- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691114897
- ISBN-13: 978-0691114897
- Product Dimensions: 30.7 x 28.2 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,750,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
Lars Jonsson is widely considered the greatest nature artist of his generation. His beautiful and inspirational artwork depicting birds and other wildlife has been appearing in print for more than thirty years, and his original paintings are sought after by collectors. This lavishly illustrated and elegantly written book describes his life and work through stunning examples of his art and through his own words.
Part autobiography and part exploration of technical method, Birds and Light is an extraordinary and authoritative retrospective of Jonsson's career. It is also a celebration of birds, wildlife, and wild places.
Jonsson talks of a life's work studying and capturing the relationship between birds and light. Superbly reproduced artwork appears throughout the book, including pages from Jonsson's earliest sketchbooks, finished plates from his field guides, and some of the artist's majestic full-scale canvases, presented at various stages of development. Jonsson discusses the artistic process, from the importance of sketching from life, to the discipline of painting for field guides and the ability to express subtlety of environment and atmosphere in paint.
No other artist captures the "feel" of a bird so perfectly. Jonsson's exceptionally accurate and expressive style reflects a combination of talent and countless hours in the field. His career as a premier bird artist, and as a globally renowned ornithologist, was first consolidated in the 1970s with his series of enormously popular pocket guides to European birds grouped by habitat, which broke new ground with its remarkable illustrations. His field guide Birds of Europe, published in 1992, exquisitely demonstrated his ability to depict with great accuracy the detail of plumage and posture that enables birders to distinguish between similar species.
Jonsson's thoughts on wildlife artistry, and his engaging account of his own career, make Birds and Light a fascinating read for all those interested in birds, birdwatching, and bird art. And the sumptuous illustrations, many published here for the first time, make this magnificent book something to be treasured forever.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Fans of Lars Jonsson's art will not be disappointed by this sumptuous translation of the Swedish original. The production values of the paintings are simply stunning.
It's not all perfect, though. The text suffers from some very quirky and all-too-literal translation from the original, which makes it harder work than it should be. That, combined with the high number of proofing errors, are bad enough to reduce my rating by one star. Jonsson hasn't been very well served by his publisher on this occasion.
The text of the book is a curious mixture of the autobiographical, interviews with the author and the instructive. Any potential artist wishing to emulate Jonsson's style will find some useful pointers, but will equally be depressed at seeing the man's genius from an early age. Is it possible to learn to be this good at painting without having a healthy leg-up from the gene pool?
The text reminds me of The Two Worlds of Andy Wyeth, in that it tried to get into the mind of the artist rather more than many wildlife art books do. With a more sympathetic translation, it could have achieved this aim. But at least it takes art and nature equally seriously rather than complaining too much about the status accorded to natural history subjects by the art world.
Few people, however, will buy this book for the text. Lars Jonsson's reputation is built on his uncanny ability to paint gloriously detailed birds as they really are, without suffering any of the photographic realism that blights so many other technically proficient artists (especially Americans). His birds leap perfectly lit from the page, evoking the atmosphere of his northern lands. There are no hard edges, no unnecessary details and no compromises about the differences between individual birds in the same species. Each and every one is given a personal treatment, rather than suffering the assumptions that "it is in summer plumage so it must have black here".
Jonsson focuses on white water birds - gulls, avocets, etc. Fans of smaller land birds won't be too disappointed, but it is with the pale plumages that Jonsson's fascination for and mastery of light comes to the fore.
If you like Jonsson's artwork, indeed if you like books of wildlife art at all, you really need to add this book to your collection.
Format:Hardcover
While I agree with the previous reviewer about the editorial glitches in the text, this is a book you will buy for the pictures - and they (with the exception of a slightly dodgy self portrait and a couple of other non avian subjects) are fantastic, as is their reproduction. Getting inside the artist's head adds to the book, and the sequence on the development of one canvas is fascinating, but this book is worth 5 (or even 6!) stars for the Birds and the Light alone.
Oh - and I'd be very happy to be able to draw as well now as Jonsson could when he was seven!
Oh - and I'd be very happy to be able to draw as well now as Jonsson could when he was seven!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Outstanding
24 Jan 2003
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is outstanding. Both the sketches and the complete paintings are literally awesome. Many paintings are so apparently "simple" that you are temped to think that they are "easy", but they are not. Many are so delicate to be closer to poetry than to painting. Beautiful. I do hope more of Jonsson's art will be published in the USA.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Magnificent book, text and illustrations
18 Mar 2003
Format:Hardcover
This book is truly beautiful and is an absolute steal at this price. With the extensive notes and background information, I believe that it will appeal more to the birder or person interested in bird art than to the casual coffee-table book collector.
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