Garden Eden : Masterpieces of Botanical Book Illustration [Paperback]

H. Walter Lack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2001

Coinciding with the exhibition of botanical illustration at the National Library of Vienna, Taschen has chosen over 500 works from the library's extensive archives to be reproduced in this new publication, 'A Garden Eden: Masterpieces of Botanical Book Illustration'. This publication, starting with 6th century Byzantine manuscripts, traces the tradition and drawings, right up to recent publications of the 20th Century. Exquisite colour reproductions of illustrations, a sheer tribute to the long tradition of botanical illustrations.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

For anyone interested in botanical illustration, Garden Eden is one of the most important compilations to date. -- Chicago Botanic Garden, February 2002

Language Notes

Text: German, English, French (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Taschen; Bilingual edition (June 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822815217
• ISBN-13: 978-3822815212
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,961,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars take my word for it you want this one, July 8, 2003

By 

P. Arroyo (Long Beach, New York United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Garden Eden : Masterpieces of Botanical Book Illustration (Paperback)

This book is GREAT! This book is beautiful, this book is wonderful!!! [gee, think I like the book?] If you are considering buying only one book of botanical illustrations this is the perfect book to start with. If you have many books of botanical works of art this will be a valued addition to them. It is basically a sampling of botanical works of art throughout history. It includes many different artists from all different countries and all differnet styles. The one thing they all share in common is beauty.
If you want to purchase books of botanical illustration and don't know where or with whom to start this is the perfect book for you because it displays so many different artists, techniques time periods and styles.
Even if you already have a collection of this art I can still highly recommend this book. It is that good. I don't think that the book loses much of anything by being a paperback. The cover is of a very heavy material with a vibrant illustration on it. It is a coated cover so that it will stand up to quite a bit of wear. Please don't let that stop you from purchsing this wonderful book. There is so very much to look at and study here, it is a book that you will never tire of browsing through. It is also a great reference for reviewing a large number of different masters in this art form. Get this one, you will not regret it!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many Illustrated Botanical Books, February 3, 2010

By 

Theodore W. Palmer (Eugene, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Garden of Eden (25th Anniversary Special Edtn) (German Edition) (Hardcover)

This large format, beautiful book reproduces a few images from each of the many illustrated botanical books in the Vienna Library. Each book is described briefly in German, English and French. Many are quite rare and seldom available even in the largest libraries in America. The reproductions are high quality and give a good sense of the contents of the books. Anyone interested in botanical illustrations and their history will surely want to own this book. It is amazingly low cost for its quality, like many Taschen publications. My one disappointment is that the library holds few of the treasures of American botanical illustrations, so that they are absent from the book.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful but..., February 13, 2009

By 

L. Goldman "avid reader" (ny,ny) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Garden of Eden (25th Anniversary Special Edtn) (German Edition) (Hardcover)

The botanical prints in the huge volume are lovely, but I thought that there would be more prints such as the one on the book cover that show flowers in a natural or landscape setting. It turns out that this is one of the ONLY prints of that kind in the book. Also the book arrived WARPED which is probably why it was so inexpensive.