Reviews (1)

James Rosenquist's Really Big Pictures
This book has beautiful fold out pictures of James Rosenquist's most famous paintings. There are also aticles that give a little background into each painting as well as an interview with the artist at the end. This is a good book to get an introduction to James Rosenquist. However, if you really want to delve into his art I would chose a more all inclusive book that traces his work from beginning to end. ... Read more

Book Description

With its luxurious design and captivating text, this book bringsto life a charming, extravagantly talented artist.

One of Victorian England's most charismatic characters, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) painted and wrote with equal passion. He was similarly passionate in his personal life: his ethereal artist-wife, his earthy blond mistress, and the ravishing Jane Morris are all immortalized in his voluptuous images. The melodrama of Rossetti's lifedarkened by rumors of suicide, adultery, and addictionhas often overshadowed his striking accomplishments as a painter.

This evocative volume vividly illuminates Rossetti's career, from his early achievements as a founder of the tremendously influential Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, through his involvement with William Morris's revolutionary design firm, to the grandly unorthodox images of his final years. Rossetti's prodigious art encompassed the meticulously detailed canvases of his early years, the jewellike brilliance of his medieval tableaux, and the sensuously alluring women of his late paintings.

The astute text provides, at long last, a clear and candid account of the artist that carefully untangles fact from myth. Reminiscences from the artist's great-grandniece Helen Guglielmini provide an engaging glimpse of life with the Rossettis. Beautifully designed with luscious reproductions, telling details, and graceful ornamentation, this is the first lavishly illustrated monograph devoted to Rossetti.

265 illustrations, 140 in full color ... Read more

Book Description

This extraordinary work presents every known document concerning Raphael during a period of 120 years, from his birth in 1483 to 1602. The chronologically organized collection includes some 1,100 documents, many of which are newly discovered or little known, concerning the artist, his work, writings, family, properties, and other matters. The handsome two-volume set is an invaluable resource for art historians and historians of the Renaissance. Each document is included in transcription, in most cases made afresh from the original, and translations are provided for literary Latin and Greek. For each entry John Shearman provides commentary as well as a critical history and bibliography. In addition he offers an overall introduction that deals with the nature of documentary research, its limitations and possibilities, and the history of facsimiles and forgeries. Three useful indexes complete the two volumes. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Cowboys and horses, adventure in wide-open spaces. The mythos of the Old West comes alive in the paintings, drawings, and sculptures of Frederic Remington (1861-1909). Born during the Civil War and educated at Yale University, Remington committed his life to making portraits of the American frontier. The Frederic Remington Art Museum Collection presents the collection of the museum founded by and housed in the former home of Remington's widow, Eva Caten Remington.

For much of his creative life, Remington worked as an illustrator for publications like Harper's Weekly. His renderings of life in the Old West were hugely successful, and some even accompanied an essay by President Theodore Roosevelt. His drawings displayed a strongly believable atmosphere:

[Remington's] illustrated scenes from the Apache War were rendered in a direct, spare and unsentimental style with an attention to detail that made them seem like snapshots of specific incidents. In truth, like much of Remington's reality, they were generalizations, not documents, created by extrapolating freely from firsthand observations.

Today Remington's work is often seen as problematic, and as evidence of the racist brutality that wiped out the American Indian culture and population. Of course, in Remington's time, his views of the frontier reflected those of most of the United States. Aside from these political complexities, Remington's work captures the imagery of a time and a landscape long gone. If you are fascinated by the Old West, then you should not miss this book. The book includes detailed commentary on the paintings and drawings, with 333 illustrations and 127 full-color plates. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Amazon.com

Maxfield Parrish, the prodigiously gifted, turn-of-the-20th-century illustrator famous for his limpid blue landscapes and dreamy pubescent models draped in gossamer threads, has rolled in and out of artistic favor for nearly a century. In 1964, critic Lawrence Alloway wrote about Parrish's odd place in the history of American art: "He was the most popular artist the country ever produced, with prints in a quarter of all American homes at one time; and yet his kitschy compositions were considered risible among the educated art elite." Parrish himself had a sophisticated sense of his own place in the pantheon: "There are countless artists whose shoes I am not worthy to polish whose prints would not pay the printer," he wrote. "The question of judgement is a puzzling one." But new movements of the 1960s, including photo-realism and pop art, led to critical reappraisal of Parrish's oeuvre, and a few of the later new image painters, such as Joan Nelson, found sweet inspiration in his atmospheric skies and evocative, shadowy forests.

