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[[Category:New Reviews|Art]][[Category:Art|*]]__NOTOC__ <!-- remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Dell0957181167|title=MythologyBlue Skies and Boat Trips: An Illustrated Journey Into Our Imagined WorldsThe Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=4.5|genre=Spirituality and ReligionArt|summary=What does There are few positive things which can be said about a rainbow mean substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to you? How would you explain the creation avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the world if you had no science as such, or walls - and was completely taken by the changing work of the seasons? Brian Lewis. What other kinds I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of natures – chaotic trickery, evil personae or even the characteristics of goats – people your world? And why is it that the answers man this book and woman have collectively formed to such questions have been so similar across the oceans and across the centuries? print I wanted was ‘not available’. This highly pictorial volume looks at Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the mythologies that formed those answersapartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and locks on to a multitude framed print of subjects – blood, music, godly activity – to show us what has followedthe picture I wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500291519</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jules NilssonAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Hounds of FalsterboRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction |summary=''In between the beach huts''<br>''Where the [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white sands meet the seasand red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece,and I think it''<br>''The heather meets s possible to say not one page lacks the sand dunes''<br>''And long grasses dance the breezeinfluence of some striking visual ideas.''|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992708419</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paula Briggs1912242052|title=Drawing Projects O Joy for Childrenme!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=CraftsArt|summary=''Drawing Projects Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for Childrenbeing '' is a beautiful, full-colour guide that encourages children the first person to use a range of materials to create stunning and thought-provoking artwork. As walk the author points outmountains alone, the end result is not always because he had to for work, as important as the journey and this book helps children to move away from the more traditionala miner, quarryman, shepherd or 'safe' type of drawing styles pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and indulge in a little more experimentation and risk takingadventure. The book is ideal for parents to use His rapturous encounters with their childrennatural beauty, but each chapter is a self-contained lesson plan that facilitators and teachers can use with groupsits literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908966742</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Weltman1980891117|title=This is Not a Maths BookG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5

|summary=I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of maths at school. Maybe if I'd had this book when I was a childGeorgian London, I would have been. 'This is not with a Maths Book' cleverly bridges career lasting from the gap between maths and art and teaches kids how 1770s to make beautiful patterns and shapes by using mathematical principlesthe Regency era. We learn about parabolic curvesHe was also one of the most prolific, Pascal's trianglepainting nearly 5, the stomachion, tesselation and 3D drawings000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Because Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the pages are interactive and hands-on, kids are learning the rules names of each of maths without realising it. After allhis clients, there and subsequently transcribed them into what is no reason why maths shouldn't be fun!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402055</amazonuk>referred to as his fee book.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew WilsonHewitt_Renoir|title=Alexander McQueenRenoir's Dancer: Blood Beneath the Skin|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=On the face The Secret Life of it Lee McQueen might not have seemed like the ideal candidate for greatness in the world of haute couture. He was the youngest son of an East London taxi driver, but there was history in the rag trade within the family, although his father told him that if he wanted to sell clothes he should get a market stall. Determined to do it ''his'' way, Lee borrowed the money from a relative to enable him to attend Central St Martins after doing a tailoring apprenticeship. The name 'Lee' might confuse you, but at the time McQueen began his own business he was claiming benefits and decided to use his middle name to avoid detection.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471131785</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSuzanne Valadon|author=Quentin Blake|title=Tell me a Picture - Adventures in Looking at ArtCatherine Hewitt

|genre=Children's Non-FictionArt|summary=When did Deep in the rural parts of France in the 1860s, you last read would never really expect to find someone who would come to embody a full artistic period – and not just a children's book movement at that absolutely flummoxed you in the way it showed or told you something you didn't know? (, but a full generation of both creative and societal change. And please be an adult when if you answer were to expect thatsomeone, or else it won't they would like as not be quite so impressivemale. But almost stumbling into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon.) Back She started in 2001, Quentin Blake wasn't a Knight yet – he hadn't even got his CBE – but he did get allowed to put on his own show at the National Gallery, with other people's pictures circus that contain odditiesfirst caught her teenaged eye, stories, unexpected detail – sparks on canvas and paper although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what she did have from that would inspire anyone looking, of whatever age, was the poise to piece things together, work things out, ''form be an appealing model for some seriously important painters and a narrative''natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiences. The pictures came with no major labelling, no context – just And what they heldshe also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some typically scratched Blake characters discussing the images as a lead-in. They were simply hung in alphabetical order, and probably could not have been more different. This then is a picture book was artistic talent of the most literal kind, with 26 stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806422</amazonuk>her own…

