Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
A superb catalogue of Van Goghs Works, 21 Nov 2002
With most of Van Gogh's reproductions in colour and in chronological order, "The Complete Paintings" is an indispensable catalogue of his work. The book is both ideal for research and for general reading.I enjoyed reading this book and being able to see a large amount of Van Gogh's paintings in full colour. As a former Art student I also found the painting information of interest, giving information on type of paint, size of canvas and details of where the paintings can be found. Overall I am very impressed with this book and would recommend it as an excellent buy for anyone interested in Van Gogh or the history of Art.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Superbly illustrated, 3 Feb 2008
This single volume edition ISBN 3822812153 published in 2001 containing 740 pages was originally issued in two separate volumes. It contains all of the about 870 paintings comprising the artist's complete output, reproduced in full colour with just a few exceptions where for any of several legitimate reasons a colour picture is not available.
It is an admirable effort, the quality of printing is superb, and the standard of photography in many instances is excellent showing the texture of the paint and brush work. In the case of the latter the paintings truly sing out from the page. The pictures are presented chronologically, which in itself is very revealing. The text is extensive and very informative, and being largely based on Van Gogh's letters makes truly fascinating reading and lends an intimate edge. It provides a background to the artist's life and his work and influences.
I should mention a couple of points. Many of the reproductions are quite small, less than post card size, some considerably less; there are of course some half page and full page size too. The other point is that while the text and illustrations are fully integrated there is little if any relationship between the text and image on each page. When there is a reference in the text to a picture the picture is invariably to be found many pages apart. Of course with the pictures presented chronologically this was bound to be a problem; but would it then not have been better to separate the two completely. One could also argue for a larger page size, but a least at this fairly modest size the book is at least not unwieldy.
That aside this is a splendid book; and one of the best surprises is that while there are of course many very familiar paintings here, the less familiar are by no means overshadowed by them; it is in fact a revelation to find so many superb yet relatively unknown works. Tremendous value, a book not to be passed over.
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