Amazon.com: Artists By Themselves: Van Gogh (Artists By Themselves): Rachel Barnes: Books

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
YA-- These small, handsome books offer excellent introductions to the lives and works of their subjects. Each volume begins with a short but cogently written biographical sketch, followed by small full-color reproductions of the artist's works accompanied by quotations from their own conversations or writings. Sometimes the quotations relate to the particular painting on the opposite page but, more often, they relate to the artists' views of his own techniques, subject matter, or philosophy.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Excellent illustrations are combined with excerpts from diaries, journals, correspondence, and biographies to make this series an interesting blend of the visual and the intellectual. Compact in content as well as format, the volumes consist of a short introduction followed by color plates and accompanying writings. Uniting the mental images and emotional states with the oeuvre provides an opportunity for the reader to glimpse the creative process behind the familiar illustration; although the brief passages do not lead to deep understanding, they can stimulate independent thought. The quality of each volume is thus dependent upon the quality of the writings, since the ability to convey feelings and images in words does not always accompany artistic skill. The volume on van Gogh succeeds: excerpts from the voluminous correspondence of Vincent to Theo illuminate the pain of his troubled spirit, and the reader cannot help but wish that the "health and restorative forces that I see in the country" might have helped him. Thoughts about his work, his art, and the techniques necessary to achieve his aims are all recorded. The charm and warmth of Renoir's art are sometimes confounded by the written works that echo the frequent periods of self-doubt and insecurity of this child of the working classes. However, his belief that painting should be an escape from the harshness of reality, a smile through the darkness, has left us a bright legacy--part of the French School "so pretty, so clear, such good company and with nothing rowdy about it." It is somewhat paradoxical that although Degas believed that paintings are not for talking about, his prose and poetic images duplicate those upon his canvases. His need for solitude kept him apart from many of his colleagues, but he was not unaware of the need for human relationships. In one of his notebooks, Degas wrote, "The heart is an instrument which goes rusty if it isn't used. Is it possible to be a heartless artist?" For Monet, the ever-changing face of nature was the subject to be captured endlessly and magnificently in all his works. His frustrations caused by the very illusive quality of nature, the effects of unpredictable weather upon his ability to capture light and shadow, were as much a part of his work as the luminous flowers that began and ended his oeuvre. To the reader, as to his fellow artists, he said, "It is through observation and reflection that one finds." This series is well worth acquiring for large public library collections and those serving YAs.
- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.