writes lyrically of how the sense of landscape set the stage for O’Keefe’s life.” – The Sunday Oregonian, Jan. 10, 1999.

• “Beautifully written and painstakingly researched, Georgia O’Keeffe and the Eros of Place is a major resentment of O’Keefee’s place in American culture and a tribute to the artist’s steadfast refusal to abandon her “provincial” belief in the shaping spirit of place.” - Princeton University Press

American Expressionism

• “…Rescue(s) a generation of art too long forgotten.” - New Labor Forum, Summer 2004.

• “American Expressionism brings back into the light a revolutionary generation of artists whom cynicism had conspired, for half a century and more, to airbrush out.” – San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 10, 2003.

• “This story is important to all who care about American art and society.” – Los Angeles Times. Book Review. July 6, 2003.

• “Landmark study...carefully conceived...compellingly recasts and revitalizes the social realist period of American art...a valuable addition.” - Library Journal, June 1, 2003.

• “This is a provocative, important book.” - Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2003.

Naked: The Nude In America

• “ gorgeously illustrated look at the nude in art, photography and pop culture. This coffee-table stunner boasts 400 color illustrations of male and female nudes throughout history.” – San Diego Magazine, Dec. 2010.

• "The Sexiest Nude Art You've Never Seen: A gorgeous new book, Naked by Bram Dijkstra, highlights the most famous, eye-popping, game-changing pieces of naked artwork in the world... Check out all of the envelope-pushing paintings, photographs, sketches, and sculptures in the new book Naked: The Nude in America by Bram Dijkstra." - Cosmopolitan

• "...gorgeously illustrated book called Naked which explores the traditional, the beautiful, and the shocking in the portrayal of the nude in America... a tremendously beautiful coffee table book." - Carone, Angela, and Maureen Cavanaugh, "Looking at Nudity in American Art," KPBS, Oct. 26, 2010.

• “…It’s all in there, gorgeous, raw and illuminating. Some works shock, and others are comfortingly conventional, but they all reward the viewer’s patient scrutiny.” – The San Diego Union Tribune, Nov. 7, 2010.

• “In “Naked,” Dijkstra…deftly assembles a richly illustrated history of the American nude that spans centuries and media.” – Artinfo.com, Oct. 27, 2010.