Parrish is finally receiving his due with this truly intelligent, fascinating book. It is the catalog to a traveling exhibition organized by the author, Sylvia Yount, the curator of collections at the Museum of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia--Parrish's alma mater and hometown, respectively. With Mark F. Bockrather, a conservator who elucidates Parrish's formidable craftsmanship, Yount has done a fine job of resurrecting Parrish yet again. She offers a sensitive analysis of the place his pastoral, idyllic, storybook innocence played in a world that Freud, the Great War, the Depression, and yet another world war inexorably tore to shreds. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Beautiful work and nicely presented
For a century, illustrators have been looked down upon by "fine artists." Finally, Maxfield Parrish, a truely FINE artist, gets his day. He's represented not as an illustrator, but as an artist. Having seen the originals 20 minutes prior to buying the book, I can say with confidence that the reproductions are the truest I have ever seen. A great in the art world (Daybreak was estimated to be in 25% of all American homes), the book is the best look back at an American great.

Good mid- price Parrish book
This is a good entry point into the world of Maxfield Parrish for the budget conscious. It provides the usual essay on the artist's life. What I found really useful was a description of his techniques in the fourth section.It includes infrared and microscopic cross section analysis of his canvasses. If you are looking for an even more economical book on Parrish, try Maxfield Parrish by Laurence and Judy Cutler by Gramercy books also published in 1999. It always intrigues me that published reproductions of his works always 'color' differently from book to book. ... Read more

Book Description

Featuring more that 250 color reproductions, this comprehensive edition explores Renoir's formative years, his artistic evolution among the Impressionist painters of the Parisian art world, and the fame he enjoyed before his death in 1919. Includes extensive critical text and captions. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Renoir- his life and works
A very large lovely book with many of Renoir's most famous works. Has a somewhat brief bio as well with many actual photos of Renoir himself, his family and works. ... Read more

Book Description

Already published in France, Spain and Germany to wide acclaim, this book presents an insider’s portrait of Pablo Picasso, the women in his life and the Picasso family. The author, Picasso’s grandson Olivier Widmaier-Picasso spoke extensively with relatives, friends, and contemporaries of the artist and discovered unknown information about Picasso’s life. Correcting previous portrayals of the artist which have been highly critical of his personal relationships and treatment of women, this book offers a balanced and sensitive account of his life. Olivier Widmaier-Picasso—whose grandmother was the artist’s muse and lover Marie-Thérèse—answers allegations about everything from the artist’s sexuality and relation to money and politics to the feuding over his estate and the author’s own handling of the artist’s legacy. This compassionate, penetrating biography, which includes never before published family photographs, offers a unique perspective as it explores the double-edged sword that is fame and talent. ... Read more

Book Description

"Opens a window on the mind and career of a painter. . . . A welcome and worthy addition to the literature of contemporary art."

-Miami Herald Now available in a well-priced paperback edition, this award-winning study explores the life and work of Susan Rothenberg, "a major talent" (Robert Hughes, Time) who is "one of the best artists of her generation" (Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times) and "our best painter's painter" (Peter Plagens, Newsweek). Illustrated with original documentary photographs and nearly 90 colorplates, including three gatefolds, the book puts Rothenberg's arresting images of horses, body fragments, dancers, and spinners in context-and examines how her personal emblems and experiences figure in her work.161 illustrations, 87 in full color, 3 gatefolds, 10 x 11"JOAN SIMON is a writer and independent curator specializing in contemporary art. The former managing editor of Art in America, she is the author of studies on Jenny Holzer and Bruce Nauman. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Dances with Images
SUSAN ROTHENBERG's animals are recognizable and simply drawn on flat but energetically worked surfaces to capture movement and spirit: they in particular link the impulsively figurative Abstract Expressionism of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock with the geometrical Minimalism of Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. In fact, she sees art as needing a maker to change a familiar object into something other than itself: her horse paintings call up the direct, subtle imagery and tonality of cave paintings on abstractly lush surfaces; "Mukuhara" shows a sprightly single bound in midair and midfield with a hinted vertical divide in the overall sienna surface, and "Flanders" barely details black figure and ground within white outlines. But when she starts talking about landscapes and portraits, it means that she is putting a stop to serializing her images: bikers; dancers "Holding the floor" by firmly grounding an arabesque and countering with a sweeping arm gesture, jugglers, spinners, and vaulters "Vaulting" in the one continuously steady step-by-step movement of Marcel Duchamp's "Nude descending a staircase"; hands and heads; horses; and U-turns. Her "Grandmother" portrait is the first time that she has two separate figures relating to each other in her art. Her daughter "Maggie's cartwheel" portrait is one of my favorites, partly because it makes me think of the artist's hoop performance in a beach piece by friend Joan Jones. Her "Mondrian" charcoal on paper portrait is the first time that she brings an art-historical figure into her work and that she paints after drawing instead of her usual turning a drawing into a painting. I particularly like the work that she does in blue: "The blue chair," which author Joan Simon describes as Matisse-wise in the sitter giving off comfort, composure and containment while looking toward the unknown; my two favorite landscapes, "Blue frontal," with upturned white horse legs framing a blue-black field with a blue horse, and "Foxes on a hill," with the asymmetrically symmetrical composition on a deep blue with black field; and "Blue woman," "Buddha with bamboo," and "Folded Buddha" in Giotto-style blue. The book's beautiful illustrations and clear text do justice to the artist and her work: it leaves no doubt about how she fits it with THE IMPACT OF MODERN PAINTS by Jo Crook and Tom Learner, MATISSE, by Lawrence Gowing, LEE KRASNER by Robert Hobbs, and PIET MONDRIAN by Hans Ludwig C. Jaffe.

