Oak Hardcover – October 19, 2011

This is a must read for any artist, or lover of art. A previously unexamined oak tree in the U.K. countryside literally becomes the muse of artist Stephen Taylor, who lovingly walks the reader through his three-year odyssey of capturing the character of the tree in a series of oil paintings. This is not just a pretty coffee table book (although the plates are gorgeous). Rather, it is a contemplative effort, folding in the personal development of Mr. Taylor in his chosen field with elements of botany and horticulture. The book helped me appreciate the life of an artist as well as his deciduous subject.Degas had his ballerinas, and Claude Monet's fixation with water lilies gave the world some of the most breathtaking paintings ever created. After reading this book, you will definitely make room for Stephan Taylor's oak!

Fascinating! I love trees.

This is a beautifully executed idea -- a series of pictures of the same tree over time. Media differ and the renditions are sensitive, re-engaging with the subject afresh each time.

I gave this a gift to a very talented artist friend so she would continue to see that nothing stays the same not even the same thing.

This is about that rare place where soul, masterly skill, patience, and artistry come together. I get 'lost' in the paintings in this book and that is normally only achieved in front of the walls at the great galleries of the world.

This is a beautiful book; however I was not expecting to be an art-type book. I thought it would be fiction.

I found the art of the oak tree arresting...expressing extraordinary variation in different lights and different seasons. But the reason I bought it, is that it deals with having a genuine aesthetic experience, in place, though quiet observation.An oak is rooted in place. In an age when so many find it necessary, for stimulation and inspiration, to travel all over the world...to climb mountains; to trek into the wilderness; to explore different nations...I find the whole idea of finding one's universe in one's back yard, most appealing. The book doesn't disappoint, and it's, I propose, an insight, into a particular approach to home grown wisdom.It's not only about this place to live, projecting, it's about YOUR place to live....and seeing it, and appreciating it, in new ways and at new times.

In the maelstrom of the contemporary art world where an obsession with the avant-garde and a hyperactive search for the new are the defining factors it is fascinating to find an artist focusing on the aesthetics of a single tree in a field. This book describes and documents the painting of a 250-year old oak tree in a field near West Bergholt, Essex. The studies, photographs and paintings were made outdoors over three years in different weather and times of day. Larger paintings were made in the studio using colour studies and digital photographs. The artist investigates the botanical qualities of the genus Quercus and the scientific association between colour and texture in visual processing. But the book is also a personal journey examining family and social memory, the emblematic symbolism of an oak tree, references to the English pastoral music of Vaughan-Williams, the poetry of TS Eliot, and Constable who painted in this part of Essex. It is also a book about visual discovery and artist's technique, observing the tree under different conditions. The artist also analyses the visual processing of colour-textures - the psychological perception of texture gradients and how the human eye focuses, judges distance and views nature. What might at first appear to be a contemporary painter's manual concerned with a traditional, realistic approach to painting is more of a human meditation about thinking about nature. A Zen approach to painting, existence and the cycle of nature.