KANDINSKY: SKY BLUE; MAGRITTE: THE DOUBLE SECRET

Two innovative, provocative books introduce methods of thinking about enigmatic-seeming 20th-century paintings. Each focuses on a single painting, using cut pages, carefully engineered rearrangements, and gentle comments that should make readers question design and content while beginning to understand why the paintings are just as they are. Sky Blue pictures abstract figures, each unique, floating on blue. The author lists many of the anatomical forms that may be referred to in the art and, with a series of diagonally cut pages that cleverly rearrange and duplicate some of the figures, shows how they are related in the artist's design; by reproducing the painting again with its figures in white, he demonstrates color's role. Even more interesting are the results of using the alternate frames provided for Magritte's surreal painting of a head with a section displaced to reveal a cryptic, nonbiological interior, and the meticulous visual exposition of the picture's genesis. These challenging, beautifully produced ""Art Play Books"" orginated at The Children's Studio at Paris' Pompidou Center.