Twin Visions: The Magical Art of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell

Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: Boris Vallejo has always been a personal favorite of mine. His ideas are unlike any others and his work with the brush is amazing. This book shows paintings that I hadn't even known existed. Anyone, in my opinion, who does not like his artwork is more than likely jealous and needs to keep their opinions to themselves if it is not helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Twin narcissists
Review: I never did like Boris, his slick imitations of Frank Frazetta, or his girlfriend's warrior princess/Renassaince Faire dragon baloney either. I can just imagine them going to the gym together, watching themselves flex in the mirror, then going home and taking polaroids of each other in thongs and sarongs to turn into candy-colored fantasy images. Frazetta, the original, grounded his compositions in strong light/dark contrasts and bold brushwork. Boris and his protégé smoothe on the cool-aid hues without regard to chiaroscuro, so everything has a uniformity about it, all catlicked, buffed and gleaming without any painterly expressiveness. If you have a greased muscleman fetish, or if you think unicorns copied from photos of real horses are exciting then you might be able to stomach the saccarine clichés offered up by the twins of opaque-projector visions. To be fair, they themselves have inspired a whole school of imitators who are much, much worse.