Customer Reviews

Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra

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I'm a huge fan of Ford's work, and I've been trying to get some printed resources for a year. All the calendars and previous boooks are out of print or too expensive, so when this edition became available at this price I almost went nuts.

And this beautiful book does not disappoint. The color plates are gorgeous, the wonderful pages showing details are crisp, and the superb text by Bill Buford is illumnating. I am ecstatic about this purchase. One of the best deals I have ever had on Amazon.com.

This book at 15 inches tall is packed full of reproductions of panoramic wildlife paintings by Walton Ford. Ford is what you might loosely call a naturalist - a painter of nature with an old fashioned sense of fidelity to the anatomical proportions and whiskered details of God's creations. On top of that he is a fantasy artist who flings his animal subjects into crazy social situations of mischief, conflict and comic chaos. While some of the scenes he paints involve implausible situations, he gives the animals a credible sense of character. Vengeance, humour, calculation - these are just a few of the thought processes infused into the faces and the gestures of these animated beasts.

The original artworks reproduced in this book are monstrous large, with many of the animals (alligators, great apes, tigers etcetera) at least as large as life. Prize of the herd in this book may be the multi-panel painting of a male elephant on heat, titled Nila. At 3.66 metres tall x 5.49 wide, the original artwork is quite literally the size of a young elephant. Playing upon the intimidating size and power of many of these wild animals, Ford often paints them in situations of victory over man. A painting dated 1596 shows a lumbering polar bear triumphant over the bones and personal effects of an explorer, while in the background a shattered sailing ship creaks against an arctic shore.

Also unusual is that these works are all watercolours, painted onto huge sheets of paper. Watercolour normally lends itself to modest, even miniature work, because of the difficulty of handling the medium across large surfaces without washes drying in inconvenient places. Furthermore watercolour on paper is unforgiving when mistakes are made and the consequences of the risks are greater when the painting is on a gigantic scale. Ford works skilfully in the medium making heavy use of the "dry brush" technique - a method that avoids bleeding, helps keep brush lines precise and allows the overlay of variegated colour (for instance to paint a mass of silky fur).

To admire the original massive works, which can cover whole gallery walls, viewers would need to stand several metres back. Ford aides the viewer with some sharp linework, a technique has a secondary benefit of allowing the works to reproduce wonderfully well in book format. Pancha Tantra includes a nice mix of cropped close-ups bled to the edge of the page - allowing us to study the overlay of wash and brushstrokes, with long shots of whole works - at a size where we can still appreciate the fine detail. On my count this book displays 72 artworks on single pages and a further 41 spread across double pages. In addition there are 43 pages with crops of interesting details, plus 17 double pages devoted to cropped highlights. Some artworks have several pages devoted to them, including the wide shot and multiple close-ups.

The background washes on Ford's paintings include mock mould spotting and branching mildew, to make the paintings look ambiguously like nineteenth century prints. At first glimpse the effect is deceptive. But these artworks are far more lively than conventional stiff animal portraits. And the wit and allegory packed into some of the works can make the viewer do a double-take. While these images are show beautiful beasts and colourful fauna, the situations depicted include some moments of drama and visceral brutality.

The only disappointment to this book is the absence of any chapter on Ford's working methods or career story. There is only a two page basic `Biography' that includes a chronology of exhibitions, awards and references to previous media stories on the artist. Perhaps the Collector's Edition with its additional 34 pages has a more rounded biographical treatment? Maybe I'll have to save for it and find out!

This book provides a marvellous folio of artworks to the mass market and does this at an agreeable price. Many of the main competitors to Taschen would have charged at least twice this price for a book this scale. The post-release price won't last and shouldn't last, it is too good to be true for a book of this size and quality. This is an abridged version of my full review on Art Book News at blogspot.

Book specs: Hardcover 320 pages, 15 x 11.4 inches, 173 colour illustrations (across 231 pages)

This book is absolutely amazing! I only learned of Ford after seeing his work on the cover of naturalist book of essays and was instantly captivated. I am happy to finally have a book with so many wonderful images of his art, both full images of the paintings as well as close-ups of certain details. Ford's incredible work is wonderfully presented in this affordable edition.

