Journey to the Ice Age: Mammoths and Other Animals of the Wild

Rating:
Summary: gorgeous artwork of modern and Ice Age animals
Review: Dutch illustrator Rien Poortvliet has done an outstanding job with this work, depicting in a series of illustrations the modern and Ice Age wildlife of the Netherlands. Beginning in the present with deer and rabbits seen from his treestand, he goes further and further back in time, showing more and more exotic wildlife. Soon he shows pheasants, partrides, foxes, deer, and wild boars, as well as bringing us to early modern and medieval Holland. Eventually the work progresses all the way back to the Pleistocene, with wonderful illustrations of early man and such long vanished animals as Irish elk, woolly rhinos, and his crowning acheivement, the woolly mammoth.

Though the modern animals are well depicted, the main reason to buy this lavishly illustrated book are for its Ice Age fauna. In addition to extinct mammals, animals no longer found wild in the Netherlands such as wolves, horses, lions, bears, and elk are well covered as well.

This book is again extremely beautiful; many of the paintings have a very haunting quality. The way he takes you back in time really shows a unity of theme and makes the Ice Age fauna that much more real, showing they were as natural a part of the landscape as trees or rabbits, and look all the more real for being depicted in landscape still around today.

The book is not only on wildlife and landscape, as he shows a great deal of the life of peasants, farmers, fishermen, hunters, and eventually primitive early Man in Holland. He shows the building of ancient burial mounds, the dolmens. Poortvliet takes you on an Ice Age hunt for reindeer, then back to the village to show how the skins were prepared for clothing. He richly depicts a medieval hunt, complete with peasant drivers pressed into service, magnificent hounds, and the deadly last stand of the wild boar that was often the subject of the great hunt. A good number of pages are depicted to the interaction of wolves and humans in the Netherlands, showing wolf attacks and the campaign to wipe them out in response.

Sorry if I ramble in this review but there is just so much to take in with this magnificent work, it is like a concentrated blast of Dutch natural and human history, rich with wonderfully depicted landscapes, wildlife, human interest, and magnificent Ice Age fauna. Truly a rare book. A great book to get lost in, a great coffee table book, just a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent insight into the natural history of early Europe
Review: Rien Poortvliet's Journey Into the Ice Age offers an excellent and illustrative insight into the natural history of Europe. He begins the story from his modern-day perch built into a tree for the purposes of viewing wildlife in their most relaxed state, and continues as a virtual daydream which illustrates to the reader with both personal reflection and visual images how the wildlife of earlier days may have appeared had he been in the same perch hundreds or thousands of years ago. His illustrations are very detailed and anatomically perfect, and his handwritten notes add a very personal touch to this aesthetically as well as literally pleasing work of art. I enjoy reading the book to my children and leave it on the coffee table for guests to thumb through as well. I will definitely seek other titles from this author