Art books: The artful gift

For those art-lovers on your list, it's a great season for books on Renaissance painting and Modern architecture. But rest assured, there is something to suit almost everyone in this year's offerings, from the latest in imaginative photography to earth art and cosmically attuned gardens. Here are a few of my top choices.

"Memling's Portraits," edited by Till-Holger Borchert (Thames & Hudson, $45): People are lining up at the Frick Museum in New York to get a peek at 20 exquisite portraits by this master of the Northern European Renaissance. For those of us who weren't lucky enough catch the show earlier this year in Madrid, Spain, or Bruges, Belgium, and who won't make it to New York by year's end, this lovely catalog amply demonstrates the heart-stopping technique and sensitivity of a superb 15th-century painter. With 120 color illustrations, it's a book that's sure to please the connoisseur on your list.

"Architectural Digest: Hollywood at Home," edited by Paige Rense (Abrams, $40): Let's face it: A bit of voyeurism is natural when it comes to observing the lives of movie stars. This book gets us inside the hideaways of Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Steven Spielberg and Orson Wells, to name a few — which range from over-the-top opulence to sleek modernism. One highlight is a section on the beautiful 110-acre estate St. Clerans, near Galway, Ireland, which John Huston restored and reveled in. He collected art and made a museum of his home, where he frequently entertained celebrity friends, including the artist Morris Graves.

"Loretta Lux," essay by Francine Prose (Aperture, $35): The German-born Lux started out as a painter and has been experimenting with photography since 1999. She manipulates and digitally composes images, turning them into unsettling artificial portraits of children, more like little aliens or fairytale creatures than real flesh-and-blood beings. These picture will make you squirm. It's the first monograph of Lux's work, but judging from the number of co-workers hanging around my desk to gawk at it, I'd bet we will be seeing more from her.

"Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty" (Dia Art Foundation, University of California Press $39.95): Marking the 30th anniversary of the completion of Smithson's massive earthwork in Utah's Great Salt Lake, this intriguing book looks into the (sometimes quirky) philosophy that propelled the late artist to alter the Western landscape in a big way. Smithson's jetty of rock, salt crystal and mud spirals 1,500 feet through the lake's shallows and, over the years since it was built, has submerged and then reappeared as the water levels shifted. Stunning photographs document the eerie moods and strange coloration of the evolving artwork.

"Louis I. Kahn" by Robert McCarter (Phaidon, $85): You saw the movie ("My Architect"), now read the book. This comprehensive new study of one of the great 20th-century architects looks at both his life and the truly awe-inspiring work that made him a star — from the graceful curves of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, to the breathtaking expanses of the Bangladesh National Capital. With a face scarred by burns from a childhood accident and a background in poverty, Kahn led a personal life that was awkward and conflicted. He didn't cut the dashing figure of Frank Lloyd Wright or some other celebrity architects, but his genius continues to inspire.

"Moving Horizons, The Landscape Architecture of Kathryn Gustafson and Partners" by Jane Amidon (Birkhauser, $88): The Seattle-based landscape designer has projects around the world, including the controversial, on-again-off-again Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London's Hyde Park. Much of Gustafson's work involves water, often in subtle and poetic displays. This recent book, though pricey, captivatingly documents Gustafson's distinctive landscapes, including Seattle's new Civic Center and the walk-on-water promenade outside McCaw Hall.

"Inspired Shapes: Contemporary Designs for Japan's Ancient Crafts" by Ori Koyama (Kodansha America, $37.50): Stark, elegant, nuanced: Japan has a distinctive aesthetic that can turn the simplest tool into an object of veneration. This lovely book shows how contemporary craftsmen define the shapes of everyday objects, from forks to bookends, calligraphy brushes to teakettles. Of course the book is considerately put together, too, with just-right photographs by Mizuho Kuwata. "Inspired Shapes" will make you want to throw away all your accumulations of stuff and live with just the basics, finely wrought.

"Fra Angelico" (The Metropolitan Museum and Yale University Press $65): The catalog for one of the season's blockbuster exhibitions, this opulent book examines the career of the 15th-century Dominican friar and artist known as Fra Angelico. His gold-haloed, otherworldly paintings of biblical scenes are meant to inspire devotion and awe — and they succeed. The essays by Metropolitan Museum curator Laurence Kanter and other experts may be aimed at scholars, but you don't need an art history degree to love the scores of exquisite full-color illustrations.

"Buildings in Wood: The History & Traditions of Architecture's Oldest building Material" by Will Price (Rizzoli, $75): Anyone who appreciates exquisite design and craftsmanship will drool over this lovely book. Its author and photographer scoured the world for the most extraordinary examples of wooden buildings, ancient and modern. Turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that many of them are temples, churches and monasteries, although some houses and hotels make the cut as well. Regardless, these buildings can inspire pilgrimages — or simply bring you to your knees.

"The Garden of Cosmic Speculation" by Charles Jencks (Francis Lincoln, $45): If you think of gardens as attractive arrangements of plants or the only logical place to plunk the barbecue and picnic table, this book is not for you. But if you appreciate the metaphoric qualities of European mazes and Zen gardens, if you're intrigued by fractals and the spiraling patterns of DNA, you'll find much to love in this contemporary take on the way art, science, spirituality and landscape can meld into one cosmically aligned whole.

"The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult" (Yale University Press, $65): One of the season's sassiest books "The Perfect Medium" reveals all in a flurry of ghosts, ectoplasm and levitating tables — the how, why and wherefore of good old-fashioned spirit photography. To the jaded modern eye, tuned-in to computer-generated imagery and amazing special effects, these early staged photos look pretty hokey. But in the early days of the camera, plenty of people saw these pictures as convincing evidence of otherworldly visitations. Go ahead: Whip out that old Leica and try some of these tricks at home.

"The Oxford Companion to the Photograph" edited by Robin Lenman ( Oxford University Press, $65): At 769 pages it's a ton of a book, but for photography hobbyists and pros this substantial reference will be a handy guide. It includes 800 biographical entries on top photographers as well as capsule information on movements, equipment and terminology — amply dotted with photographic illustrations throughout.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com