Customer Reviews

Salvador Dali 2v

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have many books on Dali and his artwork. Some I have bought, some others have bought for me, but I was given this book as a gift, and I love it. I have decided that I do not need any of the other books on him, this one has all the famous pieces and more, some of the pictures I never even knew that he had created. Plus it is very informative. This is an amazing book, I would recommend anyone interested in surrealism to buy this book, for its price, it is a steal!

Well, at nearly 6kg, a whap in the head with this thing would certainly loosen some screws. That's not what I meant, though.

It's huge, beautiful, and encyclopedic. It covers Dalí's entire career, with all of the different stages he went through in creating his art and himself. There's just too much to try to summarize here - the book takes over 1600 photos to illustrate his life. Most of them depict Dalí's art or Dalí himself (I still suspect that he lived his entire life as a work of performance art). Others depict influences on his art. Some show work by other artists, for contrast or as part of Dalí's heritage. A few show features of the natural world, a rock formation, for example, that the alchemy of Dalí's magic transmuted into new visual elements.

And, throughout, there is Gala - Dalí's wife, agent, manager, muse, model, and tour guide for his visit to planet Earth. I hate the phrase that would call Gala his "better half," but I'm sure that Dalí would have been incomplete in many ways without her. Certainly, his finished works owe much to the way she inspired him.

I fault this wonderful work for only one thing, but one that I find maddening: there is no index. In partial compensation, end matter lists each photo or work of art, in numerical order as they appeared in the book, with provenance and other information about any art shown. A bibliogrpahy would have been nice, too - but no index! With a book like this, it almost feels as if the last twenty pages had been ripped out.

Don't let that bit of pedantry get in the way of enjoying this marvelous collection, though. You might want to supplement this book with some of Dalí's own writing, such as The unspeakable confessions of Salvador Dali or Diary of a Genius, to name only a few. I can't imagine that you'll want another display of his artwork, except maybe the lithos.

-- wiredweird

This book is a complete overview of Dali's works, it's more like an encyclopedia. But I would prefer it to have huge full-page illustrations of the paintings, even double-page ones! Because you can's appreciate the picture if it's only like 4x4". And Dali's paintings have so many small details, so that you want to be able to see them!

In order to rightfully qualify as a "definitive" type art book it must posses certain features. (1) - Quality 4 color reproductions true to the original artwork. With a high volume of reprints spanning the course of the artists productivity. (2) - Exemplary narrative text by qualified authorship. Indeed this comprehensive large edition triumphs in these requirements. . . . . . . Robert Descharnes' (the principle author) intimate knowledge stems from his 40 year personal relationship with Dali. Plus his own renouned contributions to art journals make this an interesting read. The reproductions are first-rate. This exact same book had previously been printed (1994) in a smaller format. And contrary to the above amazon stats; this is an 2006 edition. The colors are more accurate in this new edition. This is especially noted in the reproduced paper drawings. And 'Sfumato' was executed using a candle flame to scorch/smoke the paper. Beautifully reproduced here while it was blue in the previous edition. In 'Invention of the Monsters' you can make out the fine marblized grain of the sarcophagus table. In no other text in my Dali collection (#8) is this evident. Yet in 'The Cosmic Athletes' the intracranial contents of one figure is pitch black where it should have tea brown striations. These nuances may be too subtle to nitpick, but worth mentioning. . . . In 1984 Descharnes put out a gigantic sized $$$$ volume. The colors duller. The text good, but scattered. It did include some rare poster projects. None the less this 2006 edition proves to be a wonderful art book. Quoting Dali I'm sure he would agree; "Dali lovers could have sat down at table to feast on me!".

"Salvador Dali: The Paintings" is quite impressive. It's one of Taschen's finest books, those thousand-dollar limited editions notwithstanding. Thankfully, this massive collection is priced within the range of poor graduate students like myself.

If you're like me, you may think you have a pretty good idea about what a Dali painting looks like. Everyone knows the "melting clock" style, but after spending some time with this collection, I was surprised at my ignorance. Dali painted in so many varied styles, that I couldn't believe it. He's painted in most every style from baroque to impressionism to abstract expressionism and more.

