"MURALS: Cave, Cathedral, to Street"

by Michael Capek ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 20, 1996

Capek follows up Artistic Trickery: The Tradition of Trompe L'Oeil Art (1995) with this handsome but slipshod exploration of another visually intriguing, and even more ancient, art form. Taking readers backward in time, he begins with modern community murals, then surveys other 20th-century work, the great Mexican tradition, and murals created with paint or mosaic from the Renaissance back through prehistory. Sharp full-color photos enhance the presentation but not all are well-chosen: Two details of Constantino Brumidi's murals are included, but WPA-era artist Wendell Jones's First Pulpit in Granville is just one of several hard-to-visit works tantalizingly described and not shown. The author expresses his ideas clearly but ignores billboards, barn art, and cycloramas, does not mention the recently discovered cave paintings at Chauvet, and opens his chapter on early Christian murals with this discouragingly parochial observation: ""Jesus Christ was born into a world that was largely Roman . . . The only lands Rome did not control were either too far away to reach or were still unknown."" Outside of individual biographies or general histories of art, young readers won't find much available on murals, but this book's limited purview makes it, at best, a stopgap.

Pub Date: May 20, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Lerner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996

Categories: CHILDREN'S