Book Description

This beautiful book presents a retrospective of eighty of Willem de Kooning`s finest paintings and painted works on paper. The book reassesses de Kooning`s critical status as one of America`s greatest and most influential artists, examines the complexity of his painting techniques, and places him in the context of other artists and art movements of his era. The book serves as the catalogue for a major exhibition of de Kooning`s work presented at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

APT TRIBUTE TO AN INFLUENTIAL ARTIST
One of the New York action painters, abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning was born in Holland almost a century ago. He began as a portrait and figure painter, later becoming "an artist who makes ambiguity an hypothesis on which to build."

This gloriously beautiful retrospective of his work was published in conjunction with the first major exhibition devoted exclusively to his paintings at the National Gallery of Art. With 80 color and 50 black and white plates, exhibit curator Prather, art historian Sylvester, and art history professor Shiff offer commentary on 84 of de Koonings's paintings which span five decades of his career.

Beginning in the 1930s with the earliest series of paintings of men and women to the 1980s when the artist's style became more abstract, this superb volume is testimony to de Koonings' life and oeuvre.

A contemporary of Rothko, Kline, and Pollock, Willem de Kooning's works are sometimes taken as metaphors, dynamic with shapes and colors splayed across the canvas. He is one of the most influential artists of our generation. This splendid catalogue is apt tribute.

Rich, colorful, and insightful
This is probably the best book about Willem De Kooning on the market. Along with a multitude of color plates David Sylvester offers historical, technical, and philisophical insights about Willem De Kooning and his life works. The large format makes viewing the artists works very enjoyable. The reading is not overly complicated as it paints a full portrait of the artist, his accomlishments, his techniques, and also offers an approach to understanding the significance of his work. A must have for any De Kooning, or Abstract Expressionist enthusiast. ... Read more

Book Description

Continuously in print for more than 20 years, Abrams' Masters of Art series has always been known for its exceptional quality and value. Now these classic volumes devoted to the lives and works of the world's great painters have been newly redesigned and released in paperback for the first time. The comprehensive texts, written by distinguished art historians, provide incisive and informative portraits of the artists and perceptive commentaries on their works and achievements. Each book features 40 full-page, full-color plates accompanied by commentary on the facing page. Numerous black-and-white illustrations supplement the text. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great pictures
This book is a great introduction to the artist, with a short biographical section, a section on his drawings, and then a series of colorplates that show paintings that he has done or those that he is associated with. There are 40 beautiful colorplates, and each is accompanied by a page of text (some of the colorplates are details). In addition, there are 47 images of his drawings and notes. Wasserman's commentary is intelligent and interesting as well. Still, it is more of a coffee table book than one to learn from.

leo the man of all time
I love this book and the way it speaks about all the work he did is exelent I woulld like to recomend this book to every reader. It is probly the best book on him I have ever read. If you would like to learn more about him I highly sugjest this book to you. ... Read more

Book Description

Collected here for the first time are rarely seen and largely unpublished figurative drawings and paintings on paper that represent a period of exploration and innovation for Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993). Perhaps the most renowned West Coast painter of the twentieth century, Diebenkorn alternated between the figurative and the abstract. These pieces, dating from roughly the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, not only display his facility with the human form but also how his famed Ocean Park paintings were influenced by these explorations. Published in conjunction with the John Berggruen Gallery, this revealing collection features 42 drawings, paintings, and gouaches. Beautifully reproduced on the page, Richard Diebenkorn: Figurative Works on Paper fills a key gap in the literature of this premier American artist. ... Read more

Book Description

Lucio Fontana was one of the most influential and innovative figures of twentieth-century Italian art. From his earliest monumental sculptures and collaborations with architects in the 1930s to his spatial environments and slashed canvases of the 1950s and 1960s, Fontana's raw, vigorous, and richly expressive works overturned the conventions of art and challenged existing ideas about the role of the artist in the age of rapid technological development.

