ROBERT TANITCH’S ROUND-UP OF BOOKS No 5
THE STORY OF ART by E H GOMBRICH LUXURY EDITION (Phaidon £49.95). Gombrich’s The Story of Art was the very first book I bought on Art. This luxury edition is its seventeenth. I cannot recommend it too highly. This is an ideal book for anybody who is just discovering Art for the first time. He is accessible without talking down. He looks at the great masterpieces and only writes about what he can illustrate. The illustrations are wonderful.
A HISTORY OF PICTURES by David Hockney & Martin Gayford (Thames & Hudson £29.95). Painting, drawing, film, photography are interconnected: how do artists compress three dimensional people, places and things into a flat picture? It’s good to listen to Hockney and Gayford chatting about Rembrandt, Monet, Giotto, Mascani, Van Eyck, Caravaggio and observing juxtapositions of Disney and Hiroshige, Eisenstein and Velasquez, and Titian’s Magdalene and Ingrid Bergman. It is good to look and good to be encouraged to look harder.
THE SILHOUETTE From the 18th Century to the Present Day by Georges Vigarello (Bloomsbury £30). A history of fashion and body language takes the reader from Hogarth to Dior, from Etoinne Silhouette to Chanel. The book is richly illustrated by such artists as Augustin Edouart, Fredereic Bouchet, Gustave Dore, Jean Jacques Grandville and many others, all leading to greater freedom of appearance and posture. The clean cut contours and figures in silhouette are intended to create the maximum effect of line. The book will delight scholars, students and lovers of fashion.
GOING ONCE 250 YEARS OF CULTURE, TASTE AND COLLECTING (Phaidon £39.95) When were you last at Christie’s? You can stay at home and look at 250 objects. If you had the money, what would you buy? A Monet, a Toulouse-Lautrec, a Picasso, a Constable, a Magritte, a Holbein, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a Modigliani nude, the Guttenberg Bible? Or would you prefer Madame Du Barry’s jewels, James Cook’s logbook, Ian Fleming’s typewriter, Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr President” gown, a Brazilian football shirt worn by Pele, or Tracy Emin’s bed or even a route master bus? The choice could not be more eclectic and the back stories are interesting
ART IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF HOPE & OTHER QUOTES BY ARTISTS (Phaidon £14.95). I like the way the book has been printed in a variety of type faces and sizes. It makes the quotes leap off the page. There are quotes from Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, Hopper, Polllock etc, etc, under 42 headings. Who said: 1) I don’t believe in Art. I believe in myself? 2) It is not my intention to make anything comprehensible. 3) I’ve always had a thing about glass. I leave you to find out. Surprise your friends with your knowledge.
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