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[[Category:New Reviews|Art]][[Category:Art|*]]__NOTOC__ <!-- remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Quentin Blake0957181167|title=Tell me a Picture - Adventures in Looking at ArtBlue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionArt|summary=When did you last read There are few positive things which can be said about a children's book that absolutely flummoxed you in the way it showed or told you something you didn't know? (And please be an adult substandard apartment when you answer thatyou’re on holiday but this time, or else it won't be quite so impressive.) Back in 2001, Quentin Blake wasn't trying to avoid looking at a Knight yet – he hadn't even got his CBE – but he did get allowed to put on his own show problem I found myself looking more closely at the National Gallery, with other people's a couple of pictures that contain oddities, stories, unexpected detail – sparks on canvas the walls - and paper that would inspire anyone looking, was completely taken by the work of whatever age, to piece things together, work things out, ''form a narrative''Brian Lewis. The pictures came with no major labelling, no context – just what they held, I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and some typically scratched Blake characters discussing the images as a lead-inprint I wanted was ‘not available’. They were simply hung in alphabetical orderOh, and probably could not have been more different. This dear - then is a picture book of few doors down from the most literal kindapartment, I found a gift shop with 26 storiesa stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806422</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David EsterlyAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Red is My Heart of Making|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction |summary=Bouncing between his studio [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in upstate New York my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and the sites of various English sojournsis, woodcarver David Esterly's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it's not all cosy cottages in the snow black and watching geese white and coyotes when red. Yes, he looks up from his workbench. There is has an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in artistic collaborator on this memoirpiece, but at the same time there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artistand I think it's life. 'Carvers are starvers,' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune possible to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but say not one page lacks the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterlyinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1912242052|title=A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall Smith's EdinburghO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=TravelArt|summary=It might be simplest if I begin by telling you what this book is ''notOh Joy for me!''gives Coleridge credit for being '. It's the first person to walk the mountains alone, not a book of beautiful photographs (with some supporting text) of the places you'll almost certainly want because he had to visit if you're visiting Edinburgh for work, as a touristminer, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. If that's what you want then there are dozens His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of such books available all over the city at a fraction of the cost of ''A Work of Beautyworld''. This might have the look of a coffee table book (and it would certainly look impressive there) but it has a lot more depth and interest than you might expect. This is a book of Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh, the city he walks around every day, constantly seeing something new, something else with a story to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902419863</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=Beautiful PatternsG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=Various AuthorsJohn Webley

|genre=CraftsArt|summary=If you are going George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to make a colouring book aimed at adults I say do it 100% and go all outthe Regency era. You can keep your minimalist landscapes or your naïve animals; give me a page packed to He was also one of the gills with something most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that needs filling in. This can make a creative colouring book for grownups feel more like a military operationtime he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, but at least you will have fun doing it and improve your skillssubsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432787</amazonuk>

{{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…}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Murakami_Music|title=Summers 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 Discontenthis 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=Raymond Tallis and Julian SpaldingJames Ravilious

|summary=Raymond Tallis is what some people may refer to as a Renaissance Man. He is a doctor (specificallyJames, a neurologist), a philosopher, a poet and a cultural critic. ''Summers of Discontent: The Purpose son of the Arts Today'war artist Eric Ravilious, inherited his father' is a collection of excerpts from Tallis’s numerous other works, extracted and collated by Julian Spalding – curator and Tallis’ contemporarys artistic talents. It’s Although he was a testament to the free-flowinggifted painter, all-encompassing way in which Tallis writes that these excerpts sit next his main career was to each other seamlessly; they feel like one complete discussion, which is an achievement in itselfbe as a photographer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524405</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GentlemanWood_Gothic|title=In the CountryAmerican Gothic: The Life of Grant Wood|author=Susan Wood and Ross MacDonald|rating=4.5

