Customer Reviews

Cal 99 Maxfield Parrish Calendar

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a delightful collection of Maxfield Parrish's art, presented in 4 small, elegant volumes. Each book covers a different category of Parrish's work including ads, book & magazine covers, and fine art prints.

The most popular paintings are here as expected, along with many seldom seen pieces. There is also a very insightful text that chronicles Parrish's life, career and inspirations, and how the various paintings came about.

I especially enjoyed the book illustrations with mythological characters, genies & dragons, and fantastic landscapes. Another favorite is the advertisements, with 10 Edison Mazda lamp ads among many others.

These quality books with vibrant color illustrations on fine paper would make a great gift for any Parrish enthusiast.

Of all the books on Parrish, these authors are the most responsible in the history of the artist, in their analysis of the art works, and their research of the genre!! The illustrations are directly from the original paintings and glow as do the originals themselves.

Who can go wrong at $9.99 with such printing quality as this hardback?

The Cutlers have put together a very attractive book. It's well printed, and it's Parrish artwork - of course it's attractive.

The text tends towards the dry, I'm afraid. It says much about the few generations of ancestors the led up to Maxfield himself, and offer a vast wealth of minutiae about Parrish's life. Did you know that one of his neighbors was a best-selling author during early decades of the 1900s? Wow. Lots of the text isn't nearly that thrilling.

The pictures, though, are beautiful. They make the most of Parrish's brilliant sense of light, landscape, and romantic vision. There are works here that haven't often been shown before, especially from his later landscape ouvre. The cynic might say "OK, It's a girl on a rock, without the girl." Parrish said so himself, though not quite in those words. Whatever you might say, these pictures are excellent craft: evocative, well put together, even appealing to people that "don't like art."

It's a pleasant, but not earth-shaking contribution to the Parrish collection. Enjoy the pictures, even if they're not all like his younger and more familiar work. Skip the text, unless your interests are very academic.

//wiredweird

This small book format is new to me and a disappointment given the subject.

Other reviewers have told a story they know about Maxfield Parrish, here's mine.
It was customary back then for artists to build their own shipping crates for the finished work. Mr. Parrish would sand and paint the INSIDE of the wooden crates, so upon opening his inclosed picture would look its best.

I personally found the book to be a big disappointment...both in quality of content as well as knowledge of subject matter.

There are too many similarities to other published works to suit me.