A welcome appreciation of the greatest painter of German Romanticism.
An art historian documents the achievement of one of Germany’s most important painters.
Historian Illies writes in this admiring biography that Friedrich (1774-1840) was “the most famous German painter of the nineteenth century” yet suffered an inexplicable “descent into oblivion.” Many factors influenced that decline in interest in this painter of allegorical landscapes who “inhaled nature to exhale it again as art.” Illies alternates between stories of Friedrich’s personal life and the creation of his works. He divides the book into sections dedicated to the four classical elements—fire, water, earth, and air—that inspired Friedrich’s paintings or affected their fate, as when a blaze at the home of Princess Mathilde of Saxony destroyed two inherited Friedrichs, Morning in the Mountains and Mountain Scene in Evening Light. The book shows the influence Friedrich had on other artists, from Samuel Beckett, who had a “prototypical experience” that inspired Waiting for Godot after he viewed Friedrich’s landscapes, to Kurt Vonnegut, who was in prison during the Dresden bombing of World War II and later had his character Billy Pilgrim describe “the sunsets over the destroyed city as if they were skies by Caspar David Friedrich” in Slaughterhouse-Five. Sometimes, Illies sledgehammers square pegs into round holes and forces events to fit this arrangement, as when, in the water section, he writes of the Nazis’ efforts to embrace Friedrich as “a stout, seaworthy Teuton who would stand in the bow during their misguided expeditions to come.” Most of the book, however, is more restrained. Sprinkled throughout are amusing if unnerving anecdotes, such as the one about Walt Disney’s 1935 trip to Munich to see a compilation of his work titled In the Realm of Mickey Mouse. “The Nazis allowed the glorification of other rulers,” Illies writes, “as long as they were mice.”
A welcome appreciation of the greatest painter of German Romanticism.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781509567546
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Polity
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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