Nice collection of paintings
Rothenberg exceeds her catagory of "neo-expressionism" without rebelling from the masters and painters that she has always admired. The full color photos of her paintings are beautiful. How can she not be trusted? There is so much evidence of her working and reworking her surfaces that it is easy for any painter to see her deliberation with the medium. ... Read more

Book Description

The career of the greatest painter of the twentieth century was played out in the shadow of Eros -- and of Thanatos.At the age of eight, Picasso's first drawings already displayed a precocious interest in the female form, and in the days leading up to his death he was still working obsessively on sketches of the female sex. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Picasso as life force
In their Preface to this remarkable book (published to accompany exhibitions in Paris, Montreal, and Barcelona) Guy Cogeval, Jean Clair, and Maria Teresa Ocana assert that all of the art of Pablo Picasso - whether visual or literary - was "guided by a specifically Spanish eroticism, a medley of sensuality and tenderness, of scatology and gluttony." Curator and editor Clair has assembled a group of erudite and sometimes thrilling essayists, and 350 or so plates of Picasso's most obviously erotic topics, whether sketches, paintings, sculpture - from his entire art-producing life (beginning at age 9!). Mythology, religion, linguistics, classical influences, and Picasso's upbringing and circumstances and adult life (among many other things) are all explored in the dozen essays that make this book such great reading.

Clair's own "The School of Darkness" is a heady and passionate appreciation of Picasso. He contributes right off to the decades-old debate regarding Picasso's view and treatment of women. He defends the artist and the man, rejecting portrayals of Picasso as " the ogre, the dark demon, the wife-eating Minotaur," quoting writer Micheline Sauvage's words on Don Juan: "Not the profaner of love, but the hero of profane love." Picasso possessed energy and drive that included prodigious eating, drinking, sexual expression, writing, the production of art, and more art.

Housekeeping out of the way, Clair's essay grows into something remarkable: part biography, part chant. If you read it aloud you might well amaze and delight yourself and your listener.

Annie Le Brun's "Painting in the Bedroom" successfully places Picasso's erotic sensibilities and drive in context and in comparison to other painters, whom she asserts (and proves) shared traits with Picasso. 'Diamond Made of All the Love of the Loves of Blood,' (the title comes from a diary entry of the artist) by Marie-Noelle Delorme is a fabulous compilation, effectively and subtlely organized, that shows Picasso the energetic and larger-than-life diarist - a passionate and powerful writer on love, bodies, intimate landscapes, and much more.

The illustrations - a "Chronological Catalogue of Exhibited Works," fill over 200 pages. The layout and the colors are good and the plates are big enough. There are oil paintings, etchings, drawings in pencil, colored pencil, chalk, ink, and charcoal; aquatint, drypoint, etchings; sculptures in wood, plaster, clay and bronze - and more. The earliest drawing is a copulation scene, "Donkey and She-Ass," done by a nine-year old Picasso - who as a schoolboy was already drawing confidently and well and, it can be argued, had already found his voice.

The works are of men, women, animals together, animals with people, blind men, lovers, voyeurs, brothel scenes, outsized genitalia, mythological beasts and people, nudes in classical poses, Cubist paintings on erotic themes, sketches of solicitude and tenderness and caring, playfully altered pin-ups from the 50's, visions of sexuality altered but undimmed by old age, and much more.

