Customer Reviews

Luis Melendez: Master of the Spanish Still Life

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is filled with gorgeous paintings of this master's works. It is coffee table sized. The illustrations are all high quality, and it features x-ray photographs and other such photographs covering the painter's technique. It also discusses the various items he uses in his still lifes. Altogether, if you are interested in the artist, it will be a lovely addition to your book collection.

After reading the enthusiastic reviews and the emphasis on the quality of the illustrations of the book I finally laid hands on it at an art bookshop last week in Florence and....I must say I was strongly deceived by the quality of the pictures. They appear blurred and by no means convey the sharpness that is so characteristic to the paintings by Melendez. I love this artist and I know his work well because I have often seen it at the Prado museum in Madrid. If you really like him and do want a book with close to real illustration on the great Spanish painter look for "Luis Melendez Bodegones" edited by the Prado museum in 2004. It may be hard to get now but those that get it will be fully rewarded by the excellent images.

This catalogue of the recent exhibition of thirty of Luis Melendez's wonderful still-life paintings is beautifully presented with new insights about Melendez's life, the everyday objects in his paintings, and the materials and methods he used in creating these works. Peter Cherry's major essay presents a fascinating discussion of Melendez's life and work. However, there should have been more emphasis on Melendez's relationship to earlier Spanish still-life painters, such as Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran, and Cherry refers too much to his earlier publications on Melendez without giving enough emphasis to studies by other scholars, such as Eleanor Tufts and Juan Luna. The catalogue discussions of the thirty-one paintings (one self-portrait and thirty still lifes) is somewhat too technical for the general public and so many details about x-radiographs and changes that Melendez made to each work become very repetitive. It would have been interesting to compare and contrast some of the paintings to other Spanish still-life paintings by Sanchez Cotan, Zurbaran, and Goya. The reproductions and the details are very good and in general the book is recommended for anyone wishing to learn about the life and work of one of the greatest Spanish still-life painters.

This is an extraordinarily attractive publication focused on a painter I'd never heard of, before now. Luis Melendez gets short shrift--if any--in several of the major art histories that I've consulted, even though, as a still-life painter, he could easily be seen as superior to any other artist of the genre in history. More importantly, while his typical subject matter--kitchen utensils and common foodstuffs--might be seen as fodder for the Naturalist, in truth, Melendez can be regarded as one of the earliest Romantics; and the authors intimate as much in their discussion of one of my favorites, "Still Life with Melon, Jug, and Bread", when they state: "One of the aims of painting in the academic tradition in Melendez's time was to improve on what nature had made, not merely to imitate it. Although this convention usually referred to figure painting, Melendez evidently took it to heart when creating his still lifes." Evidently, indeed. "He also", the authors continue, "made compositional choices that would showcase his virtuosity, and his high opinion of his own talent is validated by paintings such as 'Still Life with Melon, Jug, and Bread'...." And that "high opinion" is similarly "validated" by most of the other astounding works so beautifully presented in this superlative publication. Kudos to the authors, the publisher, and the National Gallery of Art.

I recently bought this book after seeing the cover of it. I can't believe it, I never buy from covers, but the painting on the front was so lush, I blew my budget for the month, and got it. I am not sorry. What a beautiful book. The paintings are superb. Of course, I am a painter, myself, and find it difficult to find books about still life painting, let alone large, clear photos of same. My only disappointment, and it is small, is that the text looks at Melendez's techniques from the point of view of art historians, not artists. Don't look for the how-to's. Just enjoy on a visceral level.

This book is the catalogue for the traveling exhibition now at the National Gallery in Washington, which will then go to Los Angeles and Boston. It is a high-quality publication, with many first-rate illustrations and close-ups of rarely-seen works (many still in private hands).

The accompanying essays study Melendez's career (an interesting introduction describes his celebrated self-portrait in the Louvre), the everyday objects that appear in his paintings (many enlightening illustrations grace this chapter) and his technique and working methods.

One of the best artbooks published in 2009, it sheds new light on a great Spanish master, the only one who can be ranked equal to the great XVIIth century Dutch masters of still-life painting.

It is good that monographs like this one on Melendez are being published. Hitherto, publishers only considered the Impressionists, moderns, and brand-name artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh worthy of a tome of their own.
What we want are lots of big, good reproductions, with a number of detail images of the work along with a pithy bio.
In this book while there are many excellent reproductions of Melendez's paintings, there are also photographs of old utensils, etc. which are are a waste of space, as are the x-ray photos(I have never understood why they are included in a book obviously intended for hoi poloi, not art preservationists and scholars)and the outlines drawn on some of the paintings are pointless excrements.Let's have more un-impaired repros of Melendez's work instead!
The detailed physical description next to each and every reproduction and banal subjective commentary are superfluous for the most part. Just a bit of history is what's needed.
For all the empty verbiage and the pointless overdrawing someone decided to put around a melon or two, none of the contributers to this book observed Melendez's use of contour brushwork which gives the monumental sculptural roundness to his still-life subjects.
The great Luis Melendez gets five stars! The folks who put this book together get one-they need to leave their egos at home.

This is a comprehensive museum show catalogue of a wonderful aritst. The reproductions are quite accurate, and the writing is reasonably clear and interesting.

Having read through the entire book I found it to be a real pleasure. The essays often stated the obvious though. A few times they pointed out things I didn't see at first but as a whole they probably weren't that necessary. One long essay on the artist's life would have been fine.

The x-rays of paintings did not do much for me but the close ups- now you are talking. To study the detailed work and lighting and see how Melendez manipulated paint makes the book a great teaching tool.

I don't think the authors were critical enough of some of his bloopers and he made them as all artists sometimes do. His ellipses sometimes were incorrect or his lids were too big for pots or the fruit were not painted as carefully as other parts of a painting- were good to see. Who would want to study one who was always perfect? (It gives us all hope).

I found Melendez to be usually consistent but there were times when even he had bad days and the paintings I really liked best were sometimes glossed over for others that were not as good but such is this animal called art criticism.

The book is well worth the price. It can be studied many times over and sure beats those often silly and superficial books put out by contemporary publishers- titles like: how to paint roses or how to paint apples or how to paint textures are all a bit goofy. This book has all that and more.

And Sorry Thomas Kinkade- Melendez was a painter of light long before your great, great, great, great grandparents were even alive.

The catalogue is very clear on showing details , variations on texture and effects of lights and color.