Caravaggio: Master of Light and Dark--His Life in Paintings

Rating:
Summary: DK pack'em in
Review: Compact, cover-to-cover full of goodies, and very nicely divided into the artist's works within social and political context. Good for those looking for introductory overview. But I think on that level the new DK Art Book Series still provides more than satisfactory readings (though of course this one pales in comparison in the Catherine Puglisi/Phaidon's tony, classy, magnificent presentation). The only gripe here is the way DK boxes the details of the paintings, intruding the visual presentation and assuming that the readers are too inept to locate those details in the main illustration. Those complaining about the teeny-weeny format should consider the fact that the book is printed on heavy stock paper, quie well researched, lavishly illustrated, and it still costs less.

Rating:
Summary: Almost all I wanted
Review: I purchased this book while reading "M - the Man Who Became Caravaggio". "M" has almost no pictures and I was looking for a good source of his works. There is no index of works in this books, so I spent a lot of time thumbing back and forth trying to find paintings. Also, a few of the works discussed in "M" don't appear here. I enjoyed the format in which the paintings are presented, except for a couple of instances where a detail of a painting was shown, but not the whole painting.

Rating:
Summary: Almost all I wanted
Review: I purchased this book while reading "M - the Man Who Became Caravaggio". "M" has almost no pictures and I was looking for a good source of his works. There is no index of works in this books, so I spent a lot of time thumbing back and forth trying to find paintings. Also, a few of the works discussed in "M" don't appear here. I enjoyed the format in which the paintings are presented, except for a couple of instances where a detail of a painting was shown, but not the whole painting.

Rating:
Summary: Vey Useful Guide to Caravaggio's Work
Review: The main reason why I purchased this book was to assist me in viewing this artist's complete works when reading other mainstream books about Caravaggio, namely: 'Caravaggio: A Passionate Life' and 'M' - both excellent books. The colour plates were lovely and each had detailed text to assist you in your studies of his work. This is a nice and easy to read guide book to this artists beautiful work. The narrative provides enough detail about Caravaggio's life and work to give you the basic idea but do not expect a detailed account, you will have to look elsewhere. Overall this a quick reference guide and is well worth a look.