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Presents a biography of Frida Khalo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Good book
I bought all of the books in this series for our homeschool art curriculum.They are easy to read and a fun supplement that can lead to a nice trip to the Smithsonian Gallery of Art.

Best Kid Friendly Art Book Series

I use these for teaching to kids in art classes. They love the comics in them, the pictures keep them interested, and they are very educational. I am a HUGE fan! Most books in the series cover the artist, art style, and pertinent art history.

Seurat Shines
The fascinating facts of the artist's life are enhanced with comic book style illustrations as well as copies of the artists work.This author takes what could be a very dry subject and makes it entertaining and informative.This book, and the remainder of books in this series, are an obvious resource for an art teacher's library but would make a terrific "outside the box" addition to any classroom teacher's library.

Mike Venezia makes a few "points" about Georges Seurat and his artwork
I think that Mike Venezia has finally found a painter whose style he cannot imitate, but can still joke about.Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French painter and the founder of Neoimpressionism, best known for "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" (thanks to Ferris Bueller more than Stephen Sondheim, I am sure).If there is one word associated with Seurat's work it would be "pointillism," which has to do with the style he developed of using small dots of pure color juxtaposed together to create a fusion of colors in the mind's eye.So I was thinking that in his Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series that Venezia might working is some pointillism in some of his cartoons.But in case you were wondering, pointillism is hard work.So on the front cover of this book while Seurat is working on his famous painting some guy comes along and says "Hey, Seurat, dot's a pretty ice painting" (a joke that I am sure loses something in French).On the back cover cartoon Venezia works himself into Seurat's famous painting with all of the figures turning to look (and glare) at him for intruding on their pleasant afternoon with his lawn chair, loud music, chips, and drinks.

This book provides the key biographical details of Seurat's life, but it is the development of his peculiar painting style that Venezia emphasize more. So the art history lesson here is what young readers will take away from reading this book.There are sixteen drawings and paintings representing the entire course of Seurat's career, along with three studies for "Une Baigndae, Asnieres" to go along with two studies and one detail from "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."Their is also a drawn portrait of Seurat by Ernest J. Laurent to go along with works by great artist from the past that Seurat studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris by Raphael, Eugene Delacroix, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingeres, and those by the Impressionist artists Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir that inspired Seurat to do better.There are also five of Venezia's cartoons that talk about his artwork and the device Seurat's father made for the arm he lost in a hunting accident to attach knives and forks to the end of his arm.

Venezia is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is where "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" is on display.The Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series is both educational and entertaining, and Venezia always makes good on his promise to use fun to introduce children to art and artists.The pointillism drawings and paintings are surely beyond the skill (and patience) of most of us, but young readers should appreciate the drawings Seurat made to explore the importance of shapes and form done with a smeary graphite-and-clay crayon on bumpy paper, and I think they can understand the basic principle of having tiny dots of different colors next to each other to create a different color when they are blended by the human eye.This is a fascinating series and I am always happy to discover there are volumes about artists that I have missed.Venezia has tackled not only Seurat but also Paul Dezanne, Edward Hopper, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh and Grant Wood--and those are just the artists whose works at on display at the Art Institute of Chicago (which I am going to see again this week because that is what I do when I have occasion to drive through Chicago).
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Product Description
An overview of the work and life of Georges Seurat, the neo-impressionist artist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

the ultimate coverage of Seurat's output
This would be the best book to cover the life and artistic output of Georges Seurat. This catalog of a major and comprehensive exhibition held in the Metropolitan Museum is written by the Seurat expert Robert Herbert. The book is packed with numerous paintings and drawings by Seurat; the latter are particularly well reproduced and are to be prefered to the more recent MOMA issue covering that subject. This weighty volume is difficult to access but is definitely worth hunting out. The Seurat completist would also need to own John Rewald's book concerning this artist. That volume has far less illustrations which are inferiorly reproduced.