Walton Ford makes art that is exceptional in technique, arresting in presence, and challenging to the mind. This comprehensive book WALTON FORD: PANCHA TANTRA is as complete a survey of the artist's career to date as any published. Not only is it filled with full page and double page quality reproductions of his paintings, but it also explores the sources of Ford's artistic imagination. Note: the term Pancha Tantra is an Indian one referencing the stories suggested by the age old Aesop's Fables...with a twist!

Ford's approach to the animal kingdom is more like a bestiary ('A medieval collection of stories providing physical and allegorical descriptions of real or imaginary animals along with an interpretation of the moral significance each animal was thought to embody. A number of common misconceptions relating to natural history were preserved in these popular accounts.') than a survey of the animals he elects to paint. These varied animals carry anthropomorphic messages that take the viewer by surprise and allow the art to soar into the imagination of the viewer, returning after digestion to the realization that the commentary illustrated in the animal behavior captured in Ford's meticulously realistic paintings is actually a commentary on our society as we live it.

But the problems and resolutions he poses with these grand scaled paintings, impressive and sophisticated as they are, do not diminish the viewer's enjoyment of the paintings as pure art. He is a master draughtsman and a colorist without peer. This very fine, large collection of his works is a book that will appeal to every art lover, despite preferences for other schools of painting. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 09

The book is large, the prints are detailed and it was everything I had hoped for, as a artist I was blown away by the detail. If your not into art, it still makes a great cocktail table book, anyone would enjoy looking at.

I received this as a gift, (they knew I wanted it)
I love it!
you can get lost in the beautiful, intricate paintings. The size of the book is large- it's substantial and the reproductions are gorgeous.
Like Audubon on acid. (a compliment)

I was expecting a great book but this exceeded my expectations. It is large, with a great cover, and nicely reproduced illustrations inside. My only complaint is that the large paintings are placed in spreads with the gutter dividing the image in half. It would have been better to have gate folds so the entire painting could be viewed on one page. But that is probably too much to expect for a book of this price. On the positive side, the book is not bound overly tight so the spreads do open so you get a good view of the work (books bound too tightly obscure imagery in the gutter).

In addition to Ford's paintings there are quite a few of his prints, which I had never seen before. They are remarkably similar to Audubon prints (with a bizarre twist, of course). There are excellent close-ups of nearly every image and the collection seems like a nice overview of Ford's work. I haven't read the text yet but plan to do so soon, but suffice it so say that the text doesn't overwhelm the visuals.

In short, it is a great book at a great price.

In most of his paintings Ford depicts the more twisted and ironic elements of nature: perverse portraits of murderous birds with mouthfuls of frogs, drunken monkeys, and wounded rhinos. The most wonderfully disturbing element of his style is its technicality; the paintings are spot on as far as biological and anatomical correctness to the point where they resemble cold, anatomical drawings out of scientific textbooks. In a very upfront way, Ford delves headfirst into ideals of Darwinism, nature vs nurture, symbiosis, cycles of life, biodiversity, and all that happens when nature goes completely awry, all the while telling stories from the Hindu epic Pancha Tantra. Beautiful, harrowing, dramatic, thought provoking, obscene and definitely memorable. The perfect companion for any eclectic coffee table.

Simply amazing collection of Walton Ford's superlative watercolors. An extensive overview of his work, in an oversize volume to allow for the clear reproduction of his oversized and very detailed painting, and yet not much more expensive than an average paperback museum catalog. If you're familiar with Ford's gorgeous (and thoughtful) art, you need this book. If you're not familiar with his work, drop a few bucks on it and check it out. It's really worth it.

This book has an amazing way of evoking strong emotion. The detailed beauty of the prints speak volumes to Mr Ford's dedication and eye. The subjects and situations express the barbarism of the natural world in an almost absurdist satire fashion.

The quote on the dust jacket from Vanity Faire describes the book to a tee.