|summary=I had no intention Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of reading ''In The Country''. I opened it simply three oak leaves before he was properly in his teens? Who sought acclaim as an artist and came to Europe to see what it was likestudy from the greats, but by the time that I shut it again I was nearly halfway through and I only to reject all they had no intention to offer? Who instinctively knew a picture of giving the book his dentist (yes, his dentist) would be more appealing and say more to anyone else. Now people than floating water lilies and frilly ballet dancers? The answer in his eighties David Gentleman is all cases was Grant Wood, practically the most well -known as watercolourist, specialising painter in landscapes. He's based in London but also has a home in Suffolk in the village of Huntingfield and it's this houseAmerica at one time, the village and still the surrounding area which is the location for ''In The Country''best, alongside Edward Hopper, at presenting his world minus any Modernist trappings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095715285X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeff Scott and Rachael AdamsV&A_Patchwork|title=Strictly ShalePatchwork and Quilting: Circling British SpeedwayA Maker's Guide|author=Victoria and Albert Museum

|genre=SportArt|summary=When I was young I remember Speedway being Patchwork is a regular item on Saturday sport programmes on televisionmagical craft: you can take relatively small pieces of material and turn them into another piece of material with an entirely different pattern. My father was Quilting converts a topper and a backing fabric with some wadding in between into a fabric of an aficionado entirely different weight. Combine the two crafts and loved the noiseyou have something more than magical, occasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, the risk and the sheer energy of the sport - my mother less when there are so and she quoted the noise and the strong possibility many different styles of there being 'a nasty accidentboth crafts? One answer is to read ' when the riders slid their motorcycles sideways. It is still on television but I'll confess to not having watched for many years Patchwork and it was for this reason that Jeff ScottQuilting: A Maker's Guide''Strictly Shale'' achieved which looks - as the unusual feat of both being an eye opener cover says - at styles from Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and bringing back long-forgotten memoriesthen delivers fifteen projects inspired by the V&A collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956861830</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Rutherford_Landscape|title=WinterLandscape Gardens|author=Adam GopnikSarah Rutherford

|genre=ReferenceArt|summary=In this collection My first experience of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winterbig''garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn''Radical Winter''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, ''Recuperative Winter''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'Recreational WinterBrown. Sarah Rutherford's ' and 'Landscape Gardens'Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, was an opportunity to put him in relation to these pivotal notionscontext. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Barrie_Peter|title=The First Bohemians: Life Peter Pan and Art in London's Golden AgeWendy|author=Vic GatrellJ M Barrie and Robert Ingpen|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=It was in 's a childhood staple - the eighteenth century that an area of London consisting story of about half a square mileWendy, from Soho John and Michael Darling and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza their beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to Drury Laneschool each day. It's George Darling, and down from Long Acre to the Strandtheir father, with Covent Garden at who makes the very centre, became what has mistake when he locks Nana in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’yard and the children are whisked away to Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. This was where the cream There's a wonderful mix of Britain’s significant artistscharacters, actorsfrom Peter Pan, poetsthe boy who never wants to grow up, novelistsTinkerbell, and dramatists of the age lived and workedrather unpleasant fairy, side by side with the city’s chief market tradersCaptain Hook, craftsmenTiger Lily, shopkeepersthe lost boys and - of course - Wendy, rakes, pickpockets but then it wouldn't have been a classic since the original stage production in 1904 and prostitutesthe novel of 1911 if it were otherwise. One might say that all human life was here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Grahame_Wind|title=Sea Monsters: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnus's Marine MapWind in The Willows|author=Joseph NiggKenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceArt|summary=A confession. When reading hardbacks Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in the Willows'' was one of the defining books of my childhood and more than sixty years after I take first read the paper cover, if there is one, off, to keep book I've just recently passed it pristineonto another young reader. Sometimes Since the book was first published in 1908 there's a second benefithave been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the 1913 edition, with [[Longbourn by Jo Baker]] as an example Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of having an embossed illustration underneath, or suchlike. But with this book I won't be alone, for 'Winnie the cover folds out into an amazing artworkPooh'') in 1933, such as has only two extant original copies. It's a coloured replica of a large map of Arthur Rackham (possibly the northern seas and Scandinavia, dating leading illustrator from 1539, the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and is Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in a category of three major artful scientific papers from where the whole Willows'here be dragons' cliché about maps comes from. Its creator, Olaus Magnus, followed it up years later with a commentary of all the sea creatures he drew on it, but Magnus has waited centuries for this delicious volume to commentate on both together, in such a lovely fashion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400435</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith KerrJenkins_100|title=Judith KerrBritain's Creatures: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Judith Kerr100 Best Railway Stations|author=Simon Jenkins