Throughout his lifetime, Fontana was driven by the spirit of exploration, constantly questioning and extending the boundaries of his own practice, confounding expectations, and provoking and amazing an ever-growing audience. This opulently illustrated and beautifully produced book shows how Fontana redefined the possibilities for art, using a rich vocabulary of material, form, color, and space. Produced to accompany a retrospective exhibition marking the artist's centenary at the Hayward Gallery, this book spans Fontana's prolific career and brings together over 100 of his sculptures and canvases as well as a reconstruction of one of his most physically impressive and distilled spatial environments. An incisive critical essay by Sarah Whitfield provides a more thorough understanding of Fontana's life, influences, and artistic achievements, while excerpts from the atist's writings and interviews give readers a chance to hear his distinctive voice firsthand. An illustrated chronology of Fontana's life and career, an exhibition history, and an annotated bibliography make Lucio Fontana an even more valuable resource. ... Read more

Book Description

The fun and easy way to understand his work, his methods, and his mind

Thanks to the phenomenal success of the bestselling The Da Vinci Code, interest in this famed Renaissance artist has never been higher. This friendly guide provides an easy-to-follow introduction to da Vinci's life and works, including the story behind celebrated paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, the lowdown on his inventions, which include the helicopter and bicycle, and plain-English explanations of his groundbreaking scientific work in anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, optics, aerodynamics, and hydrodynamics.

The book also discusses his famed notebooks, his relationship to the Catholic Church, and the factual basis of The Da Vinci Code.

Jessica Teisch, PhD (Berkeley, CA) is Managing Editor of Bookmarks magazine and has written hundreds of profiles and book reviews for this award-winning publication. She has also written books and articles on subjects ranging from literature to technological, environmental, intellectual, and cultural history. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Must Read
For those of you who don't know Leonardo's fascinating story, this book is for you!It reads like a novel, weaving the intricacies of Leonardo's life together in a well-written, suspenseful and integrated novel.A definite read for art aficionados, scientists and humanists alike.

Beautifully Researched, Easy to Read and FUNNY !!
It's rare that a writer/editor has the depth of knowledge and confidence in her research to venture to have a little bit of fun with a historical/scientific figure of Leonardo's significance.Fortunately for readers, Jessica Teisch completely pulls it off.She writes this extremely easy to read and entertaining volume as if Leonardo was the next door neighbor she grew up with - In fact, at times, I was so entertained that it escaped my realization that I was actually picking up dozens of facts (i.e.; Leonardo was a lefty, a conplete non-conformist and that he actually didnt enjoy performing his exquisite anatomic dissections).All in all, this is a beautifully researched book that doesnt just educate you about Leonardo, but actually takes you all the way back to the Greeks and gives you a lovely tour up through the Rennaisance to boot.Where was this book when I was trying to impress historians and artists alike?Never mind - it's here now.

Finally - A Book on Da Vinci that I Can and Want to Read
I've always wondered who Leonardo Da Vinci really was. Sure, I slept though most of my Renaissance and Art History classes - but when the subject would turn to Da Vinci, I would always perk up. Did he really invent all of those wacky things? Was he the founder of modern medicine and anatomy? Was he a heretic? Was he the really the consummate Renaissance man? Now, after recently reading the Da Vinci Code - many of those old curiosities have resurfaced.

Da Vinci for Dummies tackles the complex subject of Da Vinci in the time-honored fashion I've come to expect from the Dummies series. If only this book had been around when I was studying Da Vinci in high school! It is written with a deep sense of respect, if not admiration, for its subject. As with other books in this series, Da Vinci for Dummies is both very fun and extremely easy to read, and it is organized in a format that makes finding answers to specific questions a breeze without having to search through the entire book. But, don't be deceived by its outward appearance and ease of use. I found this book to be as scholarly researched as it is easy to read. So, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is studying Da Vinci or preparing a report on the subject. (Shhhh - don't tell your teachers I said this!) However - I would also recommend it to anyone who has the slightest interest in this curious and profoundly important individual. If you've read the Da Vinci code, as I have, and wanted to know more - consider this book a quick and easy, yet surprisingly scholarly refresher, in the subject!