By virtue of its twelve strong, smart, passionate essays, and its 300 plates, this book becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Very worthwhile, and a great read. ... Read more

Book Description

For Rembrandt as for Shakespeare, all the world was indeed a stage, and he knew in exhaustive detail the tactics of its performance; the strutting and mincing; the wardrobe and the face paint; the full repertoire of gesture and grimace; the flutter of hands and the roll of the eyes; the belly laugh and the half-stifled sob. He knew what it looked like to seduce, to intimidate, to wheedle, and to console; to strike a pose or preach a sermon; to shake a fist or uncover a breast; how to sin and how to atone; how to commit murder and how to commit suicide. No artist had ever been so fascinated by the fashioning of personae, beginning with his own. No painter ever looked with such unsparing intelligence or such bottomless compassion at our entrances and our exits and the whole rowdy show in between.

More than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt remains the most deeply loved of all the great masters of painting, his face so familiar to us from the self-portraits painted at every stage in his life, yet still so mysterious. As with Shakespeare, the facts of his life are hard to come by; the Leiden miller's son who briefly found fame in Amsterdam, whose genius was fitfully recognized by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty. So there is probably no other painter whose life has engendered more legends, nor to whom more unlikely pictures have been attributed (a process now undergoing rigorous reversal). Rembrandt's Eyes, about which Simon Schama has been thinking for more than twenty years, shows that the true biography of Rembrandt is to be discovered in his pictures. Though a succession of superbly incisive descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt's paintings threaded into his narrative, he allows us to see Rembrandt's life clearly and to think about it afresh.

But this book moves far beyond the bounds of conventional biography or art history. With extraordinary imaginative sympathy, Schama conjures up the world in which Rembrandt moved -- its sounds, smells and tastes as well as its politics; the influences on him of the wars of the Protestant United Provinces against Spain, of the extreme Calvinism of his native Leiden, of the demands of patrons and the ambitions of contemporaries; the importance of his beloved Saskia and, after her death (Rembrandt was later forced to sell her grave, so complete was his ruin), of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels; and, above all, the profound effect on him of the great master of the immediately preceding generation, the Catholic painter from Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens: "the prince of painters and the painter of princes" with whom Rembrandt was obsessed for the first part of his life, and whose career was the shaping force that drove Rembrandt to test the farthest reaches of his own originality.

Rembrandt's Eyes shows us why Rembrandt is such a thrilling painter, so revolutionary in his art, so penetrating of the hearts of those who have looked for three hundred years at his pictures. Above all, Schama's understanding of Rembrandt's mind and the dynamic of his life allows him to re-create Rembrandt's life on the page. Through a combination of scholarship and literary skill, Schama allows us to actually see that life through Rembrandt's own eyes. In overcoming the paucity of conventional historical evidence, it is the most intelligently true biography of Rembrandt that has ever been written, and the most dazzling achievement to date of the art historian whose work has been hailed as "marvelously rich and eloquent" ... "rare, imaginative" ... "provocative" ... "astoundingly learned with verve, humor, and an unflagging sense of delight" ... that of "a master storyteller ... and a master of history."*

Quotes from the New York Times Book Review, Time, the New York Times, The Independent on Sunday, andNature, respectively.

... Read more

Reviews (18)

perceptive portrait of r.v.r.
Rembrandt left behind more self-portraits than any artist before or since. With his new book Rembrandt's Eyes, historian Simon Schama has added a new portrait of the artist, this one in meticulously and exhaustively researched, rhapsodically written prose.

Schama's heavy tome makes every attempt to be a definitive work on the painter, and it succeeds. First and foremost it is a narrative of the life and work of Rembrandt van Rijn, although calling it a "biography" somehow sounds reductive. It is equal parts analysis of Rembrandt's painting, documentation of his life, and history of seventeenth century Holland, so sections of the book can be read with profit by anyone studying the artist, his art, or the social history of the times.

The Rembrandt of Schama's book is a complex man, with hubris, greed and an enormous talent for portraiture. Early on he takes the monumentally cocky step of signing only his first name -- no "van Rijn" -- as if he knew his paintings would be studied for centuries to come. His understanding of humans and their personae was without parallel, Schama writes. "No painter would ever understand the theatricality of social life as well as Rembrandt. He saw the actors in men and the men in actors."

As his title suggests, Schama finds special messages in the eyes of Rembrandt's subjects. He notes that in art education painters were taught to put special care into their depiction of the whites of eyes, yet in many of Rembrandt's works -- Schama points to "The Artist in his Studio" (1629) -- the eyes are dull, dark pits. "When Rembrandt made eyes," Schama says, "he did so purposefully," and so in Rembrandt's Eyes he continually returns to the haunting eyes the painter painted.

