Book Description

Marc Chagall is one of the 20th century's favorite artists, known and admired for his rich palette, his inventive approach, his accessible subjects, and the deep traditions behind his work. Combining fantasy, spirituality, and nostalgia with a distinctive modern painting style, Chagall's canvases are infused with a joyous, dreamlike simplicity. Even as styles shifted from Cubism to Suprematism to Surrealism, his work remained individual and idiosyncratic-sometimes harming his art world reputation, but never his popular appeal.

Marc Chagall is the first full-scale survey of the artist's work in almost 20 years. The lush color reproductions include some 60 paintings and 80 works on paper. An introductory essay by Jean-Michel Foray contextualizes the Russian-born artist's work, while a heavily illustrated chronology of Chagall's life-put together by his granddaughter and Jakov Bruk-details the many stages of his career. The work is organized into four sections, each with an introduction by Foray, to help make sense of his prodigious oeuvre. The beautifully designed volume accompanies a major retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ... Read more

Book Description

An in-depth look at the fascinating sculptural works of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative artists

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986)—a German sculptorand performance artist—became one of the most influential figures in modern and contemporary art. His charismatic presence, extraordinary life, and unconventional artistic style (incorporating ritualized movement and sound, and materials such as fat, felt, earth, honey, blood, and even dead animals) gained him international notoriety during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Beuys’s innovative influence is particularly felt in the field of sculpture, whose definition he expanded to encompass performance art, vitrine cases, and site-specific environments.

This beautifully illustrated book investigates Beuys’s sculpture, arguably the most fundamental portion of his artistic work, as well as his extraordinary influence. Featured objects include a stunning selection of Beuys’s remarkable vitrines—sly cousins of standard museum presentations, featuring both hand-made and found objects serving as “exhibitions” on Beuys’s own topics; blackboards on which he recorded his lectures and performances; room-sized environments; and many other sculptural projects that frequently served as physical documentation for Beuys’s performances.

With a comprehensive chronology of Beuys’s activities as an artist and activist, this book is essential for those interested in the life, work, and legacy of one of the art world’s most intriguing figures.

Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments accompanies a major exhibition on view at The Menil Collection, Houston (October 8, 2004, to January 2, 2005) and the Tate Modern, London (February 2 to May 3, 2005).

Mark Rosenthal is adjunct curator at The Menil Collection; Sean Rainbird is curator at the Tate Modern; and Claudia Schmuckli, formerly assistant curator at the Museum of Modern Art, is an independent critic of contemporary art.




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Reviews (2)

Great book for the price
Cassatt was no Sargent or Hassam, but her style reflects sensitivity and charm. This is a great book to own about Cassatt, full of good plates and at a bargain price. You can't go wrong with this one!

So close . . .
I'm a semester into a fine arts degree and desperatly searching for a TRUE female role model in the painterly art.

Sigh - - - Mary Cassatt ain't it.

Sadly, I believe that, Mary Cassatt's only claim to LASTING aesthetic fame is that she is American and FEMALE: not that she had anything unique or new (in her time) to say in her paintings. ... Read more

Amazon.com

"Photography is nothing, it's life that interests me." With his ever-present Leica camera, Henri Cartier-Bresson captured the raw and the sweet, the comic and the profound moments of lives that were lost in the grind or relegated to someone else's memory--the coincidental moment at which a reflection in a puddle of water mimics a poster on a nearby wall or when lovers kiss, oblivious to the not-so-pristine world around them. It is the familiar beauty and cruelty of the day-to-day that is so engaging in his photographs: two cosmopolitan woman chat nonchalantly while surrounded by empty lettuce crates; mourners at a funeral stare directly into the camera; postwar Paris awakens in the fog. Cartier-Bresson was the master of the "decisive moment," that fleeting instant for which a picture really is worth a thousand words, which is the essence of photojournalism. In no place is this more exemplified than in his images of Paris.

