From Publishers Weekly
Cocteau's drawings and paintings, at best, have an impromptu, imaginative quality; at worst, they resemble an art student's half-digested farrago of Picasso, classical themes and surrealism. "I am neither a draftsman nor a painter," wrote the multifaceted poet/novelist/playwright/cinematographer who viewed his visual art as a kind of poetic vehicle to the mythological realm over which he presided. In presenting Cocteau (1889-1963) as a great artist, this hyperbolic study entombs him. Fortunately, Emboden, research director of the Severin Wunderman Museum in Irvine, Calif., provides an intimately detailed account of Cocteau's creative process and offers insight into his celebrated collaborations with, among others, Diaghilev, Chanel, Truffaut. Among the nearly 200 plates (161 in color) are reproductions of oils, hallucinatory sketches, glass sculptures, posters, homoerotic fantasies, lithographs, murals, designs for a chapel and an amphitheater.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