Most of all, Schama's book is a meditative, entranced attempt to get behind the faces we see in Rembrandt's self-portraits. Schama reads Rembrandt's self-portraits in various costumes -- as a merchant, as a soldier, for example -- as indications of his elusiveness, as if each portrait were meant to conceal rather than reveal its subject. In analysis of one self-portrait, Schama writes that the painter "has disappeared inside his persona," inscrutable beyond the dead dark eyes of the painting. The artist's disguise hides his true self, and the critic is left to speculate. It seems that in this case Schama is grasping (as art historians must) at facts and attitudes that can never be certainly known, constructing and imputing elaborate guesses that fail precisely because the painter has succeeded.

Schama's reverence for Rembrandt and art in general winds up being both a virtue and a vice. The book begins with an epigraph from Paul Valery: "We should apologize for daring to speak about painting." It is difficult to imagine a guide through this world who is more well-versed and in love with his subject. But do we really want our biographers to be respectful to the point of silence? Nobody wants to learn about the masters from a guide who finds them too sublime to defile with comment. Granted, a hefty book like this is hardly "silence," but Schama's hushed tones do get distracting.

This book has the virtue of being as close to exhaustive about its subject as one could hope. There is little psychological interpretation that Schama leaves undone, and little consequential biographical detail that he leaves unmentioned. Rembrandt's Eyes, a mammoth book that takes on with grace the equally mammoth task of explaining what is behind the brooding eyes of Rembrandt's portraits, will be a definitive work on the painter and his work.

A masterpiece worthy of Rembrandt's life and works
Simon Schama's REMBRANDT'S EYES is undoubtedly one of the authoritative works on Rembrandt's life and paintings. Schama vividly depicts the unparalled and tortured genius of Rembrandt, a man who was brilliant in success and even more so during tragedy. To understand Rembrandt's paintings is to understand the man behind each brushstroke: strong-willed, prideful, and uncompromising in his art. Schama conveys the essence of Rembrandt with such force and effectiveness that we cannot help but appreciate Rembrandt's tragic life and artistic genius.

REMBRANDT'S EYES contains beautiful illustrations of all of Rembrandt's major works; the analysis of each is detailed, clear, and interesting. Through the course of the book, you will be fascinated by Rembrandt's self-portraits and the level of understanding with which he painted himself. Perhaps no other artist has given us such a powerful autobiography without the use of a single written word. This deep understanding of the human soul is evident in all of his works. Schama explains Rembrandt's paintings and his techniques in a comprehensive and powerful manner. If you are interested at all in the truly unique and fascinating genius of Rembrandt, REMBRANDT'S EYES is a must.

I would highly recommend REMBRANDT'S EYES to any person interested in art history, Dutch painting, or just Rembrandt. This book also serves as a powerful autobiography of a man with a very interesting story. Be forewarned though: this book is very long, and putting it down may be hard.

Doesn't have a focus and objective....very boring
When i bought this book, I thought that it would be an amazing and definitive book about one of the most brilliant genius of art.
But i was wrong, this is doesn't have a point, it goes to the biography of Rubens fathers, passing thru history, economy, and anything else you imagine, this is so borring for the people that actually want to know about Rembrandt and his work. So if you are looking for a book abou Rembrand and his work, this IS NOT....

GUARANTEED, this one never goes out of style!!!
Reading,or even browsing,this huge achievement simply overwhelms. Now it's obvious that all old masters books are immortal (especially if they have pictures) since the works have already passed the time test. But Mr. Schama's REMBRANDT's EYES must surpass just about every old master book in every way. It's one of those works that makes you glad we live in a society that can mass produce this kind of thing!!If you're an expert (which I am definitely not),I'll bet you'll totally agree with me. If you're a skeptic,or even a beer guzzling barhopper,you should still buy this book. Browse,read the author's insights,and be enthralled that a fellow like Rembrandt existed 350 years ago. For he is like Shakespeare,a monumental genius,born about 40 years after the Bard.But as a painter, he is a heck of a lot more accessible.His art is universal,no translations required,and no Cliff Notes either! Accompanied by beautiful photos,and brilliant commentary on many of his great works, you can buy this now,and know it will give you pleasure at the amazing creativity of a universal genius,even in old age! BTW, the artist's self portraits are only many of the wonders here,and they do show him in his older years.

luminescent portrait of the artist and the age
1629 -- the 60th year of the war for the Netherland. 128 thousand 777 men are under arms for the Dutch Republic .Prince Huygens, Rembrandt's benefactor, deciphers intercepted dispatches in the Prince of Orange's headquarters at Hertogenbosch. In Calvinist controlled Leiden 25 year old Rembrandt takes to portraying himself in armour. By 1631, when Rembrandt relocates to Amsterdam, the city's competing churches have come to a grudging accomodation. Despite the fractious political climate the city is a hot bed of manufacture and trade with the Orient. The savour of spices and silks, the rhythms of urban industries-- cloth fabrication., paper making, gem cutting, weapons forging, chimes through its neighborhoods. The artist thrives for a time in the vibrant economic climate. His pictures of prosperous burghers (and of course, himself) and religious scenes ingrain an exotic, cross cultural vocabulary and intrigue.