Great Guide to Leonardo
This is a fascinating work for those of you who want an overview of Leondardo, but don't have a desire to read an esoteric biography.My favorite part involved a discussion of Leondardo's flying machines.Who knew?I had no idea that he invented the precursor to the helicopter.A must for those who are fascinated by Leondardo!

Just What I wanted!
I've always been fascinated by Da Vinci, but never had the time to read a long dense biography or really study him properly.Then I got a copy of Da Vinci for Dummies.It is just what the doctor ordered.It gave me the historical overview that I really wanted and enough specifics about his activities to make me want more.The book is well written, easy to read and truly capitaviting.He was such an interesting character and this book really opens the door.Bravo! ... Read more

Book Description

In the 1980s, composer and pianist Edvard Lieber became the friend and confidant of Willem and Elaine de Kooning. Now, drawing on the stories they shared with him, Lieber has created an intimate anecdotal portrait of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) over the decades.

From the rise of Action Painting in New York City to raucous parties in East Hampton, Long Island, this lively chronicle is packed with telling details that shed new light on Abstract Expressionism-and debunk many de Kooning myths. We get a fresh look at Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, and other celebrated de Kooning friends. And we get a firsthand portrait of Willem near the end of his life-and see a still vital artist working with undiminished power.

Illustrated throughout with Lieber's candid photographs, this book offers a unique look at an enigmatic artist.
98 illustrations, 71 in full color, 9 x 9"

EDVARD LIEBER, a composer, concert pianist, painter, and filmmaker, teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was Willem de Kooning's secretary and curator from 1987 to 1989, and the co-executor of Elaine de Kooning's estate. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Timeless and Enthralling!
Gorgeous photographs and reproductions of de Kooning's last paintings make this by far the most compelling book on the artist and his period. Anyone who thinks de Kooning died with a whimper should consider this book: it eviscerates the idea that the artist's last works were weak and empty. Over fifteen paintings may be seen in a tumultuous new style executed after his last known paintings, attesting to de Kooning's artistic genius triumphing over speculation and theory.

A Classic
Among the most original documents on any artist in history, this compressed volume is multidimensional in its richness and authenticity. In the form of stories culled from conversations the author had with Willem and Elaine de Kooning, the book emerges as a de Kooning autobiography and a compelling synthesis of one of the great periods in twentieth-century American art.

From the opening lines, the reader is irresistibly drawn into de Kooning's life as he hides in a ship and steals away from Holland to America, befriends numerous artists in New York such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and John Cage, struggles to evolve his own style of painting, and ultimately contributes to the evolution of abstract expressionism as one of its major figures. In addition, vivid footnotes offer thumbnails on the Cedar Bar, WPA, New York cafeterias, the Club, Black Mountain College, de Kooning's family, floor plans of de Kooning's East Hampton studio, and numerous other subjects. Astonishingly, nearly all of the information is new - untainted by historical interpretation - with hundreds of facts corrected in the artist's own words and substantiated by the author's meticulous research. The result is an encounter with de Kooning himself.

While the book's title refers to the de Koonings reminiscing, it also alludes to the nearly one hundred photographs taken by the author in de Kooning's studio. Brilliantly composed, each of the images is a surprise, and the chemistry between Lieber and de Kooning is immediate, complex, and richly-hued. There are deeply-moving portraits, charming vignettes, discerning studio views, studies of the artist at work, and - remarkably - nearly two dozen of de Kooning's last paintings in a bold, new, complex style, previously hidden from the world.

A MUST READ!
Unlike most artist biographies which are written by curators, scholars or critics (who often force the reader to conform to their predisposed ideas) this book lets DeKooning speak for himself. DeKooning is not exploited or demeaned as in many kiss and tell books, instead what is revealed is an insightful portrait written by a close friend and confidant.