Cartier-Bresson personally selected the more than 130 black-and-white photographs of Paris for this publication. With photographs taken over a period of 50 years, the work is beautifully and generously printed in duotone. The accompanying essays, both short and unobtrusive, are also familiar and personal. One essayist captures the essence of Cartier-Bresson's camera work: "When life calls, he is always there, to assist, or to admire; to rebel, or to say no to exploiters and imposters, and to all those who demean its value." --Manine Golden ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Must See, Must Have
Anyone who is a serious student of photography should have this book. Anyone who is curious as to what "great" photographs should look like, look inside and be enlightened. The public at large tends to regard black and white photographs as inferior to color work. The truth is, a black and white photograph will stand the test of time, while a color photograph starts fading the moment it comes out of the dryer. The truth is, any good black and white photograph will make you overlook the fact that it's not in color. The mind's eye makes you see the "color." Cartier-Bresson is a true master. His work that's shown in this book is every superlative that's ever been coined, including the vulgarities. Viewing the photographs within is worth a dozen books on compositional theory. Each is a benchmark of what a quality photograph should look like. A Propos de Paris truly is a must see, must have.

Great!
this book should get five stars for the photo of two dogs behind the church alone. Perhaps it says a bit more about this reviewer than it should, but that photo is one of my favorites - I just could not stop laughing! The photo essay ranges over about three decades and the pictures are not your typical pictures of the Eiffel Tower or of the Arc de Triomphe but rather people and places and neighborhoods of Paris. One gets the feeling of sneaking a peek into these people's lives. Cartier-Bresson is a master behind the lens and this is his city, so you can't expect less than the best - and he doesn't disappoint. (check out the two dogs...)

Composition Genius
Henri is a genius in composition. This book records over and over how Henri is able to not just break the rules on composing a photgraph, but re-write them. That unique ability is amazing. Especially when viewed in conjunction with his ability to capture people in the precise moment he needs to -- in order to communicate the image he must anticipate with a great sense of intuition. The photographs in this book are just a delight to visit over and over again.

How does he do it?
The epitome of the snapshot. HCB has such an eye for composition; counterpoint, balance, symmetry, symbolism and just plain humour. I find myself shaking my head, often in disbelief at how he manages time and again to catch that 'decisive moment'. This book has his Paris prints beautifully reproduced and the one-line descriptions mirror the mood of the entire collection - glimpses of life, love, conflict, smells, textures in that colourful city. Colour rendered in black and white!

Half a century of monochrome one-liners - HCB en Paris!
Henri Cartier-Bresson, master of (creator indeed of the phrase) 'the decisive moment,' here celebrates over 50 years of observation and humour from his home base of Paris, France. Everything from gunfights (against the Nazis) to dogfights (well, they're actually making love not war) is here, captured by the fastest shutter finger in the business.

Cartier-Bresson is 90 this year, and has gathered together a beautifully rendered set of 131 plates, any one of which is good enough for over the mantelpiece. As a coffee-table book, A Propos de Paris will entertain you and flatter your tastes as far as your guests are concerned. ... Read more

Book Description

When it first appeared in 1971, Larry Clark's groundbreaking book Tulsa sparked immediate controversy across the nation. Its graphic depictions of sex, violence, and drug abuse in the youth culture of Oklahoma were acclaimed by critics for stripping bare the myth that Middle America had been immune to the social convulsions that rocked America in the 1960s. The raw, haunting images taken in 1963, 1968, and 1971 document a youth culture progressively overwhelmed by self-destruction -- and are as moving and disturbing today as when they first appeared. Originally published in a limited paperback version and republished in 1983 as a limited hardcover edition commissioned by the author, rare-book dealers sell copies of this book for more than a thousand dollars. Now in both hardcover and paperback editions from Grove Press, this seminal work of photographic art and social history is once again available to the general public. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Tulsa Changed The World
This is the seminal work. Larry Clark's other masterpieces ("Teenaged Lust" and "A Perfect Childhood") build on this foundation. This book is a savage journey to the heart of the AmeriKan dream, and depicts Larry Clark growing up with cracker Oklahoma outlaws, shooting dope, and playing with firearms. Think of this book as the "drugs" part of Clark's sex, drugs, and rock n roll trilogy. Give this book to your mother for her coffee table.

Hasn't aged well
Maybe for the time, it was groundbreaking, but today this book is a dinosaur.

