Artistry In Arms

This presents the artistry of Ralph Parsons Bone, Master Engraver and custom gun and knife maker, in conjunction with the knife-making artistry of Enedino De Leon and several custom gun makers, with whom Bone chose to collaborate his artistry. The Artistry of Ralph P Bone displays the quality and progression of Bone's multifaceted artistry. The book provides details of Bone's life, commencing with his venturing into knife-making, as a kid, and to highlighting his multiple careers. Bone was best known as a custom knife maker, for the first one half of his life, and, later, as a custom gun maker and highly innovative master engraver, which latter profession he pursued until his death. In Section 1, the reader is familiarized with the standard and non-standard knife models, designed and produced by Bone, throughout his career. Specific information is provided to enable the reader to readily identify and to determine the approximate production time line of any Ralph Bone knife. Included are illustrations of all Standard Production knives of the company, along with non-standard production and a few Special Order, prototype, experimental and one-of-a-kind knives produced. Section 1, also, introduces Enedino De Leon, who Bone acclaimed as his favorite knife maker. De Leon commenced his knife making career, as a young man, under Bone's tutorship, and became very famous and perpetuated Bone's knife making legacy for fifty years, until De Leon's own death. Also included in Section 1 is the writer's estimate of the total knife production volume of, both, Bone and Enedino De Leon, at the Ralph Bone Knife Company and throughout their lives. In Section 2, The Gunmaking and Engraving Artistry of Ralph Parsons Bone, delves into Ralph Bone's career as a highly accomplished custom gun maker and Master Firearms Engraver. First was to display the development of Bone's talent as an artist and an entirely self-taught Master Engraver which, commenced when he was a teenager. The writer chose to present examples of Bone's gun making and engravings in date order of his performance, noting the progressive development of his talent, and his unique engraving innovations, which gained him special attention from the industry and c) the infinite attention to detail, with which he executed his work. Also presented are illustrations of Bone's engravings, in conjunction with the talent of a few highly talented custom gun makers with whom he chose to work. With the permission of Master Engraver Ron Smith, included are excerpts from Smith's first book "Drawing & Understanding Scroll Designs (for Artists, Engravers and Collectors)". Specific examples of Ralph Bone's engravings are presented to highlight Smith's instructions. The purpose, in doing so, was to seize the opportunity to orient the most casual reader to the basic characteristics of fine engraving and to point out specific attributes of Ralph Bone's engraving talent. Also in Section 2 are examples of Ralph Bone's Celtic engravings, which captivated a substantial amount of his engraving attention and ingenuity, during the last twenty years of his life. The writer points out that Celtic engraving is not, generally, pursued by most American engravers. Accordingly, along with presenting Bone's engravings, a bit of Celtic history and concepts of Celtic art are included to entice observers' attention and to encourage appreciation of Bone's innovations and creativity at Celtic artistry and engraving. America has produced some of the finest Master Engravers that the world has known. Ralph P Bone, certainly, was among them. "The Artistry of Ralph P Bone" seeks, specifically, to acquaint and to entertain the reader with the man's remarkable multiple talents at knife making, custom gun making and engraving.

A vibrant and original perspective on the American Revolution through the stories of the five great artists whose paintings animated the new American republic. The images accompanying the founding of the United States--of honored Founders, dramatic battle scenes, and seminal moments--gave visual shape to Revolutionary events and symbolized an entirely new concept of leadership and government. Since then they have endured as indispensable icons, serving as historical documents and timeless reminders of the nation's unprecedented beginnings. As Paul Staiti reveals in Of Arms and Artists, the lives of the five great American artists of the Revolutionary period--Charles Willson Peale, John Singleton Copley, John Trumbull, Benjamin West, and Gilbert Stuart--were every bit as eventful as those of the Founders with whom they continually interacted, and their works contributed mightily to America's founding spirit. Living in a time of breathtaking change, each in his own way came to grips with the history they were living through by turning to brushes and canvases, the results often eliciting awe and praise, and sometimes scorn. Their imagery has connected Americans to 1776, allowing us to interpret and reinterpret the nation's beginning generation after generation. The collective stories of these five artists open a fresh window on the Revolutionary era, making more human the figures we have long honored as our Founders, and deepening our understanding of the whirlwind out of which the United States emerged.

The fascinating story of the American inventor and manufacturer who perfected the revolver Samuel Colt (1814-1862) first patented his "Colt" revolver in 1835 and thereby redefined the architecture of handguns. This stunning book is the first to present in detail the evolution of his most famous invention and to document the unsurpassed Colt firearms collections held by the Wadsworth Atheneum. Colt designed his revolvers with an artistic sensibility--paying particular attention to form and beauty and juxtaposing colors and finishes to heighten the visual effects. He was also one of the first American manufacturers to secure celebrity endorsements and to commission paintings by renowned artists like George Catlin to promote his arms. Colt's standards for excellence, industrial foresight, and quest for market domination are explored in light of primary documents that reveal his constant battles to protect his patents. Essays discuss Colt's personal collection of historic firearms as well as the memorial collection of Colt-manufactured firearms, the relationship between art and commerce as they pertain to the inventor's career, and his international celebrity. Richly illustrated and beautifully produced, this volume presents the artistry of the firearms that Colt worked so diligently to perfect--as well as his promotional abilities that made a tremendous impact on American culture.

Engravers and embellishers of arms are the stars of this loving tribute to the artistry of firearms.

Through the exceptional permanent collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this book looks at arms and armor as art--from warfare to war games, from hunting to the pursuit of glory The Philadelphia Museum of Art's holdings of arms and armor are among the finest of their kind in the world. Presenting nearly 100 masterpieces from the collection, this lavishly illustrated volume includes complete armors and armor elements, swords, firearms and crossbows, staff weapons, horse equipment, and related accessories. Drawn for the most part from the princely armories of Europe, these objects represent the epitome of the armorer's art, and many are published here in color for the first time. The engaging text by Dirk H. Breiding summarizes the latest scholarship and discusses how the museum's collection--the core of which consists of a 1977 bequest by the distinguished connoisseur and scholar Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch (1884-1976)--has evolved over the years. This volume reveals how arms and armor--uniting art, fashion, design, politics, and technology--can be seen as unique expressions of human creativity.

Continuing the tradition of such revered masters of anatomy as Andrew Loomis and Burne Hogarth, but with his own, refreshingly original approach, is highly regarded artist and teacher Patrick J. Jones. In this unique, practical guide - a follow-up to the bestselling Sci-Fi & Fantasy Oil Painting Techniques (Korero, 2014) - Patrick takes the daunting task of learning human anatomy and breaks it into step-by-step stages that cover the critical foundation that every figurative artist needs to know.

The history of American firearms is inseparable from the history of the United States, for firearms have played crucial roles in the nation’s founding, westward expansion, and industrial, economic, and cultural development. This history unfolds in compelling words and images in A Legacy in Arms, a volume that draws upon the collections of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City to trace the business and art of gun making from the early national period to the turn of the twentieth century. With more than 200 images—almost all in full color—A Legacy in Arms not only documents the inspiration and innovation of arms makers from individual artisans to mass producers, but also describes the development of decorative expression in the gun maker’s art. In an account both entertaining and enlightening, Richard C. Rattenbury details the development of commercial arms making, from the genesis of the Kentucky rifle to the arms of such iconic manufacturers as Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Sharps, Marlin, and Winchester. Into this narrative he weaves the particulars of design evolution and the impact of mass production via the “American System.” The accompanying photographs and illustrations stand as eloquent testimony to the range and richness of the gun maker's craft—and its rightful place in the story of American industry and culture.