Customer Reviews

Tuscany: Inside the Light (Photography)

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

 

 

This is not a book about Tuscany as a series of pretty pictorial pictures, instead this is a book about looking and seeing a landscape transformed, shaped almost by a particular light, brilliantly sunny or gloomily misty.
There is a pure humbling feel to this body of work, whose subject Joel Meyerowitz has not re created in any grand graphic sense but simply drawn our attention to. Joel has created such a sense of place that one feels transported to the 'real' Tuscany, but we in turn are asked to look and consider our own surroundings and lives. What is and what could be.
A brilliant book.

There have been a surprising number of negative opinions about this view of Tuscany, comments that may make the potential buyer avoid the book. This reader found something different here, something unique to this volume and view of an area of the world that seems to have become everybody's dream location.

First, the book is soft hued. Joel Meyerowitz is an accomplished photographer who is able to photograph just about any subject and make it more sensitive. Here he walks us through Tuscany along with writer Maggie Barrett during the various seasons of the year. No, there are no color-saturated view of sunflower fields, vineyards, or the glowing sunlight that permeates the summers of Tuscany. Instead we begin with Winter and proceed through Spring, Summer, and Autumn and are given the quality of light that changes with the seasons as much as the crops and produce and landscapes do. The result is a romantic, poetic, fine marriage of image and word that allows us to let the mystery of the countryside and its inhabitants and treasures subtlely come to life.

This is not a book for those eager to find the best travel locales or for those who want some visual information for making paintings. This instead is a book of dreamy visions, images altered by light as seen through different hours and seasons. This is a poet's collection. Grady Harp, November 06

this book transported me back to one of the most beautiful and enchanting places in the world- tuscany. the photography is wonderful; there are many photographs that are just incredible. Meyerowitz's use of light is amazing, and the accompanying text gives a welcome perspective on what the reader is seeing. this is a great xmas present .

I was expecting so much, and received so little! Don't be fooled by the beautiful cover! All the pictures seemed similar in washed out colors and shape, as if the photographer never left one area of Tuscany. He captured very few of it's many facets. Out of the 79 photographs, there was only about 15 that did anything for me. And there was not ONE photograph of the fields of sunflowers that Tuscany is famous for. Only a picture of dead ones in winter!
Tuscany is breathtakingly gorgeous, and vast, with so much character! Very little of that is captured in this book. It didn't do Tuscany the justice it deserves!

If you are familiar with Meyerowitz's gorgeous book "Cape Light" you will be disappointed in Tuscany. The Cape Cod book was published by the Boston Musuem of Fine Arts and contained wonderful color saturated plates. Tuscany, on the other hand, looks like an amateur effort. The skies are washed out, there is little definition in much of the landscape photos and it is simply mediocre and uninspiring. I am assuming this is the fault of the publisher since Meyerowitz is, in my opinion, a first rate color photographer.

Tuscany is a land of remarkable lighting. Ask anyone who has been to Tuscany and they will always talk about the light. The authors of this book unlike anything you will ever see have captured the Tuscan light. This is the result of the photographic ability of Joel Meyerowitz who in this book has demonstrated why he has participated in 350 photographic exhibitions. He is also the only photographer that was given unfettered access to Ground Zero at the World Trade Center.


The second author is Maggie Barrett who is without question a poet. Together they have put together a journey through the various seasons of Tuscany beginning with winter, and moving gently through the seasons. In each season always capturing the light.


You gently turn the pages and you see a muted palette. There are no harsh images here, nothing hard. These are gentle pictures of the magnificent landscape, rivers, 300 year old buildings, and the magnificent shades of light that permeates every picture. Over 90 percent of the pictures are displayed on the right hand side of the book. They stand alone and all are capable of being hung on a wall. In the back of the book there is a separate picture placed in a wax lined envelope for you to frame.


Here are a few major interesting examples of what this book has to offer


SPECIFIC EXAMPLES:


Plate 25 is the first picture to use the color green. It is a landscape and it is outstanding

Plate 26 is taken inside a home and it is a picture containing oranges so vivid, you can touch them

Plate 42 shows blades of grass so precise that you can make out every blade

Plate 43 the photographer has created the same effect with wheat that he did with grass in the previous plate.


The authors demonstrate a very interesting effect by having plates 35, 36, and 37 on pages that open up and provide one continual landscape. Together you are looking at about an 18 inch pictures. It is most unique.



CONCLUSION:


This is not a travel book. This is a book of magnificent pictures taken by a world-class photographer accompanied by a writer that has the poet's touch. It is a keepsake to treasure on your coffee table, to relive from time to time your visits to a most beautiful part of the world. Enjoy it, and thank you for reading this review.


Richard C. Stoyeck

I was captured by the cover and when I looked inside this book, I loved the color photography. It made me feel like I'd been to Tuscany! I gave it as a housewarming gift to a friend. I think it would make a terrific Christmas gift too, a perfect coffee table book.

Like William Eggleston, Richard Misrach, and a very few others, Joel Meyerowitz is an artist of the color photographic landscape. This is one of his finest books. Ignore the negative comments here by people who would probably prefer a Disney facsimile to the real Tuscany anyway. (Ah-- Americans! A people who think there are only three colors in the world, plus the green of money).

As someone who has spent much of his life in Italy, I'll add this, too, for those who may not appreciate photography as an art form but who love Italy and want a keepsake: these are the real colors of Tuscany. These are its moods. It may not sport the bright colors of a postcard-- for those go to Capri. Instead, you have all the colors of the earth.

I ordered this book, expecting something entirely different. I am extremely disappointed and I am sorry I spent the money for it. I expected to see more street scenes and tips to help you paint the "old Tuscany" style. There are only landscape scenes, and nothing like I would like to paint! Nothing there looks like what I think Tuscany style is!