The text spans DeKooning's lifetime and is chock full of new information. Having read this book I now understand and know more about DeKooning, his art, his friends, and his milieu.

The photographs are equally enthralling. Portraits of the artist, photographs of him working, photographs of the studio, and photographs of the finished paintings all reveal an individual in his artistic prime. Most extraordinary are the ravishing color photographs of the late 1980's paintings-paintings that have been dismissed by many art historians and critics as the work of an "ailing artist". Anyone who sees these photographs (reproduced here for the first time) surely will be as moved by their beauty and intensity as I was.

On the whole, this exemplary achievement deserves a place in the library of all who appreciate art. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Delightfully Dali
If you have any space left on your coffee-table, this is the perfect art book for you! Rarely do you ever find a more complete presentation of Dali's works, both popular and private, in a single volume. This collection presents both the whimsy and the nightmares that are characteristic of his work, giving an accurate depiction of his range. If you thought Dali was just another haunted artist, the paintings in this book will reveal his gift for humor as well. Filled with insightful comments by Lubar, this book is a great compilation for anyone interested in Dali. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A definitve monograph
Every great artist deserves a great biographer: Bacon had David Sylvester, Giocometti had Sylvester AND James Lord, and Lucien Freud has Robert Hughes. Hughes' generous text is richly detailed and captures the mood of Freud's heavily impastoed works with turns of phrase that become as important as the art. To see the change in Freud's technique and approach to the figure from his early works to his current larger than life theatrical style is jolting. Always commited to portraiture his paintings have grown from the tightly surfaced, tiny but well known head of his friend Francis Bacon, to his current full figures as viewed from bizarre vantage. His brush technique has become more coarse and in doing so he is creating figures that, while monumental, feel as thogh they pulsate on the canvas. Freud is one of the important painters of our time and this book justifies that position on every level. A scholarly - yet pulsatile - study of a modern genius.

"Fascinating Freud Figures"
Any book containing the work of Lucian Freud, I feel, writes itself. Not as an insult to the author, but as a testiment to the painter himself.

The full page color photos do justice to this great man, as well as a book can.

The author does an acceptional job of sumarizing and analyzing the painter's Life and work. ... Read more

Book Description

Maniac Eyeball is the third, final and most comprehensive volume of autobiography written by the late Salvador Dali. Maniac Eyeball contains the frank and uncensored confessions of Salvador Dalí, from his childhood and first adolescent sexual experiences to his emergence as a painter, surrealist and eventually the most famous-and possibly richest-artist of modern times. These inspired tracts, covering art, love, sex, money, death, fame, science, his famous friends and enemies, and his extraordinary creative genius, reveal the intricate workings of Dalí's mind to create not only an unparalleled autobiography, but also one of the key surrealist texts yet published.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) entered the ranks of the Surrealists in 1929 with a series of iconoclastic paintings which fused technical virtuosity with Freudian infantilism, leading to his invention of the "paranoiac-critical" method. Later expelled from the surrealist group, he was christened "Avida Dollars" by André Breton while acquiring the reputation of master showman and scandalist. His art and writings remain among the most unique and important bodies of work of the 20th century.

"Dali's paintings reveal in the most powerful form the basic elements of the Surrealist imagination: a series of equations for dealing with the extraordinary transformations of our age. Let us salute this unique genius, who has counted for the first time the multiplication tables of obsession, psychopathology and possibility"-J.G. Ballard

Volume One of Creation Art Directives, a new series devoted to promoting the avant-garde
Contains over 100 photos, illustrations and paintings by Dali
Cover quote by J.G.Ballard
Companion to Creation's successful Diary Of A Genius (20,000 sold to date)

Reviews (1)

Excellent Escher
This is a great "coffee table" picture book - full page prints of 29 of M.C. Escher's works. Not much text. The main drawback is that it is a paperback, so you can't use it too well as a "lap table" for other projects. And hey, the price is right, now! Just under 4 bucks, wow! We got our copy 15-20 years ago when the price was quite a bit higher! You can count on Amazon.Com to deliver it fast and cheap. Great book... ... Read more