I was taken aback by this and began to question whether or not he actually had an artistic voice of his own. Sometimes when an artist seems to cover a wide range of styles, it's no more than compensation for having no voice of their own. However, after a bit more study, I'm happy to report that this is not the case. No matter what style he adopts, it manages to gently subvert it, thereby putting his unique stamp on everything he does. When you look at how he can so skillfully master any given style and then twist its visual language, it's no wonder he's one of the great artists of the 20th century.

All this is to say, you'll most likely be surprised at what you find in this collection. Thankfully, there is excellent commentary along with the paintings, so you have some historical and critical context. As for the reproductions themselves, they are stunning. Taschen's reputation for quality is once again reaffirmed. The set is about 13" by 10", making the reproductions nice and big.

I could go on, but it's not necessary. If you're interested in Dali, you need this wonderful collection. You'll enjoy many hours of strange and beautiful work.

salvador Dali was true true artist. He loved to shock , tantalise, horrify,bewilder etc., etc.,
but above all , he loved to paint. This book gives one an idea of his depth. His life was art
right up to the end as the book discloses. He could paint , he could draw , he was a great colourist.
His themes are always thought provoking , ancient and modern at the same time , like the duality of the
man himself. there will never be another Salvador Dali.Buy the book , you'll start to understand why.

I have always wanted to know what this great artist was about and wanted to understand the meaning of his paintings. While I don't spend a lot of time reading and studying great painters, I have always been amazed at Dali's paintings. Specifically, I love the way he seamlessly introduces other realms of existence and symbolisms into his paintings. I put this on my wish list and when I was ready to purchase it, Amazon indicated that it was out of print. So I waited. And to my surprise years later, they had copies to sell. Two encyclopedic volumes shrink wrapped within a box. I was extremely happy with my copy. I was happy with the quality of the paper, the content and the massive amount of photographs. The content is easy to read and is captured in nice chronological order with the year or years boldly indicated in the upper corner of each page.

My impression of Dali the man was that he was eccentric. Surprise; eccentric art by an eccentric artist? What did his paintings mean? Most of his art was driven by fear and duality. How sad. He seemed to believe that in order to promote his art; he needed to project his eccentricities onto the public when he made public appearances. Promotion of his art in my opinion did not need this projection. Some of the meanings behind his paintings are interesting but I found most of them immature for an artist with painting talent of this magnitude. Most of what Dali wrote and said appears to me as meaningless babel. His great talent was his painting ability. When he wanted to, he could create a painting that was of photograph quality. Dali loved being an artist; the sheer volume of work documented in this encyclopedia bears witness. At his death, his estate was worth over 100 million!

Copyright information says this is the 2007 edition. Problem being, when compared against st. petersburgh selected works 'a different book I bought first' the colors on some reproductions look washed out. Geopoliticus... I mean Guy popping out of an earth looking egg, is a great example. The colors are not vivid. And I can only give it four stars because of that and on the grounds that what they selected to be a full page picture, and what they chose to shrink down, didn't make sense. Some really worthless tripe was given a full page. And vice-versa. Just counterintuitive.
By the way, you should know that if I had been able to go out to Illinois... Comix Revolution, who sold for $130 online had a $50 price tag on the wrap. Not a sale price, just standard.

I bought this for my sister for Christmas, hoping she would like it and she did. Of all the things she received (laptop,iphone, etc.), she sat for hours looking through this book that night, not even getting into other things yet. It covers Dali's entire life and every painting, drawing, sketch he ever did. It splits it up into 2 books that are held together in a sleeve, which is nice so you are not holding a ginormous, heavy as heck book. Presents it very nicely in the sleeve. The weight is substantial! Amazon did a great job with the pricing as well as the shipping. Shipping being little to nothing. I purchased an engraved compact for my mother for xmas and the shipping on that was way more than these books that weigh either 8 or 11 pounds, I forget. Great job Amazon!! I would recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in Salvador Dali. You will learn just about anything you want to know from this book...and probably even a little more! =)

This 25th Taschen edition is one of the best I have ever seen. The size is perfect, not too small but also not too big. Two volumes for the price that they sell for are almost a steal. I could easily see this edition sell for double that price. I highly recommend it.