5 comments about Caravaggio (Icon Editions).

1. This is a beautiful book. As a divorced hardworking mother of 3, I spend all of my time reading this book to my children, Isaul (age 90) Gabriella (age 16) and Kraquel (age 3) I also read it to my co-workers where I work, a prositute. This is truley a work of art.



2. Caravaggio is one of the greatest artists of the 17th century. In a very brief period of time he managed to exert a influence over all of European painting.

   Caravaggio was the original bad boy of the art world. He was willing to use well known prostitutes as models when portraying the Virgin Mary or to show saints with dirty feet. This offended authorities in Baroque Rome and Caravaggio was often a trial to his patrons. During the majority of his active career he was on the lam fleeing from a murder charge. He burst on the Roman art scene during the height of its influence and spent his last days in Malta in the company of the knights.

   Although Caravaggio's influence was immense immediately after his death where his masterful use of light and shadow was immitated by countless lesser artists. For a number of years Caravaggio's reputation declined. Raphael's influence dominated academic art and Caravaggio's relatively harsh realism was in disfavor. It was only in the 1950's when a major evaluation occurred.

   This book by Howard Hibbard is probably the first of these modern reevaluations of Caravaggio and it is still one of the best. Professor Hibbard is one of the country's leading art historians and he brings considerable scholarship to his study of Caravaggio's work. Although there are plenty of other books on Caravaggio, I think that this book is still the best of lot in terms of understanding Caravaggio's art (his life was sufficiently messy and his sexuality ambiguous to spur the mills of contemporary scholarship for many years). Professor Hibbard's writing is sufficiently free from academic claptrap to make it an invaluable guide to both the specialist and the novice.




3. In one of my last classes for my degree, this book was the required text. I am awed by Caravaggio's work anyway, but combine that with Howard Hibbert's insightful text and you have an amazing book. I would definitely recommend this text for anyone interested in this fantastic artist.



4. I would agree with the other reviewers that in many respects this is an excellent book. Mr. Hibbard analyzes Caravaggio's works in terms that are comprehensive, and yet not puffed up with academic hot air. He describes the historical context of the paintings, and often compares individual works of Caravaggio with similar paintings of other artists. He even points out artistic errors, such as the lack of perspective in the hands of a man in the painting Supper At Emmaus. Hibbard talks about the striking use of color in Caravaggio's compositions, and it is here that one can be somewhat disappointed with the book for, the wonderful paintings of Caravaggio are, with very few exceptions, reproduced in a dismal black and white. If you are familiar with Caravaggio, and are most interested in the author's commentary, than this deficiency would probably not bother you. I have John Spike's "Caravaggio" that is full of color plates, but it is more expensive. Although I have not seen it, I understand C. Puglisi's book by the same name also has many color plates. For the relative newcomer to this great painter, I would encourage consideration of one of these other two books as a companion volume to this excellent book.



5. This is by far the crappiest books on painting book ever. The pictures are black and white and look like a photocopy of a bad photocopy. Needless to say, I returned it the next day. Buyer Beware.

2 comments about Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master.

1. It seems that Mr. Chapman set out to survey the life of Michelangelo, which is frustrating, as this book is the sole document to 'catalog' what is the largest exhibition of Michelangelo's drawing in modern times.
   
   Also unnerving is that while being a $50 paperback, the British Museum did not license decent prints to accompany a book about M's life, so the reader must suffer black and white, grainy photographs of 'Battle of the Centaurs' and other pivotal works, reproduced with the quality of a cheap high school art survey text.
   
   The pictures from the Exhibition itself are severely scaled and butchered, many only given half to a fourth of a page. The delightful 'Study of Infants' is included at barely 3" across, the result of which are sub 1" inch figures. Let me reiterate that this figure study was in the exhibition that Mr. Chapman's book is supposed to catalog and accompany!
   
   Works such as St. Matthew, the Bruges Madonna, the Dying Slave, etc.. are just crammed in postage stamp, sub 1.5" thumbnails and confined to the edges, as if warring with the text itself. If this metaphor was to be taken literally, I would say Mr. Chapman's text was actually the victor. For a book about M's drawings to have the Gardner Pieta scaled to a size of 1.5" or the Studies for the Libyan Sibyl at 2", both black and white; is pretty inexcusable.
   
   Mr. Chapman however, does a decent job of digesting most contemporary knowledge about the man and regurgitating it in a somewhat interesting and easily re-digestible text. It is unfortunate that this book is one of the only places you can see these drawings, and this alone is a reason to own it. However, in the end, this was a book about the drawings, and those who bought this book surely wanted to gaze, not squint, upon the work of the most masterful artist that has ever lived.



2. This is a really fine book. It's great to have all of these drawings together in one book. The drawings have a life of their own. As a bonus I was surprised to find here some of the best shots of the Sistine Chapel post-restoration. Amazing!

1 comments about Michelangelo Antonioni: The Investigation 1912-2007 (Basic Film).

1. Antonioni : The Investigation (Basic Film Series)
   This product has not arrived yet - The Book Depository promised to re-send a replacement if by March 27 (one week after the proposed date of delivery) the book did not arrive - in spite of having written to them there has been no response to my request yet.
   Please do look into the matter
   Brian D'Monte

1 comments about Michelangelo and His Drawings.

1. Michelangelo's sculptures, paintings and architectures are world renown. However most of us who are not arts experts are hardly aware of the drawings this genius did aeons ago. Hirst has rectified this. This book contains most of Michelangelo's drawings, even those not displayed to the public. I am just a layman and hence am ignorant of all the technical terms involve in studying a piece of drawing. However this does not stop me from enjoying Michelangelo's myriad masterpiece drawings. I am very glad indeed to be educated on another angle of this great genius.

3 comments about Michelangelo: A Biography.

1. This is a very good biography of Michelangelo that ranks along with Irving Stone's "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (fictional bio). Bull includes numerous letters to and from Michelangelo that involve friends and family. One is left with a good overall picture of Michelangelo and his times. I would have given it 5 stars if Bull was a little more inquisitve about painting and how painters of the time went about their work (including Michelangelo).



2. I spent a week in Florence on my own and took this book with me. This book added so much to my trip. I would read this book while sipping coffee or having dinner...then I'd walk to the places it mentions in the book and lement about the stories I had just read. I finished the book close to the end of my trip. The book tells how Michelangelo's life ends...a visit to the Santa Maria where he is buried only seemed right.



3. I'll keep reading but I think I'm too uninformed about the Renaissance for this book to hold my attention much longer. It's nothing to jump from the year 1518 to 1513 to 1509 and back to 1519 in the space of 2 pages. And it's DRY. There are a few excerpts from various letters but they seem so vague to me. I'm not understanding the ramifications when a contract has been broken and money has already changed hands (it's happened a LOT)...I'm not understanding where the assistants come from, how many were needed, what their duties were and how they interacted with the artist, except to learn some didn't work out. I'm not understanding anything about the people he socialized with or even knew very well. I'm losing interest fast!

No comments about The Lives of Caravaggio (Lives of the Artists series).

No comments about Caravaggio: A Play.

No comments about Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body.

1 comments about Michelangelo: 16 Art Stickers (Fine Art Stickers).

1. I like using stickers of works by great artists. But, why does it have to cost more than $1.50.

No comments about Coffee with Michelangelo (Coffee with...Series).