Bocklin

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After seeing the magnificent work of Bocklin on the internet, I was looking forward to this book, but......it doesn't have what I think is his best work, "Pan Among The Reeds", or "Nymphs Bathing", or "Sanctuary Of Hercules", or......etc!! The reproduction of "Sacred Wood", surely one of his best works, is so tiny I wonder why they (the people who made the book) even bothered to include it. On the other hand, "Isle Of The Dead" is given far too much space. It's not that I don't like the picture, but 3 reproductions of the same version, and 4 blowups of sections of same, is overdoing it, The latter might have been a good idea if the printing was of better quality.

What works are included in this book dismally fail to take you into the fantastic world that Bocklin created. I can appreciate that this book was made to a price standard, but the omission of so many (in my opinion) major works is unforgiveable. To all Bocklin fans: don't bother with this one unless you're desperate.

Rating:
Summary: Leaves You Wanting More
Review: There is so little published just now on Bocklin, at least in this country (I know that there is a German press book of some 300 pages that covers Bocklin in much more detail), that it would be unfair to fault this book too greatly -- at least here is a reasonably well available book on Bocklin. Nonetheless, this book does leave you wanting more.

I've found the same to be generally true of other books in this series. The premise of this series must have sounded very good at the time of conception -- to look at one single painting by an artist and to cover that painting in great detail, looking at it from a variety of angles. But the realization leaves something to be desired. In truth most paintings really only "live" when seen in a company of peers -- other paintings by the same artist, or paintings by other contemporary or sympathetic painters. The small reproductions of these other paintings crowded around the sides of pages in these books just are not sufficient to that task. And the analysis of the focal painting is much too elliptic to really bring the work alive.

Wonderful idea for a series of books, but every wonderful idea does not always work out on the printed page. Still this is one of few books available on a fascinating artist. For that reason alone it warrants an extra star or two.