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David EsterlyMurakami_Music|title=The Lost CarvingAbsolutely on Music: A Journey to the Heart of MakingConversations with Seiji Ozawa|author=Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=Bouncing between Murakami loves music, any reader of his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David Esterly's seems to be an idyllic existencecould tell you as much. Yet it's Norwegian Wood was named after a Beatles song (albeit one not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese very well known) and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There After Dark is an element framed by a music soundtrack in a brilliant display of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in atmospheric setting. With this memoir, but at the same time there all that love is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's lifehere. 'Carvers are starversAnd like all who have a good taste in music,Murakami' a wizened English carver once told hims is eclectic and very well considered. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for EsterlyI found myself looking up musicians after reading this because I found many of his opinions quite convincing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithRavilious_Recent|title=A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall Smith's EdinburghThe Recent Past|author=James Ravilious

|genre=TravelArt|summary=It might be simplest if I begin by telling you what this book is ''not''. It's not a book of beautiful photographs (with some supporting text) James, son of the places you'll almost certainly want to visit if you're visiting Edinburgh as a tourist. If thatwar artist Eric Ravilious, inherited his father's what you want then there are dozens of such books available all over the city at a fraction of the cost of ''A Work of Beauty''artistic talents. This might have the look of a coffee table book (and it would certainly look impressive there) but it has a lot more depth and interest than you might expect. This is Although he was a book of Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburghgifted painter, the city he walks around every day, constantly seeing something new, something else with his main career was to be as a story to tellphotographer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902419863</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Wood_Gothic|title=Beautiful PatternsAmerican Gothic: The Life of Grant Wood|author=Various AuthorsSusan Wood and Ross MacDonald

|genre=CraftsArt|summary=If you are going Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of three oak leaves before he was properly in his teens? Who sought acclaim as an artist and came to Europe to study from the greats, only to reject all they had to make offer? Who instinctively knew a colouring book aimed at adults I picture of his dentist (yes, his dentist) would be more appealing and say do it 100% more to people than floating water lilies and go frilly ballet dancers? The answer in all out. You can keep your minimalist landscapes or your naïve animals; give me a page packed to cases was Grant Wood, practically the gills with something that needs filling most well-known painter in. This can make a creative colouring book for grownups feel more like a military operationAmerica at one time, and still the best, alongside Edward Hopper, but at least you will have fun doing it and improve your skillspresenting his world minus any Modernist trappings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432787</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=V&A_Patchwork|title=Summers of DiscontentPatchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide|author=Raymond Tallis Victoria and Julian SpaldingAlbert Museum|rating=4.5

|summary=Raymond Tallis Patchwork is what some people may refer to as a Renaissance Manmagical craft: you can take relatively small pieces of material and turn them into another piece of material with an entirely different pattern. He is Quilting converts a doctor (specifically, topper and a neurologist), backing fabric with some wadding in between into a philosopherfabric of an entirely different weight. Combine the two crafts and you have something more than magical, a poet and a cultural criticoccasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, when there are so many different styles of both crafts? One answer is to read ''Summers of DiscontentPatchwork and Quilting: The Purpose of the Arts TodayA Maker's Guide'' is a collection of excerpts which looks - as the cover says - at styles from Tallis’s numerous other works, extracted Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and collated then delivers fifteen projects inspired by Julian Spalding – curator and Tallis’ contemporary. It’s a testament to the free-flowing, all-encompassing way in which Tallis writes that these excerpts sit next to each other seamlessly; they feel like one complete discussion, which is an achievement in itselfV&A collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524405</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GentlemanRutherford_Landscape|title=In the CountryLandscape Gardens|author=Sarah Rutherford|rating=54