Schama's analysis of the paintings is as scholarly as his depiction of the historical forces which were shaping them, in a Europe ripped by religious war. He looks also into the unsettled ambition embedded in Rembrandt's artistry. No major artist of his time or since has painted so many self portraits, in so many guises. No other artist absorbed more of the texture of his time and place. His influences were political, theological, social as well as aesthetic and developed into an idiosyncratic genius. Rembrandt's eyes as the author notes, provide a lens into these turbulent times and the passions of the artist. Twenty years from conception to print, Schama's opus spans its subject with a detail as fine as the lace on one of the artist's collar pieces.

The author contrasts Jean Paul Rubens's ethereal idealism to Rembrandt's earthy colloquialism as metaphor for the political divisions of the times. Rembrandt was treading new ground in art. The compassionate consideration of human dilemmas and blemishes was a rebellion against the politicization of art in a time when painting was dogmatic and polemical. Rembrandt's tactile accouterments, lustrous colours, give an eidetic quality to metal, fabric or paper. The works had plural focal points producing a visual dynamic. The creamy pallor of irradiated faces are juxtaposed against some intricately detailed artifact-- lace, gemstone, coral, armour-- and those against props providing subtle sub-texts. They are bathed in an illogical light which seems to emanate rather than reflect from its characters. A narrative and cosmopolitan bustle energizes his artwork.

'The Repentant Judas', is one the best studies of the artist's ability to synthesize surreal contexts and intensely expressive figures into a cohesive spirituality. Schama spends 12 written pages on that magical evocation of purposeful community 'The Night Watch'. 'Two Old Men Disputing' shows Rembrandt's preoccupation with representing age and decay in dignified elegance. He had, though, had no talent for business or orderly finances. He was a compulsive accumulator and a mark for bad investments. That would eventually impoverish him even as his fame became well established. This was not lost in his later portraits, more abstract and rendered with a pensive, sombre defiance. The stern expressions of the 'The Sampling Officials' could well be the those of his creditors. Some transcendence reasserted itself in his final works, most remarkably in vital mysteries of 'The Jewish Bride' and 'Simeon and the Christ Child'

Schama writes objective prose, with an impressive command of his subject. This is no esoteric meditation. It is a exhaustive study of the development of a craft and of the society that spawned it. The book is a beautifully composited coffee table book with a distinctive literary and historical flavour. Schama has produced one of the great artist biographies of all time, and a depiction of an age, as any age is most clearly represented by its art. ... Read more

Book Description

Now in its third edition, THE MASTERWORKS stands as the authoritative collection of Parrish’s best works. Compiled by long-time Parrish expert and curator Alma Gilbert, THE MASTERWORKS brings together the most popular, most important, and most fanciful of Parrish’s paintings. Here you’ll find the glorious Dinkey Bird, the extensive Florentine Fete murals, the amazing Interlude, and the sublime Daybreak, which sold for a record $4.25 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 1996. Also included are some of Parrish’s lesser-known works, through which we see the development of the artist’s style and technique. Through historical analysis, contemporary news clippings, and letters from the artist himself, we get to know the genius behind the artwork. Updated with all the current Parrish scholarship, this new edition of THE MASTERWORKS continues the grand tradition of celebrating Parrish’s work and bringing his oeuvre to the public. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Excellent for every Parrish fan!
I bought this book and I never regret of getting another Parrish art book again. This artbook is excellent with deep details of Parrish's way of study through his paintings. Theories based on his view of perspective and composition, it is something great to read about! However, one little thing I personally find missing is the "Dream Days" series, that is missing from this artbook and should have been included. Otherwise, get the book and you'll fall in love with Parrish blue all over again.

Perfect for Parrish fans!
This book is excellent! It has one of the best Maxfield Parrish selected works. A lot of prints and images for you to be inspired all over again. It also contains pages of great readings, such as a section about Parrish's perspective theory and theory. It also show close-ups of Parrish's studies. It is a great read! However, the only thing disappoints me is the absence of the "Dream Days" series. Other than that, get it and you won't regret it!