A New Edition of a Classic
The book Tulsa by Larry Clark is a beautiful and scary photographic journey. The disturbing images hold up even today as a pictoral review of American society.Highly recommend! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Only a generation after Lewis and Clark's expedition, the artist and naturalist John James Audubon captured his contemporaries' imaginations with his illustrations in Birds of America. John James Audubon in the West celebrates a lesser-known work, Quadrupeds of North America, which is the focus of a traveling exhibition organized by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center of Cody, Wyoming. Audubon's Quadrupeds presented colored lithographs far superior to the outline engravings that normally illustrated encyclopedias and scientific volumes of his day. They have the same liveliness and sense of movement as the bird illustrations; background landscapes are small masterpieces in themselves; imaginative settings add a theatricality to many pictures, such as a tawny weasel at the throat of a farmyard chicken or a cougar with his kill; and details like the fur of squirrels and wolves are very fine. Audubon's research included a six-month field trip up the Missouri in 1843 that resulted in the discovery of several new species, including North America's only native ferret, the black-footed ferret--though the project was more important as art than as science. The 180 illustrations in John James Audubon in the West include the most successful of the animal pictures, preparatory sketches, and comparative material such as contemporary Western landscapes. Four essays by Audubon scholars analyze the artist's style, his Missouri journey, scientific collaborations, and the technical and commercial context for the publication of Quadrupeds. While his birds will always overshadow his work on mammals, John James Audubon in the West introduces an important pioneering study and a fascinating piece of American history. --John Stevenson ... Read more

Book Description

This book has over 250 of the highest quality color reproductions as well as essays by art historians, contemporaries and friends such as Fab Five Freddie, Richard Marshal and Glen O'Brien. The Limited edition is of 1000 copies signed and numbered by Tony Shafrazi. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

a must have for any basquiat fan!
this is the fifth book i have on basquiat and i am very happy to say that most of the works reproduced in this gorgeous book do not appear in any of the other books i have on him. the quality of the work is splendid and the reproductions are gorgeous! and the book is thick and a treat to look at! i would recommend it to anyone who loves basquiat's brillant works. the guy was a genius and he shines in this book!

This book is wonderful but......
I still dind't get this book..but I think it is very nice.My major is visual communication art,so I'm always read books about art.I know many American artist,especially I'm mad about him.If you look his works,you can feel "nature".Maybe It will be a good guide to beginners.

A Crown for Tony Shafrazi?
I thought the excesses of the 1980's had long since passed but then comes along this massive (and expensive) volume on Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the Kings of the 80's art scene two decades ago. Sadly, like much art from that period, Basquiat's faux-primitve paintings come across more like deliberate attempts at critical and commercial success than intuitive genius from a true visionary painter. The art world and its consumers were desperate and happy in the 80's to champion "street art" and graffiti with the growing popularity of folk art in the 1970's. The professional art world latched on to it's own, professional artists working in a vernacular style (Haring, Scharf, Basquiat) in order to appear open to less progromatic art. With folk art, critics and museums of modern art were caught looking backward and left behind. Urban street art, positioned as being more sophisticated and hip, was marketed to an eager consumer market. Is this truly great art? Is Basquiat worthy of a ...book signed by a gallery owner (seller)? Is this the best modern art has to offer? Looking at page after page in this retrospective book becomes a tedious task. The words don't add up to the great poetry of Dickens or Whitman. The artwork can be found in its purer form on the streets of any urban city. Try taking a walk through New York city and leave this book behind. ... ... Read more

Amazon.com

One of this century's preeminent artists, Louise Bourgeois recently was the subject of a major one-person exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and she represented the United States in the 1993 Venice Biennale. This exquisitely designed volume, which includes 133 color reproductions, is a testimony to the importance of the act of drawing to this highly autobiographical artist, who is known primarily for her sculptures.Produced over the course of 50 years, the drawings are seen side by side with Bourgeois' own observations about her personal life, her work, and the genesis and sources of certain works, offering a very intimate vision of Bourgeois as a woman and as an artist, as well as insight into the creative act of making art. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A glimpse into the mind of a great artist...
Browsing through this book of sketches is like reading Bourgeois' personal diary. These drawings seem to be the ones she made only for herself, to figure things out and generate more ideas. This is not her "finished" work, so don't expect "LB's Greatest Hits", but any true fan of this artist will delight in seeing her sketchbooks come to life and reading her thoughts and memories of the drawings. Full of rich spontaneity & wit. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Good concept, too many words
To put it short: half of the book is text. Out of 290 bw pictures 41 are drawings of H.C-B., some are photographs of other authors, some more are portraits relevant to people mentioned in text. I agree with other reviewers - choice is very good. The concept of the book and the important points are well chosen, too, but it' s filled with too many words.