|summary=I had no intention My first experience of reading a ''In The Countrybig''garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I opened felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of it simply to see what all. As luck would have it was like, but by the time that I shut then saw Hampton Court and it again was official: I was nearly halfway through and off big gardens. It would be many years before I had no intention of giving the book to anyone elserevised my opinion. Now in his eighties David Gentleman is well known as watercolouristOn a trip to Harewood House, specialising in landscapes. He's based in London but also has it was too hot a home in Suffolk in day to be corralled into the village of Huntingfield and it's this house, so I wandered the village gardens and found they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the surrounding area which is opportunity to walk the location grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability'In The CountryBrown. Sarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in context.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095715285X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barrie_Peter|title=Jeff Scott Peter Pan and Rachael AdamsWendy|titleauthor=Strictly Shale: Circling British SpeedwayJ M Barrie and Robert Ingpen|rating=4.5|genre=SportArt|summary=When I was young I remember Speedway being It's a regular item on Saturday sport programmes on televisionchildhood staple - the story of Wendy, John and Michael Darling and their beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to school each day. My It's George Darling, their father was an aficionado and loved , who makes the noise, mistake when he locks Nana in the risk yard and the sheer energy children are whisked away to Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. There's a wonderful mix of characters, from Peter Pan, the boy who never wants to grow up, Tinkerbell, the sport - my mother less so and she quoted rather unpleasant fairy, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, the noise lost boys and the strong possibility - of there being course - Wendy, but then it wouldn't have been a nasty accident' when classic since the riders slid their motorcycles sideways. It is still on television but I'll confess to not having watched for many years original stage production in 1904 and it was for this reason that Jeff Scott's ''Strictly Shale'' achieved the unusual feat novel of both being an eye opener and bringing back long-forgotten memories1911 if it were otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956861830</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Grahame_Wind|title=WinterThe Wind in The Willows|author=Adam GopnikKenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen

|genre=ReferenceArt|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through Kenneth Grahame's 'Romantic Winter'The Wind in the Willows', ''Radical Winter'was one of the defining books of my childhood and more than sixty years after I first read the book I've just recently passed it onto another young reader. Since the book was first published in 1908 there have been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the 1913 edition, Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of ''Recuperative WinterWinnie the Pooh'') in 1933, ''Recreational Winter'' Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''Remembering WinterThe Wind in the Willows''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Jenkins_100|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in LondonBritain's Golden Age100 Best Railway Stations|author=Vic GatrellSimon Jenkins|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=It was in In the eighteenth mid-twentieth century that an area of London consisting of about half a square mile, from Soho and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza the railway was something which harked back to Drury Lane, the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and down from Long Acre to the Strandplanes, with Covent Garden at the very centrebut steam was being replaced by oil, became what has even then and in modern times been recognised as the world’s twenty-first creative ‘bohemia’-century oil is giving way to electricity. This was where the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelistsIt's cleaner, more environmentally friendly and dramatists of the age lived and workedstations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as possible, side by side with the city’s chief market traderskeen to escape their grime, craftsmenwere restored and became places to be admired, shopkeepers, rakes, pickpockets and prostitutespossibly even lingered in. One might say that all human life was hereSimon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk|title=Sea MonstersOn My Way: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnus's Marine MapNorfolk Coastal Walks|author=Joseph NiggJohn Hurst|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceArt|summary=A confession. When reading hardbacks I take the paper cover, if there is oneIt was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, offwe were, to keep it pristine. Sometimes there's a second benefitannoyingly, left with [[Longbourn by Jo Baker]] as an example of having an embossed illustration underneath, or suchlikehour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. But with this book I won't be alone, for the cover folds out into There was an amazing artwork, such as has only two extant original copies. It's a coloured replica of a large map of art exhibition in the northern seas and Scandinavia, dating from 1539church hall, so we went in - and is in found a category display of three major artful scientific papers from where the whole 'here be dragons' cliché about maps comes frommost gorgeous pictures. Its creatorI'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, Olaus Magnus, followed it up years later but thought that I would have to make do with a commentary couple of all the sea creatures he drew on greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it, but Magnus has waited centuries for this delicious volume to commentate on both together, in such a lovely fashion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400435</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith KerrBlackburn_Threads|title=Judith Kerr's CreaturesThreads: A Celebration of the The Delicate Life and Work of Judith KerrJohn Craske|author=Julia Blackburn|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliableJohn Craske was a fisherman, but always impressive. One from a family of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]fishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. For decades she's He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been delighting our children (defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupor, sometimes for years at a time and grandchildren) but it still came he was on occasions described as something of 'an imbecile'. But John had a surprise natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to discover that she would be ninety done on the available surfaces in June 2013his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. To celebrate thisThen he moved on to embroidery, Harper Collins have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but that producing wonderful pictures of the ''creatures'' Norfolk coast - the characters in her books and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life. It is, thoughmost famously, far more than just an autobiography with a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabiliathe evacuation at Dunkirk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick GekoskiBray Titania|title=LostTitania and Oberon|author=Jo Manton, Stolen or Shredded: Stories of missing works of art Phyllis Bray and literatureDavid Buckman

