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[[Category:New Reviews|Art]][[Category:Art|*]]__NOTOC__ <!-- remove -->__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|isbn=0957181167|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=5|genre=Art|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewis. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rick GekoskiAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=LostRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[: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 and red. Yes, Stolen he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or Shreddedpack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Hewitt_Renoir|title=Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon|author=Catherine Hewitt|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=Deep in the rural parts of France in the 1860s, you would never really expect to find someone who would come to embody a full artistic period – and not just a movement at that, but a full generation of both creative and societal change. And if you were to expect that someone, they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the circus that first caught her teenaged eye, although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what she did have from that was the poise to be an appealing model for some seriously important painters and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiences. And what she also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own…}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Murakami_Music|title=Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa|author=Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa|rating=3.5|genre=Art|summary=Murakami loves music, any reader of his could tell you as much. Norwegian Wood was named after a Beatles song (albeit one not very well known) and After Dark is framed by a music soundtrack in a brilliant display of atmospheric setting. With this, all that love is here. And like all who have a good taste in music, Murakami's is eclectic and very well considered. I found myself looking up musicians after reading this because I found many of his opinions quite convincing.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Ravilious_Recent|title=The Recent Past|author=James Ravilious|rating=5|genre=Art|summary=James, son of the war artist Eric Ravilious, inherited his father's artistic talents. Although he was a gifted painter, his main career was to be as a photographer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Wood_Gothic|title=American Gothic: Stories The Life of Grant Wood|author=Susan Wood and Ross MacDonald|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of missing works 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 offer? Who instinctively knew a picture of art his dentist (yes, his dentist) would be more appealing and say more to people than floating water lilies and frilly ballet dancers? The answer in all cases was Grant Wood, practically the most well-known painter in America at one time, and still the best, alongside Edward Hopper, at presenting his world minus any Modernist trappings.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=V&A_Patchwork|title=Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide|author=Victoria and Albert Museum|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=Patchwork is a magical craft: you can take relatively small pieces of material and turn them into another piece of material with an entirely different pattern. Quilting converts a topper and a backing fabric with some wadding in between into a fabric of an entirely different weight. Combine the two crafts and you have something more than magical, occasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, when there are so many different styles of both crafts? One answer is to read ''Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide'' which looks - as the cover says - at styles from Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and then delivers fifteen projects inspired by the V&A collections.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Rutherford_Landscape|title=Landscape Gardens|author=Sarah Rutherford|rating=4|genre=Art|summary=My first experience of a ''big'' garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of it all. As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was off big gardens. It would be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip to Harewood House, it was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the gardens and found they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Sarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in context.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Barrie_Peter|title=Peter Pan and Wendy|author=J M Barrie and literatureRobert Ingpen

|summary=Over It's a childhood staple - the centuriesstory of Wendy, many works of art have disappeared John and Michael Darling and then come backtheir beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to school each day. It's George Darling, their father, or been returned almost as if they had never been who makes the mistake when he locks Nana in the yard and the children are whisked awayto Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. OthersThere's a wonderful mix of characters, less fortunatefrom Peter Pan, were simply destroyed. A very few the boy who never really existed at all. That is wants to grow up, Tinkerbell, the rather unpleasant fairy, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, the basis lost boys and - of this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealercourse - Wendy, writer but then it wouldn't have been a classic since the original stage production in 1904 and broadcaster Rick Gekoskithe novel of 1911 if it were otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684919</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|isbn=Grahame_Wind|title=The Wind in The Willows|author=Kenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen|rating=4|genre=Art|summary=Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in the Willows'' 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 ''Winnie the Pooh'') in 1933, Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in the Willows''.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosy SherryJenkins_100|title=BoobadoodleBritain's 100 Best Railway Stations|author=Simon Jenkins

|genre=HumourArt|summary=Boobadoodle In the mid-twentieth century, the railway was something which harked back to the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and planes, but steam was being replaced by oil, even then and in the twenty-first-century oil is giving way to electricity. It's cleaner, more environmentally friendly and the stations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as possible, keen to escape their grime, were restored and became places to be admired, possibly even lingered in. Simon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk|title=On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks|author=John Hurst|rating=4|genre=Art|summary=It was pure serendipity: after a book five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a display of doodlesthe most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''On boobsMy Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it. Fifty doodles on }}{{Frontpage|isbn=Blackburn_Threads|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske|author=Julia Blackburn|rating=4|genre=Art|summary=John Craske was a fisherman, from a variety family of boobsfishermen, some belonging who became too ill to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on the authornorth Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been 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 he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, some albeit that his work had to her friendsbe done on the available surfaces in his home. Quite good friendsChair seats, window sills, I imaginethe backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon SykesBray Titania|title=Hockney: The BiographyTitania and Oberon|author=Jo Manton, Volume 1Phyllis Bray and David Buckman |rating=4|genre=Art|summary=''Equus, 1937Waiting for Godot and A Mid-1975summer Night's Dream'' – three very distinctive plays, and my favourite three, out of which you won't often get me choosing just one. But were I to do so, it might actually be the last, for the simple reason that I would delight in playing any and all characters from it. 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 play that this book concentrates on, in quite stunning form.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=BM_Origami|title=Origami, Poems and Pictures|author=The British Museum

|summary=Sometimes you find a delight of a book. On an afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered ''Origami, Poems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. As one the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of paper folding, haiku poetry and painting. I'll confess that it was the origami which caught my attention, but I was surprised by the major names extent to which the rest of British twentieth century artthe book caught my imagination. We begin with something very simple: a boat and in case you're worried, David Hockney has always been all the entries have a larger than life figuredegree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the lowest level. Published to coincide }}'{{Frontpage|isbn=Foreman_Travel|title=Travels With My Sketchbook|author=Michael Foreman|rating=4|genre=Art|summary=I guess the best children's literature can do away with his 75th birthdaycomplete veracity, this as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of the first volume 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 biography which tells scholarship in the US when he'd completed his story up official, formal studies, and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never stopped moving since, as this book takes us to 1975all corners of the world, and back home again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carola HicksBiesty Trains|title=Girl in a Green Gown: The History Stephen Biesty's Trains|author=Ian Graham and Mystery of the Arnolfini PortraitStephen Biesty|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portraitTrains look imposing, as it is generally if perhaps inaccurately knownbut true fans (little boys, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed usually from about three years old and dated 1434, has long been one of upwards) want to know what lies beneath the most popular and enigmatic paintings of its timeskin which you can see. They want to know how it works. Of modest size, Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a little less than three feet highbig ask, it but the next best thing is one ''Stephen Biesty's Trains'' which features trains from all over the world and spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than temperafuture which can reach a speed of 430 kph and don't even run on rails. It is also regarded as Once the first work train reaches a speed of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort 150 kph the wheels are raised and monogamous marriagethe train is held up by magnetic forces alone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>