When you accept this book as large treatise on H.C.-B., photography and art itself - that means dominantly text, illustrated specifically with his photographs - you can learn a lot of interesting things (if you're patient enough to read it all through). But after a while you can find yourselves (like me) somehow distracted from the photographs. Though an expert in H.C.- B. life and work, J.P.Montier seems to me as he doesn't possess one crucial ability of his subject - the gift to pick up instant out of plenty. So I think, I would like more to let speak pictures for themselves with some relevant facts and quotations, revealing background. After all, Henri Cartier-Bresson is a photographer, isn't he? My personal wish is to see contact copies of film rolls, at least parts from which were the famous pictures chosen - it could tell us more about the field work of this Master of the Right Moment.

Zen and the art of the Street
Really an amazing book. I have come across many great "picture books" showing off fabulous reproductions of his work but if you want to read about what really drove the man to take some of the most amazing shots of the 20th century, pick up this book. It has "typically (outstanding) and (brilliant) academic French art crticism[sic] (and is) translated in(to) the English edition in a way that still manages to read like (outstanding) and (brilliant) academic French".

If you want to get behind the lens with this great master (the interviews and quotes are very stimulating and the choice of images were chosen by the author with HCB himself), buy this book. And if you are also a "street" photographer, this book will teach you more about this type of photography than any class at "Kunsthochschule für Medien" or book on "technique" could ever hope to.

A masterpiece.

Homage to HCB
First, the image selection (and according to the book it's HCB himself who did it) and presentation is probably the best for any collection of HCB photographs. Our perception is affected qualitatively by the size, and many of the same images printed full page simply lose in comparison even without considering the discussion and examples of visual reading the author of the thesis/book provides. Secondly, the text, while academic, is truly useful because it introduces a lot of background and thinking around photography as artistic phenomenon - therefore, if not read passively, and then likely to cause the kind of irritation a previous German reviewer displayed, but as a means to start your own thinking processes, it succeeds excellently. (Or, as someone noting the length of the my previous sentence could decide, likes attract ..;o)).. ) Possibly one of the best books around if you are an active photographer intrested in the aesthetics of the "seen" kind of photography - i.e. photography that aims to hunt out instances of artistic order chaotic Life creates from time to time - as contrasted to the "created" or conceptual approach, or if you are interested in the history of the art/medium and want to make sense of its roots and of its arguably the most brilliant practitioner in the XX century. Warning for USA readers: European thought. Antithesis of the "Dummies" books. Thinking required.

The best published collection of HCB's pictures?
The best published collection I've seen of Henri Cartier-Bresson's pictures, from some of the famous shots of the 30s and 40s (God how I hate that smirking brat with the wine bottles. Put me off appreciating HC-B for a long time) to some of the wonderfully impressionistic later landscapes.

The text ... well, buy the book for the pictures and look at them. Typically pretentious and impenetrable academic French art crticism, translated in the English edition in a way that still manages to read like pretentious and impenetrable academic French.

But did I mention the pictures?

The Lyrical Moment
This is one of the greatest published collections of the spectrum of CB's work -- it includes portraits, street photography, surrealist images, travel, etc. The pictures are beautiful. The text, which really needed to be edited more carefully, is nonetheless insightful. For anyone who wants to learn to make better pictures, buy this book, analyze the pictures and use what you learn. ... Read more

Book Description

Painted in 1878, Cézanne's The Eternal Feminine, has been known by a variety of titles and, as Wayne Andersen discovered, has also been altered. Andersen traced these alterations to an art dealer who made them in an effort to render the painting more marketable. His study focuses on the significance of the original state of The Eternal Feminine in an effort to resolve its mysterious importance to Cézanne and, more broadly, the history of art. ... Read more

Book Description

Boldly innovative and technically experimental, Harry Callahan (1912-1999) used double exposures, color, extreme contrast, and wide-angle photography to create lyrical, highly personal images. He was celebrated as a photographer of nature, the city, and women - often using his wife, Eleanor, for a model. Throughout his five-decade career, he quietly but consistently explored new ways of looking at and presenting the world. First published by Bulfinch in hardcover to accompany a major Callahan exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1996, this elegant examination of the central themes in Harry Callahan's work is an essential volume for longtime fans and an invaluable introduction for those new to his work. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

poor art and behind the times ...
HARRY CALLAHAN by Sarah Greenough
Catalogue of retrospective at National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1996.

The text by Sarah Greenough is political and can be read within the context of American art politics. It is a discourse which aims at affirming in authoritarian timbre the "contribution" made by Callahan to American Art. The history of America started only 300 years ago and given that religion and politics have been mixed since the declaration of Independence it is not unexpected to conclude that American artistic mainstream paradigms are often 1) simplistic and easy to read, 2) have political overtones and 3) are morally acceptable.