|summary=Over the centuries''Equus, Waiting for Godot and A Mid-summer Night's Dream'' – three very distinctive plays, many works of art have disappeared and then come backmy favourite three, or been returned almost as if they had never been awayout of which you won't often get me choosing just one. OthersBut were I to do so, less fortunateit might actually be the last, were simply destroyed. A very few never really existed at for the simple reason that I would delight in playing any and allcharacters from it. That Yes, I know Hermia and Helena look a bit implausible now – but I put it to you stranger things happen on stage… Some of the strangest things involve a player himself, a lowly actor who gets given an ass's head and is forced to be enamoured of a fairy queen. It's this section of the basis of play that this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealerconcentrates on, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoskiin quite stunning form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684919</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosy SherryBM_Origami|title=BoobadoodleOrigami, Poems and Pictures|author=The British Museum

|genre=HumourArt|summary=Boobadoodle is Sometimes you find a delight of a book of doodles. On boobsan afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered ''Origami, Poems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. Fifty doodles on a variety As the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of boobspaper folding, some belonging to haiku poetry and painting. I'll confess that it was the authororigami which caught my attention, some but I was surprised by the extent to her friendswhich the rest of the book caught my imagination. Quite good friendsWe begin with something very simple: a boat and in case you're worried, I imagineall the entries have a degree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the lowest level.}}'{{Frontpage|isbn=Foreman_Travel|title=Travels With My Sketchbook|author=Michael Foreman|rating=4|amazonukgenre=Art|summary=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>I guess the best children's literature can do away with complete veracity, as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of the spirit, heart and character of the real thing, whatever it may be. And if that's the case then it definitely applies to children's literature illustrations, such as those provided close on two hundred times by [[:Category:Michael Foreman|Michael Foreman]]. This prolific artist leapt at a scholarship in the US when he'd completed his official, formal studies, and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never stopped moving since, as this book takes us to all corners of the world, and back home again.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon SykesBiesty Trains|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975Stephen Biesty's Trains|author=Ian Graham and Stephen Biesty

|summary=As one of the major names of British twentieth century artTrains look imposing, but true fans (little boys, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure. Published usually from about three years old and upwards) want to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is know what lies beneath the first volume of a biography skin which tells his story up you can see. They want to 1975know how it works.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carola Hicks|title=Girl Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of big ask, but the Arnolfini Portrait|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it next best thing is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed ''Stephen Biesty's Trains'' which features trains from all over the world and dated 1434, has long been one spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the most popular future which can reach a speed of 430 kph and enigmatic paintings of its timedon't even run on rails. Of modest size, Once the train reaches a little less than three feet high, it is one speed of 150 kph the wheels are raised and the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera. It train is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriageheld up by magnetic forces alone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>