Customer Reviews

Tricia Guild's Painted Country

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

 

 

This is a large book by size and it has 350 color photographs!
You get a feel for southern Europe through it and you even get to try some of the nice country type of foods at the end, mostly sallads, healthy stuff :-) It's beautiful and as inspirational as any book by Tricia Guild can be...somewhere to rest your eyes and calm down I'd say, without having to go to the countryside yourself. And then it gives you back that energy that only nature can give you!

This book is filled with higly saturated photos of painted furniture and rich fabrics. Though the title is "Country," I would also recommend it for the modernist. Included in the back of the book are fresh summer recipes.

"Painted Country" caught my eye at a time when COLOR had made a rather large splash in our community, a splash of blue - almost pastel, but unwelcome to some who dictate the 'fashion' of storefronts in this small tourist town. What a furor can rise if circumstances & the gods intersect! "Painted Country" is the answer to such bonfires in winter, and to give a lift to February, when dullish moments need bold colors, verve, exclamation points!

Tricia Guild is known at the founder of Designers Guild (in 1970), and for her exuberance in living. She is a lucky Londoner who can retreat to Tuscany. There an existence of nature-fed tranquillity balances the city portion of her life. With Britain well over the shoulder, the creative juices are free to boil & roil with purples, reds, oranges & even blues.The subtle hairs on grape leaves add a different texture and Guild encourages variety. This freedom "gives a loose to the soul" as a journalist friend once said. Tricia Guild's philosophy of living is best shared through views of her marvelous kitchen (p.54-61), and the food produced.

Nonie Niesewand supplied the text, and Gilles de Chabaneix the stunning photographs. Their work is impressive, in part because the book represents more than a lapful in size. It has never been my desire to grow a citified atmosphere at a rough, rural address. I appreciate "spare" decoration of rooms anywhere. In the city what is called 'sophisticated' might be written off as 'shabby' in a summer cabin. One's spirit, I believe, is revived and lifted quite successfully by strategically located blocks of color. See the chair on p.46 made gorgeous with orangey, red blooms in needlepoint. It is the inspiration for Tricia Guild's painting (p.44) of field flowers reminiscent of Cezanne /OR/ did the inspiration work the other way around?

You will want to own this book, and study it often: the dining room (p.50-51), the deep sills everywhere to allow one more surface for carefully arranged flowers. The photographs of vegetables are charming; actually they will take your breath away! Then the prepared foods that caught my eye, including a tomato & zucchini pizza (p.152 that demonstrates how a Tuscan might prepare this recipe. I am further tempted by the linguine with broccoli, olives and capers (p.156). When you see the table setting of unmatched majolica dinner plates (p.174) you will yearn to become a collector.

Reviewer mcHAIKU predicts that you will inhale deeply the luminous colors & uncluttered arrangements, and will go forth to "GIVE A LOOSE TO YOUR SOUL"!

After reading the great reviews, it was shocking to see all the photos and ideas are actually very ordinary, simple and rustic, with a bit of bold paint here, a bit of fabric with prints there, nothing new or interesting. There's 57 pages of recipes that didn't look too original either. Why are so many books filled with mostly ordinary, simple ideas? They deem us to not already know them ourselves??