By simplistic I mean to say, visual discourses where the writing is direct, devoid of metaphorical content. This has evolved since the 1950s and today assumes forms of supreme social criticism on behalf of art making. Such is the case of Robert Frank's "Americans" or most of Winogrand's work. The form is thus simple and so is the contents. Americans are simply incapable of understanding complexity. Europe is complex, America is simple.

Political overtones in American expression are not necessarily limited to flying the flag. Americans celebrate their land with images of Yosemite, with images of skyscrapers, expressways, cars, machines, etc. Americans are incapable of celebrating the earth unconditionally, without nationalistic overtones. They fly their flag from the porches and the manicured gardens. Adams celebrated America, Monet celebrated the earth.

Most American mainstream artistic paradigms are morally acceptable. It is one of the countries with most teenage pregnancy, with the least amount of sexual education in the early ages, it is still possible to apply corporal punishment to school children in several areas, America is not a signatory to the International Declaration of Human Rights, Children's Rights, the Anti-Genocide Declaration or the International Penal Tribunal.

To top all of this up, less than 10% of American citizens have a passport.

Most of the imagery by Callahan lacks actuality in the eyes of world history of photography. In the 1910s and 1920s, artists in Paris had already performed serious experimentation in painting, sculpture, graphic arts and photography. Moholy-Nagy set-up his Institute of Design in Chicago during the late 1940s. He experienced many difficulties and was never able to run the institute in its various incarnations for more than 3 years. The American public wasn't ready 20 years latter for what Man Ray had done in Paris. Only a small number of people, mostly living in New York were sensitive enough and actually understood the impetus of Modernism.

Callahan's work is a distillation of the more difficult modernism for American consumption. Teaching is a business and as exists as a modality of consumption. I'm very moved by some of his images but I haven't seen anything which is revolutionary as Man Ray, Picasso, Cezanne, Monet were. His work is quite, clam, tranquil, simple, simplistic, a little bit political and slightly poetic. It is miles away from Aaron Siskind, Moholy Nagy and some of the work produced by students at the Institute of Design where he himself was a teacher.

This book is about the political, cultural and social celebration of Callahan's art. As indeed are all the exhibitions in America.

A Concise Compilation
Harry Callahan was the most influential and important figure in photography throughout the last half of the 20th century. This edition of his work shows chronologically how Callahan's approach to the medium evolved and changed, while his vision remained ever faithful to modernity. The book begins in Detroit, where Callahan worked for Chrysler while pursuing photography as a serious hobby. It was also during this time that he married Eleanor Knapp, who would later become the subject for many of his strongest images. The accompanying essay by Sarah Greenough is succinctly written, blending biographical information to the photographs Callahan took throughout his long, photographic journey (Callahan died in 1999). Callahan's outlook on photography changed dramatically after having met Ansel Adams, at a photography workshop in Detroit. Taking some of Adams' philosophy and refining it, Callahan created his own style of photographing/printing, made apparent by such images as 'Weeds in Snow' and 'Detroit, 1942'. In these images and throughout the rest of his life, Callahan easily turned the simplest subject matter into monumental works of photographic art. The book provides powerful examples of this, in both black & white and color. After leaving his job to pursue photography full time, Callahan moved to Chicago and taught at the Institute of Design. Continuing the experimentation he began in Detroit, Callahan worked and refined his style during his Chicago years, utilizing double exposure, collage, close-ups, and the use of positive and negative space. The book then turns to Callahan's New England period. It was during this time that Callahan taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence. The book captures this period vividly, with images of varying contrast and mood. Here we see Callahan's ability at adapting to his environment by producing increasingly poetic images of nature, as well as urban and suburban street scenes. In his later work from 1972-1992, the photographs in "Harry Callahan" document the photographer's travels in other countries, with an increased attention on color. It remains clear by the images shown in his later years, that Callahan continued to explore photography by constantly challenging himself and the medium. Where most photographers are known for one particular style or body of work (Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment' or Robert Frank's publication of The Americans), Callahan is known for many different styles and bodies of work. The photographs in "Harry Callahan" prove this with each turn of the page. Callahan was a photographic artist in the truest sense, if we choose to believe an artists' goal is not only to create but to constantly evolve. Callahan was, continues to be, and always will be an influence to those photographers who seek not only perfection in the creation of their photographic art, but also change. ... Read more

