Customer Reviews

Among the Amish: Drawings and Writings

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This book is a loving look at the Pennsylvania Amish culture, and it really captures that world, with simple words and luminous illustrations. Instead of being kitschy or tacky like many feeble attempts at representing the Amish, it's very esthetically pleasing--a gorgeous coffee-table book, at an unbelievable price, and very engrossing to read. You really enter another world when you open it. Americans tend to idealize the Amish, with their old-world values: They live on beautiful farms, raise organic food, and seem to thrive without tv, cars, and other modern conveniences. I think of this book as sort of "soft-core" anthropology, because while the illustrations are beautiful and museum-quality, the Amish aren't idealized. You realize how hard they work, and what their limitations are. It's clear that Bowen actually spent a lot of time "among" them, observing their life respectfully but giving a very clear picture of it at the same time.

The pastel paintings in this book are incredibely beautiful.Any pastel painter would absolutly love this.The work portrays the artist's experience among the Amish with the"artist's eye"giving a sensitive and intimate view of day to day life and even more-some great art!

This is a gloriously beautiful book by Welsh artist Keith Bowen, who returned time after time to sketch and paint the Amish who became his friends. It's a lovely and enlightening book...as worth reading the text as it is poring over the beautiful illustrations. The latter, executed on the spot with ink and pastels, the sketches are an education in and of themselves...