Customer Reviews

John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The best Sargent book yet. Volume I was good but Volume II is even better. This volume covers the 1890's when the artist began to really hit his stride as a portrait artist and the paintings are magnificent.

This book is well set out with at least one illustration to a page often with portrait sketchs and background information if available. The quality of the reproductions is very good (as in Volume I) and the information clear and well structured.

A must buy for Sargent fans (even if like me you thought you didn't need Volume II because you already had Volume I). The authors have done a great job.

I have purchased "Portraits of the 1890s" primarily for the images and I have to say that I am dissapointed. Sargent definitely deserves a monograph with better reproductions. I lost my initial desire to order remaining two books in this series (fortunately, I haven't ordered all three as I intended).

The reproductions never do justice to the originals, but this is too much. The lighter colors are washed out (for instance, one of Sargent's most famous works - portrait of Lady Agnew) and many reproductions have yellowish or reddish cast. There are even images (as in case of portrait of Helen Sears) who are washed out and, in addition, have a yellowish cast.

The values on some other reproductions (portrait of W. Graham Robertson, for instance) are compressed to the point of absurd.
There are lot of preparatory sketches and drawings in this book, but they are very small - barely larger than a postage stamps. If you're interested in that part of Sargent's oeuvre, I can recommend Dover's book "Sargent Portrait Drawings".
For truth's sake, I have to say that not all reproductions in this book are bad - half of them are tolerable (I didn't see any who is superb, though).
Being both - a painter and art history professor my standards on this particular issue may be a bit higher than those of the non artists but, generally speaking, I just don't see the point of printing poor quality reproductions in an artbook or monograph.

This is the second in a series of three and it is just as quality as the other two. I read the review of the reader who was disappointed in this book and thus did not order the other two with shear amazement. I really recommend that she look at another copy, all I can figure is that she got a poor copy, which unfortunitely does happen even at the best publishing houses. I am highly discriminatory about poor quality pictures and overall book quality and I can assure you this book is top shelf. I highly recommend it to anyone who has an appreciation for great portrature.

Fantastic book, a must-have. The color reproduction is superb, the scholarship is facinating, it is as close to perfect as one could get.

I own the entire series, and I wouldn't part with any one of them. For Sargent fans, this series is a dream come true. I hope they would publish some "poster books" with large reproductions eventually, as that would really complete the series.

complete and lots of colour pics. good price: at the sargent exhibition in paris more than twice as expensive! very happy with my purchase.

I think we cannot be deceived by a book on Sargent. This is a so so good painter! This book is packed with beautiful big well chosen pictures and great text on Sargent's work. I was really happy to have this one!