|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliablethe mid-twentieth century, the railway was something which harked back to the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and planes, but always impressive. One of those names steam was being replaced by oil, even then and in the twenty-first-century oil is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]giving way to electricity. For decades sheIt's been delighting our children (cleaner, more environmentally friendly and grandchildren) but it still came the stations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as something of a surprise possible, keen to escape their grime, were restored and became places to discover that she would be ninety admired, possibly even lingered in June 2013. To celebrate thisSimon 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 five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, Harper Collins left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have published ''Creatures'' the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in which Judith tells not just her own story but that - and found a display of the most gorgeous pictures. I''creatures'' - the characters in her books d cheerfully have bought every one and her family - who hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have contributed to her inspirational life. It is, though, far more than just an autobiography make do with a marvellous collection couple of paintings, drawings greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and memorabiliaI couldn't resist buying it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick GekoskiBlackburn_Threads|title=Lost, Stolen or ShreddedThreads: Stories The Delicate Life of missing works of art and literatureJohn Craske|author=Julia Blackburn

|summary=Over the centuriesJohn Craske was a fisherman, many works from a family of art fishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have disappeared 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 then come backhe was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, or been returned almost as if they albeit that his work had never been awayto be done on the available surfaces in his home. OthersChair seats, less fortunatewindow sills, were simply destroyed. A very few never really existed at the backs of doors allcarried his wonderful pictures of the sea. That is Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the basis of this unusual Norfolk coast - and very intriguing read from rare book dealer, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoskimost famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684919</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|isbn=Bray Titania|title=Titania and Oberon|author=Jo Manton, Phyllis Bray and David Buckman |rating=4|genre=Art|summary=''Equus, Waiting for Godot and A Mid-summer 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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosy SherryBM_Origami|title=BoobadoodleOrigami, Poems and Pictures|author=The British Museum

|genre=HumourArt|summary=Boobadoodle is Sometimes you find a delight of a book of doodles. On boobsan afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered ''Origami, Poems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. Fifty doodles on a variety As the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of boobspaper folding, some belonging to haiku poetry and painting. I'll confess that it was the authororigami which caught my attention, some but I was surprised by the extent to her friendswhich the rest of the book caught my imagination. Quite good friendsWe begin with something very simple: a boat and in case you're worried, I imagineall the entries have a degree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the lowest level.}}'{{Frontpage|isbn=Foreman_Travel|title=Travels With My Sketchbook|author=Michael Foreman|rating=4|amazonukgenre=Art|summary=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>I guess the best children's literature can do away with complete veracity, as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of the 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 scholarship in the US when he'd completed his official, formal studies, and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never stopped moving since, as this book takes us to all corners of the world, and back home again.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon SykesBiesty Trains|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975Stephen Biesty's Trains|author=Ian Graham and Stephen Biesty

|summary=As one of the major names of British twentieth century artTrains look imposing, but true fans (little boys, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure. Published usually from about three years old and upwards) want to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is know what lies beneath the first volume of a biography skin which tells his story up you can see. They want to 1975know how it works.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carola Hicks|title=Girl Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of big ask, but the Arnolfini Portrait|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it next best thing is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed ''Stephen Biesty's Trains'' which features trains from all over the world and dated 1434, has long been one spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the most popular future which can reach a speed of 430 kph and enigmatic paintings of its timedon't even run on rails. Of modest size, Once the train reaches a little less than three feet high, it is one speed of 150 kph the wheels are raised and the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera. It train is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriageheld up by magnetic forces alone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>