A simply masterful presentation of Seurat's work
This beautiful catalog from an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992 is an excellent anthology of Seurat's work, juxtaposing finished works with sketches, and includes a large selection of sketches as a student. The size allows the works to be displayed in all their glory. If you like Seurat, buy this! ... Read more

Product Description
Georges Seurat is best known as the painter of 'A Sunday on the Grande Jatte' - 1884, one of the most recognizable and reproduced works of art in the world. In recent years, the painting has been the subject of a highly successful exhibition, the inspiration for a Broadway musical (by Stephen Sondheim), and the subject of a television program. 'The Grande Jatte' has achieved this iconic status for a number of reasons, but is unknown to most people except as a simulacrum. 'The Grande Jatte' is also plagued by the long-standing cliche that it embodies a 'scientific' way of painting. The painting is much more complex, however; so is Seurat's body of work as a whole. In this collection of essays, Paul Smith has assembled a broader view of Seurat's oeuvre. 'Seurat Re-viewed' touches on its engagement with society, gender, politics, new artists' materials, and developments in art theory. Individual essays focus on the many facets of Seurat's work and its context, including its use of color and its debt to color theory; its exploitation of different drawing media; its connection to the work of the artist's contemporaries, including the poets Jules Laforgue and Stephane Mallarme; and, its concern with nineteenth-century social issues. The contributions also show important links among the Grande Jatte, literary Symbolism, and the development of future Modernist practices. The book amounts to a major reevaluation of Seurat's art in the culture of the late nineteenth century. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Anthea Callen, S. Hollis Clayson, Jonathan Crary, Joan U. Halperin, Richard Hobbs, John House, Brendan Prendeville, Georges Roque, and Richard Shiff. ... Read more

Product Description
Georges Seurat died in 1891, aged only 32, and yet in a career that lasted little more than a decade he revolutionized technique in painting, spearheaded a new movement, Neoimpressionism, and bought a degree of scientific rigour to his investigations of colour that would prove profoundly influential well into the 20th century. As a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Seurat read Chevreul's 1839 book on the theory of colour and this, along with his own analysis of Delacroix' paintings and the aesthetic observations of scientist Charles Henry, led him to formulate the concept of Divisionism. This was a method of painting around colour contrasts in which shade and tone are built up through dots of paint (pointillism) that emphasise the complex inter-relation of light and shadow. Two paintings more than any others reflect his investigations in this area - 1884's "Bathers at Asnieres" and 1886's "A Sunday Afternoon at the Ile de La Grande Jatte". Their impact was immediate and enormous. Opposed to any popularization of his theories, he only relented in 1890 and agreed to the publication of a summary volume. However, by then he had just a year to live. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Sublime drawings
Seurat's laid paper charcoal drawings are some of the most beautiful I've seen.Relatively good reproductions.

Sublime drawings
Seurat's laid paper charcoal drawings are some of the most beautiful I've seen.Relatively good reproductions.

best selection of charcoal drawings--landscapes and portrait
For both study and pleasure these charcoal drawings, mostly landscapes and portraits, show the richness and depth of drawing that can never be equalled in his paintings. He draws from the inside out with very few outlines; rather the soft charcoal merges with the texture of the paper to build mass and volume, so that the viewer sees light and dark, rather than shape and form. The drawings are soft and strong.Beautiful. I hope this book gets back in print. ... Read more

Product Description
Another title from The Crown Art Library, the most useful monographs available on a wide range of significant artists. Each volume is written by an internationally recognized authority and is generously illustrated with full-color reproductions of the artist's paintings and two-color reproductions of sketches and line drawings. ... Read more

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When Seurat first exhibited his Bathers at Asni_res in 1884, it perplexed but fascinated the few critics who noticed it. Today the picture is one of the most famous and popular works in the world. Yet the extraordinary appeal of this painting is not easily defined. In Seurat and the Bathers the authors discuss the various choices Seurat made with regard to subject, format, and technique in preparing this monumental painting. ... Read more

Product Description
In a career that lasted little more than a decade Georges Seurat revolutionized technique in painting. He formulated the concept of Divisionism, a method of painting around colour contrasts in which shade and tone are built up through dots of paint (pontillism). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Seurat Review
This book gives a good overview of Seurat's work. It contains a wide array of his paintings and gives great background information on them. ... Read more

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This illustrated monograph throws new light on the meaning and imagery of Seurat's paintings. The usual account of Seurat lays most stress on technical and formal aspects of his work. While accepting their importance, Richard Thomson seeks to redress the balance by providing a sustained analysis of Seurat's imagery and situating his work within the fluctuating intellectual and social currents of the day. To Seurat the vital subject for contemporary painting was the modern metropolis, and this book examines the critical way in which he depicted and interpreted Paris, its suburbs and its popular entertainment. ... Read more

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This reference provides biographical, historical, and critical information on Neo-Impressionist painting and its most significant painters. Neo-Impressionism, also called Divisionism and Pointillism, was one of the most innovative and startling late 19th-century French avant-garde styles. Over 2,000 books, articles, manuscripts, and audiovisual materials as well as chronologies, biographical sketches, and exhibition lists are cited. Also provided are both primary and secondary bibliographies for each artist. Secondary bibliographies capture details about each artist's life and career, relationships with other artists, work in various media, iconography, critical reception and interpretation, archival sources and more. ... Read more

