Customer Reviews

Titian (The Library of Great Masters)

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

 

 

This is a comprehensive survey of the entirety of Titian's ouput, the best available, as far as I am aware. The reason for 3 stars and not 5 is because of the small size of many of the reproductions. I will never understand why publishers produce books of this large size and then fill them predominantly with images that take up only about an eighth of the page. Whatever the reasons for this - printing costs, rights, photographic file sizes - or just the need to cram everything in for a catalogue raisonne - it's still annoying to have on you lap a book of this size (13x11ins) and be looking at pictures of only 3x4ins. It is, after all, the images by Titian which are of most interest, not the accompanying text.

Nevertheless, there are still a few paintings shown at reasonable size and which use the scale of the book, as well as 30 or so full page details, so I would say it is still worthwhile.

Titian represents the zenith of the Venetian school and is a universally acclaimed "Old Master" who painted more than 250 canvases during his extraordinary lifetime. From moving and intense religious images, through penetratingly psychological portraits, to sensuously..presentations of the human form, Titian is a proven master of the brush and his superb use of color, form and dimension became benchmarks for the generations of artists who have studied him. Filippo Pedrocco's informative text provides a concise art history of Titian's life and work, while the wealth of full-color reproductions of Titan's paintings are flawless and completely document the scope and dimensions of this master painter. Filippo Pedrocco's Titian is a very highly recommended contribution to personal and professional art history collections, and would make an ideal "Memorial Gift" acquisition for academic and community libraries.