Customer Reviews

Erotica 20th Century I (TASCHEN Icons Series)

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This is a fabulous look at the erotic are in the early 20th century. The Quality of the book is astounding considering its low price. It is listed as a soft back, but the cover is thicker than most soft back books. The size is that of a trade size copy but the quality of the paper both inside and outside completely outstrips that of the average trade paperback. The colors are so bright and clear that I feel as if I'll get my fingers wet when I touch the pages.

The prints of the erotic art itself, which range from black and white to color to line drawings, are incredible. The erotic content and the impact of the art itself range from the sublime, to the grotesque, to the simply beautiful.

While I rarely buy any art books, they are too bulky for apartment living and expensive besides this series promises to lend itself to both the series and the not so series collector of books. This is a beautiful book.

The only thing I have to critisize on this specific volume is, that it overrepresents a couple of artists and leaves out so many. Other than that , looking at the "critics" here... I see all the blurb that always comes up when it comes to erotica - there is always a reason why this specific work is bad, why there are maybe some nebulous other ones that are not that bad(but probably will be shredded by a similar reviewer on their page...) People that classify Picasso as a disturbed scribbler, maybe just shouldn't write about art or keep it with Norman Rockwell.

As owner of a number of fine Taschen books, I am sorry to report that this volume is an almost complete disappointment. One finds erotica from primarily 3-4 sources: an anonymous book and several collections. While the plates have Taschen's standard quality, the limited perspective of these few artists fails to deliver anything resembling a true overview of erotica in the 20th century (something obviously very much implied in the title). In the same fashion, with such a limit on content, the brief text fails to do the same. While one may applaud the preservation of these works and the fact that Taschen has made them available to all at a more than reasonable price, anyone expecting to find a full or even reasonable overview will be sorely disappointed. I found this book to be a low-tide watermark among Taschen publications and the only book of theirs that I own that I actually regret purchasing.

Artork improves compared to the 17th-18th and 19th century collections, but it is still often ugly. The gems are few - but those are delicious. I went looking for some of the best artists to see if they had non-erotic works and can't find them. These few were able to sketch/paint people who looked real and maintain an artistic style. One man could run his work in any modern gentlemans magazine and people would wonder who this fabulous new sexy author was, he's that high quality.

Mostly, though, these are repulsively ugly or amateurish works. Picasso's erotica is nothing but the doodles of a bored kid in math class who fills a page with scribblings about genitalia; if you are a Picasso fan, they are true to his norm - but people who judge by quality will laugh. Non-Picasso fans can only laugh at his disturbed works as silly.

Either the editor chose the wrong artists, or maybe most of the people dealing in erotica have a sick viewpoint of sex. The one constant them that comes across is that these people think sex is ugly. (Only one or two refute the idea with pretty artwork.)

Which is what a lot of these are; bad drawings by sick people or at least presenting sick ideas of sexuality.

I've seen a lot of non-erotic nudes and I think overall the reason erotica does has had a bad name in many circles is that it is so poorly done as to give it an ugly reputation. Playboy and more hardcore sources overshadow the overall gloomy, ugly, often silly quality of these works. Indeed, Playboy is mostly respected for beautiful presentations of women; few people would respect the low quality of the grungy works shown here. Except art scholars who have a fad for the stuff.

Mostly this is a collection of ugly pictures about sex.

This series is supposedly a study of erotica through the ages. It is nothing more than a compliation of dirty pictures. Save your money. If you want dirty pictures...there are better books. If you want something that seriously explores erotica over the past couple hundred years this is NOT the place to look. Boring.