The Floral Art of Pierre-Joseph Redoute

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as it gets
Review: I collect botanical prints books, and this one, although it is the world-reknowned Redoute, is not a very good one. There are lots of, believe it or not, quite small black and white pictures of his works, and this is just plain not adequate for a floral art book. The second part of the book contains the larger, full-page color images; however, they use an entire facing page for just a tiny paragraph about the print, leaving the rest blank. Furthermore, there are prints in here that aren't even his, and what seems to be quite a few of them. I must admit, I didn't spend much time with this book, as I was greatly disappointed. For a beautiful botanical art book, try "Women of Flowers" by Jack Kramer, which has full-page color reproductions of mostly turn-of-the-20th century little-known women artists (women being the most prolific in such at the time), with substantial historical data on the artists and their works. As for a Redoute book, I'm going to try an out-of-print of his "Les Roses;" perhaps that will be less disappointing than this one.