Book Description

Math and the Mona Lisa sees the transcendant unity of art and science in almost every aspect of Leonardo's life and work. Atalay seeks the consilience of science and art—painting, architecture, sculpture, music, mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy, and engineering—and the unity of the two cultures. He delves deeply into the underlying mathematics and aesthetics of science and art, paying special attention to the mathematical sequence called the Fibonacci series and to the related notion of the "golden ratio" or "divine proportion"—the keys to understanding the unity of art and nature. 32 b/w and 16 color illustrations. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

"Leonardo's Model"
Bulent Atalay takes us on a delightful romp through millennia and across continents, bringing together art, architecture, science and mathematics under the umbrella of Leonardo's genius.  His writing is informed by his artist's eye for beauty, his historian's appreciation of context and his scientist's love of order and symmetry.  I read Atalay's description of Leonardo's 'The Last Supper' not long after having visited the masterpiece in Milan, for the first time since its restoration.  His words added an unexpected poignancy to that sublime experience.  Leonardo is the prototype for the renaissance man-artist, architect, philosopher, scientist, writer.  There are few like him today, but Atalay is indeed a modern renaissance man, and he invites us to tap the power of synthesis that is Leonardo's model.

       -William D. Phillips, the 1997 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics.

A Gem for Leo
Although "Math and the Mona Lisa" addresses art and science in general, at its heart the book is a paean to Leonardo, and a celebration of his works from a unique perspective. The author, Bulent Atalay, a remarkable scientist and artist who has been called a modern Renaissance man, clearly identifies with Leonardo, another scientist, artist, and engineer who was the definitive Renaissance man. This special affinity makes the book more than an ordinary biography, and gives exceptional credibility to the author's views on the ways in which the concatenation and synthesis of art and science informed Leonardo's productions. It is not coincidental that both Atalay and his hero, Leonardo, have produced art that is representationalist, because such work, like science, requires creativity constrained by reality. "Math and the Mona Lisa" is not a lavish coffee-table tome. Instead, it is a compact gem that covers its main theme clearly, concisely, and comprehensively. It is small enough to fit into purse or coat pocket, and light enough to be easily portable. Rather than killing time in queues, waiting rooms, and aircraft, a reader can find, throughout the book, a wide range of thought-provoking statements and allusions, some central and many peripheral to the principal topic of the book. Even readers who are familiar with much of the content of the book may be pleased to see so many disparate ideas brought into meaningful association. Yet the best things, such as this book, do not contain and provide all that we need, but inspire us to think and seek on our own. Good things sometimes do come in small packages.

Barry Bressler, Fredericksburg, VA, May 15, 2004

Art and Science Synthesized in Leonardo's Mind and Method
This is a genuinely astonishing book. Its essential idea is that the dichotomy between art and science is a relatively modern idea, that the distinction is not present in Leonardo's method of looking at the world. I've read a lot of good histories of art, and even a good history of science or two, but I've never seen an organic history of both, and that's Atalay's achievement. The illustrations alone -- showing the art in science and the science in art -- are a wonder, and well worth the price of the book. A very elegant entertainment.

"Lunch with Leonardo" or "C.P. Snow Revisted"
Atalay's book just keeps unpacking as you read. He starts by describing C.P. Snow's two cultures and then provides a brief, but full, biography of Leonardo. Each chapter begins with a Leonardo quote that is unfolded within the chapter. In the end I felt a lot more intelligent about art and science and thought his use of Leonardo to make his case was quite smart indeed.