My Favorite Coffee Table Book
Fabulous retrospective of Maxfield Parrish's finest work. The illustrations are superb. This book is expensive, but worth the money. If you're looking for a price guide, I suggest Erwin Flack's book. -- James Halperin, sf novelist and Parrish fanatic. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (4)

Beautiful Pictures, But Weak Text
Any book containing attractive reproductions of Maxfield Parrish's work is bound to be visually stunning. But the text is loaded with partially informed speculation about the relationship between Parrish and Sue Lewin, his favorite model. The author is an art dealer, not a historian, and her lack of analytical training is a serious problem. Maybe Lewin was Parrish's lover. But where's the concrete evidence? Everything that the author presents to support her contentions is either hearsay or capable of more than one interpretion. The fact that they shared a house for several decades is a VERY persuasive fact, but Gilbert damages her credibility -- and her case -- by tossing in too much pointless guessing.

A Fascinating Look into the Life of an Artist & his Subject
Being an admirer of Parrish's work since childhood, I had always wondered how he worked since his paintings had a sort of surreal realism to them. I was surprised to find that he utilized photographs instead of live models and that Sue Lewin was the model for the majority of his most famous works. The art is not only beautiful in the book, but the photos are just as incredible as the paintings themselves. A must have book for anyone who has admired Maxfield Parrish's work.

This book is a fun, light, easy read.
This book is full of conjecture about Maxfield Parrish's private life and his relationship with his model, Sue Lewin. Their relationship was kept very private (due to his married state), yet they lived together most of their lives. Despite the guessing (most of which is probably correct) on the author's part, it is a fun, easy book to read and gives a sense of the times.

Fantastic
This is a fantastic book. It covers Parrish's art, life, and process in a very reader friendly form. ... Read more

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If you had to choose just one book about Pablo Picasso, the most protean artist of the 20th century, what would you look for? Copious, good-quality reproductions. An authoritative account of the way his approach to painting was influenced by his personality, the women in his life, and his awareness of art made by others. An in-depth treatment of key works like Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (which Picasso memorably called his "first exorcism painting") and signature themes, like the half-man, half-animal Minotaur. Then there's the question of tone. Some books cast Picasso as a demigod or a destroyer. Others, like art historian John Richardson's A Life of Picasso, offer a more balanced, psychologically penetrating portrait of the artist.

Hefty, elegant, and inclusive, The Ultimate Picasso hits most, though not all, of these marks. It offers more than 1,200 reproductions (nearly 800 in color) spanning the artist's entire career. Smoothly translated from the French, the book weaves biographical detail and discussions of the art into a concise narrative. ("Olga became pregnant in the summer of 1920, and in Picasso's work forms blossomed and flesh took on the massive quality of stone.") The three authors are all experts--Léal and Bernadac are (respectively) present and former curators of the Musée Picasso in Paris, and Piot coauthored the catalogue raisonné of Picasso's sculpture. They clearly explain visual sources, duly acknowledge leading art historians' interpretations, and choose good quotes from contemporaries. Yet the text can be surprisingly skimpy. The 16-page section on Guernica, for example, has barely two pages of discussion about the painting and its genesis. The authors keep an extremely tight focus on their subject, with only as much mention of Picasso's contemporaries or the outside world as is absolutely necessary.

The major flaws, however, are the authors' hyperbolic view of their subject ("Picasso did not paint nature, but the suffering of the men and women of his time, creating from it beauty and truth") and the lack of any psychological insight about the repeated devastation Picasso wreaks on the female form. In this old-fashioned portrait of the male artist as genius, human failings do not exist, unless they belong to somebody else. --Cathy Curtis ... Read more

Reviews (7)

the best picasso book ever!!
this book rocks so much it breaks the very laws that govern physics!! so much information, so many beautiful pictures, so dense.it seems to capture the very spirit of pablo picasso. it was give to me as a valentine's day gift, and it is one of my most prized books. this is a MUST purchase for any picasso fan.

Marie Manson was influenced by Picasso
When I look at Picasso paintings, I see how the artist and painter, Marie Manson, was influenced by him.Her paintins can be seen at www.canzone.org.

nothing much to say but incredible
To see tons of Picasso works in one book is nothing short of breathtaking. This is easily the best Picasso book that focuses on his paintings. What's incredible is to see the prolific amount of work he was capable of, and just what a inventive genius he was. Without a doubt the greatest Artist of the 20th century. Not all the works make sense, or are even recognizable as anything, but that was Picasso; his art was how he viewed the world, and how his own heart felt inside:confused, and out of place. His Cubism is nearly mathmatical, and very intriguing. IF you're interested in Picasso as more than that weird guy who made all those paintings i just don't get, come and check out this book to see all of what he was made of. You'll be amazed and inspired.

