Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) work stands out as one of the most innovative of the Northern Renaissance, revolutionising landscape and portraiture techniques in both religious and secular painting. This book offers a wide selection of Dürer’s works, and its compact format makes it the ideal gift for every art lover.
Victoria Charles received her PhD in history of art. She has published extensively on the subject and has regularly contributed to Art Information, an international guide to contemporary art.
Frequently writing articles for specialised journals and magazines, Victoria Charles recently contributed to a collective work, World History of Art.
All images are arranged by chronographic order- But the layout of the book is arranged such that the writing jumps here and there around it.
In need of editing, maybe a diff layout or rearranged text to work with the way the images are placed. The images & writing are like two different books sometimes. Descriptions rarely describe the image it's facing. Also, sometimes images are described that aren't in the book, sometimes they're described when they are- but we're never told which it is so it's up to the reader to check. I think this could have been nicely avoided by just noting the page an image is on if it is indeed included.
That being said, it's an intro with an nice overview of his life, work, etc accompanied by many images of drawings, painting, woodcuts, etc.
I give it a 2.5- but if the book were rearranged/edited it could have been a 3.5 to 4.
I subscribe to the Tate, London, MOMA and the National Gallery, London on youtube. The National gallery are currently having a fabulous Durer exhibition with lots of videos for those of us half a world away. Then I found this book displayed at my local library. I first thought it was just plates but it had an added detailed biography of his whole life and discussions of his paintings, woodcuts, drawings, engravings and literary works. There are beautifully detailed descriptions of his works and his ideas about form and space. He had no reflective effects and no playing with light or candle effects like his Dutch contemporaries. And he desired realism. The Small Tuff of Grass, Wing of a Blue Jay, Young Hare, The Large Tuft of Grass and all his arresting portraits show his skill and technique. His work is a feast for the eyes such is his genius. A great little book.
This book had some great examples of Durer's art which I'd never seen before. I learned a lot about him, as well. The problem is that book isn't very well done. The book read as if English was a second language to the author or there was a terrible editor. Sentences were hard to follow and topics jumped around in time. Another problem with the book is that illustrations which the text describes are never on the same page as the description. To see the Adam and Eve etching the author talks about I had to flip twenty pages forward. And some pieces the author describes aren't even included in the book, which seems strange.
Overall, I liked having a lot of his art to look at and I liked what I learned about Durer, but the book as a whole was a failure. Better editing is really needed.