Leonardo da Vinci Scientist and Artist
Bulent Atalay, the author of this remarkable book, makes a compelling case for Leonardo being just as skilled as a scientist and engineer as he is known to have been as an artist. He writes that Leonardo was "a scientist doing art" seen in such geometric devices as the polyhedral shapes, the impeccable perspective, and in the geological formations found in his paintings. Atalay also writes that Leonardo was "an artist doing science," the evidence on display especially in the breath taking anatomical drawings. The author, himself an accomplished scientist and artist, may just be the perfect scholar to probe Leonardo's methodology. By revealing the results of his analysis in such convincing and readable form, Atalay has created an exceptionally powerful book that cannot fail to inspire, that cannot fail to become a classic. As a professional educator, I would recommend this book to anyone who values a good education. ... Read more

Book Description

Painted just before the French Revolution, David's Oath of the Horatii radically challenged the long-dominant classicized rococo style by emphasizing the representation of psychological states through the entire body rather than through the face alone. In these revealing essays on David's modernity, Dorothy Johnson examines the aesthetic innovations and ongoing artistic metamorphosis that shaped a career attuned to intellectual as well as political change. Focusing on the painter's writings and on topics such as his life-long experimentation with corporality, his inquiry into the nature of representation, his reinterpretations of mythology, and his application of the theory and language of sculpture to his art, Johnson rejects oversimplified categorizations of David as a neoclassicist and positions him as an important link in the development of romanticism.

Given David's interaction with many of the public figures of his time, including Diderot, Marat, and Napoleon, this book highlights the intellectual content of his paintings throughout his career. Inquiries into the transformation of matter, the evolution of the species, the identification and exploration of the stages in the formation of the self, the psychology of myth, the biological model of the waxing and waning of civilizations, and the organicity of history all parallel and inform David's approach to the making of art and his view of himself as an artist in the continuum of history. ... Read more

Book Description

This book brings together for the first time Moira Roth's influential articles, lectures and interviews on the two men who embodied the very spirit of the avant-garde: Marcel Duchamp and John Cage.
Cage, who died in 1992, and Duchamp, who died in 1968, seemed to live on the permissive border of modernism, and later, of postmodernism. The artists have for almost thirty years fascinated, irritated, inspired, and daunted the author of these essays - Moira Roth.
At first they were an inspiration for her writing and teaching then, with their gradual transformation into 'classical' figures, she felt compelled to reconsider and re-evaluate them. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great!
The more you read, the more you can enter into Duchamp's world! This one must definitly be one in your Duchamp's collection. Make yourself "READY MADE" ... Read more

Amazon.com

A Sorbonne professor and curator of a Delacroix exhibit at the Bibliothèque Nationale gives readers a new, lucid, and well-illustrated study of this painter--a familiar name who is still not widely understood or popular. Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), so very much tied to the history of his time, created vast canvases using that history as allegory. Therefore, he must suffer in appreciation today, when so few museumgoers have the cultural baggage they possessed a century and a half ago. So, huge canvases like The Death of Sardanapalus and The Murder of the Bishop of Liege must mean less to contemporary viewers, just as another painting, Tasso in the Hospital of Saint Anna, was more meaningful to a viewing public who had actually read the work of Torquato Tasso, author of Gerusalemme Liberata.However, the good reproductions in this book and Barthelmy Jobert's cogent analyses go far to underline Delacroix's inspiration from previous artists like Michelangelo, and his strong grasp of architecture.