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

One day in the late 1760s, when William Blake was a little boy enrolled in a London drawing school, a strange thing happened as he walked across Peckham Rye. He saw "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars." These spirits, and a host of other creatures that peopled his fervent imagination, would later be immortalized in the engravings and poems he printed on his own press, which have placed him in the first rank of British artists and literary figures. And so it is surprising that this fine book--impeccable in every respect, from the detailed yet easy-to-follow notes on individual prints, drawings, and paintings to the quality and thoughtful presentation of the 250 reproductions--wasn't published sooner. It accompanies "William Blake," the largest-ever exhibition of the artist's works, which originated at the Tate Britain and is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through May 27, 2001.

Essays by biographer and novelist Peter Ackroyd and Romantic poetry specialist Marilyn Butler set the stage for the haunting images of powerful, accursed, and spectral figures on succeeding pages. The four sections of the book address key aspects of Blake's art. The first one focuses on the influence of Gothic style and spiritualism on his style. The second deals with Blake's life during the 1790s in the South London village of Lambeth, where he harnessed his printmaking innovations to radical political views. It is intriguing to learn how even Blake's new, typically contrary method of etching in relief was a metaphor for his belief in divinely inspired innate ideas. The third section discusses the odd characters that peopled Blake's works, and the fourth surveys his major illuminated books (including Songs of Innocence and Experience), which he created, in his words, "under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily & Nightly." --Cathy Curtis ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Beautiful Art
The works of Blake are represented here on wonderful gloss paper with large images to fully appreciate the artistic genius of William Blake. This book is also intersperesed with essays that explain his life, his writing, and his art. through his various images you can see his complex and troubled life come into view. A must have for anyone who loves Blake and Extremely helpful for anyone who wants to know him and his work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Perfect example of what a fine photography book should be.
This book represents all the finest points of an excellent photography book. It is well written and imformative for the novice to the professional. You will find only the highest quality work throughout the book. It covers everything from black and white to color picture taking to final print development. The hundreds of photographs that illustrate each aspect of photography are beautiful. I highly recommend this book to everyone. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

worth it
It's great to read Blake is his own typeset. And the book is essential Blake. ... Read more

Book Description

A bold, fresh biography of the world's first modern painter

As presented with "blood and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement) by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological cold war against which, despite all odds and at great cost to their creators, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same."

Caravaggio threw out Renaissance dogma to paint with dazzling originality and fierce vitality, qualities that are echoed in Robb's prose. As with Caravaggio's art, M arrests and suspends time to reveal what the author calls "the theater of the partly seen." Caravaggio's wild persona leaps through these pages like quicksilver; in Robb's skilled hands, he is an immensely attractive character with an astonishing connection to the glories and brutalities of life. ... Read more

Reviews (34)

All history should be written like this...
After years of sitting through droning art history classes Peter Robb finally writes the book that all histories could be modeled on- He gives us the dirt. The culture M made his art in and for is explained for us in great detail, especially the political climate of Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century and all that implied for artists and churchmen alike. Mr. Robb does not hesitate to discuss the seamier aspects of Italian life in this period and it's consequences on M's career. His analysis of the painters career and the development of his work is truly inspired. The research is painstaking, and combined with a deep understanding of human nature Mr. Robb has produced a fascinating and informative work. An absolute requirement for all art historians and painters. You'll need a catologue of the paintings to look at as you read; The book is barely illustrated. So... I was just blown away. Of course I'm a painter and am just enthralled by art history.

Innovation does not always guarantee success
Brimming with historical detail and clearly well researched, it is a shame this book is not more artfully written and furnished with more reproductions of the mentioned art.

In his enthusiasm to plunge his readers into Caravaggio's unsavoury environment, Mr. Robb takes on a street talk vernacular, even renaming the painting titles. But, Caravaggio often painted more than one work with the same or very similar title and the author habitually neglects to mention enough details to identify the correct work. Instead, the reader must constantly thumb back and forth toward the end of the book, where they are listed chronologically. Using the location of the works, provided in this list, is the key to cross referencing, for locating them in other sources. Adding to these glaring inconveniences, one is forced to hunt through other sources like picture art books or webpages to understand what he is talking about, since so much of what he says is based on the paintings themselves, of which, few reproductions are provided. What is the point of reading about a painting you are not currently viewing?