Product Description
Known as "the notary" by his contemporaries for his very proper disposition, Georges Seurat (1859-1891), was nonetheless a trailblazing artist, who devised mesmerizing effects in paint, creating what Museum of Modern Art, New York director Alfred Barr described as a "strange, almost breathless poise." Seurat's most famous painting, "La Grande Jatte" (1884), exemplifies the airy suspension of which "Pointillism" (as his style of painting-by-dabs was named) is uniquely capable, a sensation well suited to evoking in paint the sedate pace of Paris' new leisure class. For Seurat, Pointillism was also a way to attain for painting the mathematically explicable harmony of music: "Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations," he declared in a letter to a friend. Seurat's style lent itself especially well to the portrayal of figures in space, and the endowing of those figures with volume and atmosphere. No other visual theme so well illustrates the tremendous innovations in Seurat's paintings and drawings as this handling of the figure, a theme which is at the heart of this new appraisal. ... Read more

Product Description
Through images and brief text, presents an overview of the life and work of French painter Georges Seurat. ... Read more

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Once described as "the most beautiful painter's drawings in existence," Georges Seurat's mysterious and luminous works on paper played a crucial role in his short, vibrant career. This comprehensive publication surveys the artist's entire oeuvre, from his academic training and the emergence of his unique methods to the studies made for his monumental canvases. Accompanying the first exhibition in almost 25 years to focus exclusively on Seurat's drawings, this volume presents approximately 130 works, primarily the artist's incomparable conte drawings along with a small selection of oil sketches and paintings. In an effort to bridge the seemingly opposite goals of description and evocation, Seurat masses dark and light tones to abstract figures, exploits medium and paper to amplify radiating light, and engages with the Parisian metropolis, revealing urban types, the industrial suburbs and nineteenth-century entertainment. Though Seurat is perhaps best known as the inventor of Pointillism, this volume demonstrates his tremendous achievement as a draftsman and his fundamental importance to the art of the twentieth century. It includes carefully selected details of the work, as well as reproductions from pages of Seurat's sketchbooks, which have never before been published. Texts by Jodi Hauptman, Karl Buchberg, Hubert Damisch, Bridget Riley, Richard Shiff and Richard Thomson address specific aspects of Seurat's techniques, materials, and subject matter. They are rounded out by a chronology, a selected bibliography and a detailed checklist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

True Artists
I studied all the masters of true art which is suppose to be beautiful in nature, composition, etc.Seurate is a true artist and you can still learn from him -- those who are serious about art.

Mesmerizing drawings by a Neo-impressionist French painter.
Parisian painter Georges Seurat (1859-1891) is perhaps best known as the founder of Neo-impressionism (Pointillism). His most famous painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, altered the direction of modern art and is considered an icon of 19th century painting. For two years (1881-82) before working with colors, he devoted himself to mastering the art of black and white drawing in his small, Left Bank studio.I recently attended an exhibition of Seurat's conté drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.Published by MOMA, this volume of approximately 130 works is the result of that exhibition, and includes some of "the most beautiful painter's drawings in existence." Seurat's drawings of nineteenth-century Parisian subjects are mysterious and mesmerizing in their relationship between light and shadow.

G. Merritt

Amazing effects from just paper and pencil
Recently when in NYC I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.They were exhibiting drawings and sketches of Seurat.The effects he could get of illumination and movement with just a conti crayon or pencil were unbeliveable.I wanted to get the book that day, but it was heavy to carry around the City and airport.I was delighted to find it on Amazon - and for less money!I am thoroughly enjoying the book.The narrative is especially appreciated.

Reproductions of Drawings are not First Rate
I saw the show at MoMA on November 16, and could not wait to buy this book on Amazon. That was until I looked through the book at the musuem shop. Almost without exception, the reproductions of the drawings do not come close to capturing the wonderful drawings that I just saw. The same is true of the 15 or so painting in the show. Huge disappointment.

The book that does capture the greatness of the drawings and paintings is the catalogue from the 1991 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum titled
GEORGE SEURAT 1859-1891 by Robert L. Herbert (available on this site).
Most of the drawings in the book under review were also in the huge Met
show.

Seurat Drawings
Seurat's drawings are amazing. If you don't know them you need this book. If you do know them, you need this book. Seurat's short life makes reading about him and seeing these images a charmed experience. Best to get to MoMA to see the show -- but give yourself a treat and buy this book. Right now. ... Read more