Princeton University Press has done a good production job on this title, although they are scandalously scant when it comes to crediting the translators, Terry Grabar and Alexandra Bonfante-Warren (who did a clear job of translating from the original French, but are mentioned only in minuscule print on the copyright page). Even the author must have considered this unchivalrous, for he thanked the translators in his own fine-print acknowledgements at the end of the book.Apart from this detail, Jobert's Delacroix in English is a bravura effort and a very welcome and attractive addition to any bookshelf of 19th-century European art.--Benjamin Ivry ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The fellowship of the colors
We are lucky that so much of DELACROIX's art is still around, lightly spread throughout the world: the only lost works are "Cardinal Richelieu saying mass" during the sack of the Palais Royal in 1848, the decoration of the Salon de la Paix at the Paris Hotel de Ville during the Commune, and "Justinian drafting his laws" during the fire at the Conseil d'Etat in the Palais d'Orsay in 1871. Taken in by anything new that the paint suppliers were selling, DELACROIX made bad choices in canvas and paints: the Romantic "Battle of Nancy," the Classical "Boissy d'Anglas at the National Convention," and the exotic "Moroccan chieftain receiving tribute" suffered from using bitumen, just as "Barque of Dante" has from going over fresh spots. Yet he thought of painting as storytelling with the richly vigorous colors of Peter Paul Rubens and of Paolo Veronese's "St Barnabas healing the sick." He was the only great Western artist to leave masses of manuscripts, as journals, letters and published articles, so we can walk our way through his sketches and writings to the finished products of the master colorist of people, landscapes, buildings, and animals: "Louis-Auguste Schwiter" standing, as his only full-length portrait, inspired by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds; "Charles de Verninac," in two Thomas Lawrence-style expressive bust portraits, with a carefully worked face, large brushstrokes, sketchy background clothes, and subtly agreeing colors; and his last, "Alfred Bruyas," with a Hamlet-like head melancholic, meditative and languid in a harmony of greens, browns and blacks. He was also a master landscapist of few painted landscapes, such as "Banks of the river Sebou," his only salon-shown landscape; "Sea at Dieppe," Impressionist in subject and technique; and "Still life with lobsters," with John Constable-type smooth varnish obviously brushstroked and with a David Wilkie-type lobster right out of "Chelsea prisoners reading the gazette of the battle of Waterloo." But most of his landscapes backgrounded his historytellings, such as "Natchez" and "Ovid among the Scythians": his history style of adding expressiveness and framing scenes was Richard Parkes Bonington-like in being more entertaining and picturesque than heroic, such as in "Henri III at the deathbed of his favorite mistress, Marie de Cleves" and with "Henri IV courting Gabrielle d'Estrees" and in seeming neartransparent watercolor-like by varnish made with copal, such as in the richly colored "Charles VI and Odette de Champdivers" and "Louis d'Orleans showing his mistress Odette de Champdivers." His building decorations harmonized balanced colors with finely drafted figures while getting architecture, light and paint to work together: at the Palais du Luxembourg's cupola harmonious light and vigorous colors dealt with the architecture by background landscape in blues and greens, central sky cloud-filled, and figures fleshtoned against bright reds, blues, greens, ochers, oranges, and whites; and at the Salon du Roi half-domes lighted figures clustered on the bottom as well as the landscapes and skies topwards in intense blues and greens. My sculptress mother used to say, and my artist sister keeps on saying, that artists see the world first in blacks and whites, with perfect examples in the DELACROIX tigers, lions, and horses changed into blacks, grays, and whites particularly showing color mastery. In fact, the author describes these animals as Romanticized in character and power by the very play of color and matter: Theodore Gericault- and Antoine-Jean Gros-influenced "Wild horse," as my special favorite; "Tam O'Shanter" rapidly brushstroked into a horizontally elongated horse, rider and witch in the "Derby at Epsom" style of Gericault; and "Royal tiger" and "Lion of the Atlas," as his two most successful lithographs, along with the dramatically white counterpointed "Macbeth and the witches" lithograph haloing the former and turning the latter into "phantoms of obscurity." So Barthelemy Jobert's is the book to read, in this beautifully clear, masterful English translation: he owns up to only talking about fitting DELACROIX into what went before, and I wish that he would write a sequel fitting the artist into what came after. Any readers looking for comparison reading might find helpful and interesting DELACROIX: THE LATE WORK, Loys Delteil's EUGENE DELACROIX, EUGENE DELACROIX: SELECTED LETTERS, 1813-1863, Michele Hannoosh's PAINTING AND THE JOURNAL OF EUGENE DELACROIX, Lee Johnson's DELACROIX PASTELS, and Editor Beth Segal Wright's THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO DELACROIX. ... Read more