The Challenge of Emulation in Art and Architecture

' ... Mayernik makes his argument for emulation in the most persuasive and instructive way possible - that is, by doing it. This luxuriously illustrated book, predominantly - and uniquely - featuring the author's own pencil sketches, oil paintings, frescoes, photographs, designs, and even his built buildings, is an astonishing tour de force. The road map towards the recovery of architecture, after decades of decay, is presented in this ambitious book. The road may be at times meandering and hard to discern, but the book maps it out with unassailable erudition and convincing conviction. It is a book any serious student of the arts would be well advised to read, and all who practice art or architecture should be obliged to read. ' The Institute for Sacred Architecture 'Mayernik's meditation on emulation and its important role in imitative and inventive practice, despite the degree of its subjectivity, provides a good overview of the subject, the historical stakes, and the experience of artists: in this case by an artist working in greater proximity to the period in question than those early modern artists contemplating their antique predecessors.' Renaissance Quarterly 'As a timely response to a hot topic today, David Mayernik's new book deftly puts to rest the question in architecture and art of Imitation versus Invention? that currently vexes so many. This book, like a definition of tradition itself, is set squarely in the present, looks deeply into the past with rare illumination, and confidently guides us to a beautiful future.' Traditional Building Magazine