Plastic surgeons probably shouldn?tuse these for murals.
The Ultimate Picasso could easily defeat The Fabulous Braque and The Superlative Cézanne in an arena style cubist grand melee. It would be no contest, really. The Ultimate Picasso would open up with his patented synthetic slammer sending Cézanne right back through the analytical period. Braque would try to stun him with some multi-viewed complex patterns, but nothing can neutralize The Ultimate Picasso.
Braque might try a new tactic then: swinging wildly with his blinding colors. The Ultimate Picasso would roll towards the canvas, ducking under the swing that hits the helpless Cézanne full on. Then BAM! Right out of nowhere, The Ultimate Picasso lays the smackdown on both of them with his ball-buster blue period. Down for the count: The Ultimate Picasso is once again champion of the art world.

the ultimate picasso book for art enthusiasts.
The greatest part of this huge and informative art book is the literally hundreds of pictures that it contains. A very colorful book, which is a must for anyone interested in this highly acclaimed artist, whose Cubist style signified a new era for the art world. Picasso is one of the best artists, in my opinion, and this book gives an in-depth account of his life and his extraordinary career on canvas. ... Read more

Book Description

Revolutionary and troublemaker Diego Rivera (1886-1957) pioneered public art - particularly with his magnificent murals - that was both highly advanced and profoundly accessible. His tumultuous career is surveyed in this richly illustrated Spanish-language entry in the Basic Art series celebrating major artists. This enticing collection shows both the wide range of his art and its influence on other painters and artistic movements. ... Read more

Book Description

This opulent, multi-faceted celebration of the man called "the prince of painters" is a treat for fans of Renaissance painting and students of art history alike.

Alongside Michelangelo, Raphael Santi is considered the second great genius of Italian Renaissance art. While his paintings epitomize the High Renaissance qualities of harmony and ideal beauty, their warmth and serenity shine through.

Throughout the volume Raphael’s own observations shed light on his creative process and his deep devotion to his art. Filled with biographical material, including excerpts from the artist’s letters, study of the art and life of Raphael uses brilliant color, dynamic layouts and in-depth research to yield a vivid picture of his life and work. Time lines, detailed historical background, and splendid reproductions of his depictions of the Madonna and Child and his commissions from the court of Pope Julius II lead toward a greater understanding of the forces behind his genius. Anyone fascinated with the life and times of this magnificent artist will find much to explore and savor within the pages of I, Raphael. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

development of Pollock's art style
The German subtitle translates "works on papers." The three essays in German discuss the tools, materials, and techniques Pollock used for his art works on paper. The third essay has photographs of pencils, felt-tip pens, and eye droppers this major modern artist used in creating such works. Seventy-eight are pictured in color one per page in chronological order in one gallery-like section of this larger, rectangular-shaped book. Pollock's works are familiar, and need no general commentary. The more-focused, particularly revealing artistic theme of the essays is Pollock's liberty with lines, or edges. As the numerous works on paper show, his progress in this technique and impulse gave him unprecedented freedom and novelty as an artist. One follows the expansion of Pollock's liberty with line and corresponding new dimensions of artistic freedom over the course of this time. Early, roughly representational works and others indicating the probable influence of Miro and de Kooning lead to the more complex, abstract art that is regarded as typifying Pollock. The chronological presentation and analytic essays (in German) allow one to gain a particularly revealing understanding of the artistic achievement of this groundbreaking modern artist. The work is the catalog for an exhibition of these works of Pollock's that was in Germany and is in New York until the Fall 2005. ... Read more

Book Description

In this fascinating book, Fra Carnevale—heretofore a mysterious, quasi-legendary figure—emerges as a well-defined and pivotal artist in Renaissance Florence. In presenting their case, the authors take the reader from the workshop of Filippo Lippi in Florence to Urbino, capital of Federico da Montefeltro’s duchy in the region of the Marches. It was a road most memorably traveled by Piero della Francesca, who worked in Florence in 1439 and became Federico’s favorite artist. This book shows that other lesser known artists like Fra Carnevale also took the same path.

Among the many other artists—painters and sculptors—crucial to Fra Carnevale’s formation and discussed in this volume are Domenico Veneziano, Luca della Robbia, Pesellino, and Agostino di Duccio. Essays by Keith Christiansen, Andrea De Marchi, and Matteo Ceriana and a documentary appendix by Andrea Di Lorenzo and Matteo Mazzalupi transform our knowledge of this exciting moment in the history of Renaissance art.
... Read more