Complete with the gory depiction on the book cover, it is marketed as a "sensational" read, but that's where the excitement ends. On the cover, the reproduction demonstrates precisely the main thesis of the book, which asserts that the artist reveals his character through his art. Mr. Robb prefers this method over the traditional route of relying on accounts of the subject's contemporaries and biographers. He astutely proves the reasons why these sources are often less than reliable and this is what saves this book from a toss against the wall.

Attempting creativity in his biography of an historical figure is a good idea except he does not blend this with his other goal of retaining the depth from his research. As a result, it is not the light read as promoted, but rather an academic read with some innovative writing tricks which "might've" worked had they been combined with a less laboured writing style.

A thrilling story and a great art book
Peter Robb has managed to achieve a miraculous symphony in this long (500 + pages) book: It's a biography, a detective story (little is known about Caravaggio's life), a social history of Rome, and a definitive art book. As a result, you can read this book on many levels. I read it first as a "beach book" for the story, and then again, when I took a vacation to Rome and tried to see as many of his remaining paintings as I could.

Robb explains how Caravaggio was a breakthrough painter in his use of light, and in his use of recognizable local models (almost all of whom Robb has been able to identify) to express the religious art of the day. Mannerism died at his hands.

Moreover, Peter Robb builds a credible portrait of Caravaggio's brittle personality--it's easy to see why people were out to kill him. At first I thought the title "M" was a little contrived, but by the end of the book, I realized that it's cipher for the real man behind the familiar name. (Calling someone "Caravaggio" after the town is like giving someone the nickname "Boston").

The reproductions are carefully chosen and richly presented. You'll enjoy reading--and re-reading--this wonderful book.

A new way of writing
Robb's 'M' is sheer brilliance. It is controversial and path break not simply as research but as writing. Robb brings Caravaggio alive and he does so by analysing what type of character the painter must have been and then writing in that style. In this way, Robb's writing is itself art. It is new, clever and fresh. The book is worth reading not simply from its historical content but from the artistry of what Robb himself has achieved. And so the book works at two levels: Robb's and Caravaggio's.

Penetrating insight obscured by odd verbal tics
Reviewer Frank Martini beat me to the punch, but it's worth repeating -- this is a fine biography undermined by a writing style that becomes progressively harder to ignore as one reads along. Peter Robb has been badly served by his editors in this regard. He never misses an opportunity to use a contraction or to even glue two or more contractions together into a noisome verbal confection that trips the reader up. His preferences for non-standard punctuation, probably most charitably described as "odd," also stand out like loud, sour, distracting notes in an otherwise masterful composition.

Robb's lack of decent editing is especially unfortunate because he has produced a fine biography from a very meager historical record. Michelangelo Merisi left little in the way of documentary evidence to mark his brief four decades of life. Until very recently, Merisi's biography was his work, the canvases he churned out with amazing proliferation, often according to his needs for money and political patronage. Robb does an outstanding job of placing Merisi within the context of the Italy of his era and invoking the various religious and political tensions which roiled the peninsula's art world throughout Merisi's life.

Robb is also outstanding at dissecting Merisi's work, telling us how canvases were done, the techniques Merisi used to achieve his goals and the emotional connection his work made with his audiences. I was particularly impressed with Robb's conceit pairing Merisi with 1940s photographer WeeGee, whose gritty real-life, black and white compositions rose or fell on the contradictions between the two opposed qualities of light. In this sense, Merisi followed in God's footsteps by demanding, first of all, that there be light.

The book is dogged by a dearth of color plates of Merisi's surviving work. It can be frustrating to read Robb's often eloquent descriptions of a Merisi canvas only to find that one has to put the book down and look for a reproduction of it on the Internet. And, while I applaud Robb's detective work in piecing together the few remaining scraps of contemporary documentation of Merisi's adult life, I can't help but wonder what might remain to be found in the Vatican's archives or in those of the Spanish monarchy. Robb is such a good researcher that one longs to see him slip the leash and come up with more documentation, particularly concerning Merisi's final days.

This book is a splendid introduction to Merisi's work even despite the caveats I have mentioned. Be prepared to spend some time and mental energy in reading it, but it will be worth your effort. Michelangelo Merisi was instantly recognized during his own lifetime as one of those rare geniuses who completely transform art, which is never the same afterwards. His recent rediscovery is long overdue and Peter Robb's empathetic reading of the life and work of the man who became Caravaggio should further that rediscovery. ... Read more