An attractive coffee-table album of canine photos with a vibrant and spiritually uplifting setting.
A photography book celebrates dogs and their cherished status in a Buddhist society.
Chambers, a world traveler, salutes the isolated Himalayan nation of Bhutan for its natural beauty and the “vibrations” imparted to its inhabitants by “the light and teachings of the Buddha.” Chief among these teachings is a reverence for all beings capable of feeling and suffering, especially dogs. The Bhutanese, she writes, believe that canines contain the reincarnated souls of human ancestors; thus, killing even strays is forbidden because it will prevent “that being from living out its Karma.” The book mainly consists of the author’s color photographs of Bhutanese dogs that indeed seem to have it pretty good. They loll happily about, resting on sidewalks, staircases, mountain pathways, and rocky outcroppings—and in gardens and fields and outside temples—lying unconscious on their sides or surveying the world in Sphinx-like postures of alert repose, occasionally allowing a human to pet them. The mutts are a motley black and white and tan, ears pointed or floppy, some of them embodying Buddhist virtues according to the captions. “Attentiveness” is illustrated by a dog with its ear cocked; “trust” by a pooch sleeping peacefully under a car in disregard of the danger of being run over; and “love” by an adorable canine gazing into the camera with golden, liquid eyes. Some photos have other subjects, including karmically underprivileged pack mules and, of course, humans, who appear in a number of portraits featuring Bhutanese laypeople and monks in colorful traditional garments. The images skillfully showcase the variety and grandeur of the Bhutanese terrain, with its majestic snow-capped peaks, wide skies, piney hillsides, and verdant valleys. Chambers’ photos are notable for a slight blurriness and an unusual color palette, with the green of foliage being washed out while throbbing blues dominate in clothing, distant landscapes, shadows, and even black fur. It’s a striking effect that looks almost ultraviolet and gives many of the photos an eerie charge. Her compositions are not the most inspired—just pooches lounging around—but they will look like nirvana to some connoisseurs of canine glory.
An attractive coffee-table album of canine photos with a vibrant and spiritually uplifting setting.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982232-70-2
Page Count: 66
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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