- Hardcover: 561 pages
- Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (Nov 1 2000)
- Language: English, French
- ISBN-10: 0810939401
- ISBN-13: 978-0810939400
- Product Dimensions: 31.4 x 29.9 x 5.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 4 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#1,373,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #55 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Cubism
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
If you had to choose just one book about Pablo Picasso, the most protean artist of the 20th century, what would you look for? Copious, good-quality reproductions; an authoritative account of the way his approach to painting was influenced by his personality, the women in his life and his contemporaneousness with other notables; an in-depth treatment of key works--like Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (his self-proclaimed "first exorcism painting")--and recurrent themes, like the Minotaur. Then there's the question of tone. Some books cast Picasso as a demigod or a destroyer. Others, like art historian John Richardson's A Life of Picasso, offer a more responsible, psychologically penetrating portrait of the artist.
Hefty, elegant, and inclusive, The Ultimate Picasso hits most of these marks. It boasts more than 1,200 reproductions spanning the artist's entire career. Smoothly translated from the French, the it weaves biographical detail and discussions of the art into a concise narrative. Visual sources are all confidently accounted for. Yet the text does seem rather skimpy. The 16-page section on Guernica, for example, has barely two pages of actual discussion. The authors maintain their extremely tight focus on their artist, which is admirable. But in their concentration, they seem to compulsively refrain, perhaps by default, from acknowledging the external world as anything but resource or dalliance for their subject.
The authors' hyperbolic view of their subject--"Picasso did not paint nature, but the suffering of the men and women of his time, creating from it beauty and truth"--and the lack of any real psychological insight about, for instance, the continual hazard Picasso poses to the female form, may be considered a flaw. But in this old-fashioned portrait of the male artist as genius, so certain is it of the gulf between the common and the exalted, human flaw does not exist, unless it belongs to somebody else. --Cathy Curtis
From Booklist
Can we exhaust the visual pleasure we derive from looking at Picasso's work? Can another book on Picasso offer anything more about this twentieth-century artist that we have not learned from the others (see Geoffroy-Schneiter above)? In the preface, Jean Leymarie recalls Picasso boasting that "a book would have to be written on him every day to keep up with his rhythm and his surges of creativity." All we can conclude is that this book is the ultimate. It combines all the periods of his career and touts having "nearly" every significant work he ever created in its 1,235 illustrations. Leal writes the essays in the first section on the early years, 1881-1916. This leisurely paced section certainly teaches things about Picasso that many will find fresh and involving, and throughout the extensive illustration program makes it easier to trace the development of the painter's ideas. Discovering the change in 1906 that points the way to the Picasso we moderns know well is quite satisfying. Bonnie Smothers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Plastic surgeons probably shouldnt use these for murals.,
By Nad Namso (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Ultimate Picasso (Hardcover)
The Ultimate Picasso could easily defeat The Fabulous Braque and The Superlative Cézanne in an arena style cubist grand melee. It would be no contest, really. The Ultimate Picasso would open up with his patented synthetic slammer sending Cézanne right back through the analytical period. Braque would try to stun him with some multi-viewed complex patterns, but nothing can neutralize The Ultimate Picasso.Braque might try a new tactic then: swinging wildly with his blinding colors. The Ultimate Picasso would roll towards the canvas, ducking under the swing that hits the helpless Cézanne full on. Then BAM! Right out of nowhere, The Ultimate Picasso lays the smackdown on both of them with his ball-buster blue period. Down for the count: The Ultimate Picasso is once again champion of the art world.
5.0 out of 5 stars
the ultimate picasso book for art enthusiasts.,
By irmita "irmita" (usa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Ultimate Picasso (Hardcover)
The greatest part of this huge and informative art book is the literally hundreds of pictures that it contains. A very colorful book, which is a must for anyone interested in this highly acclaimed artist, whose Cubist style signified a new era for the art world. Picasso is one of the best artists, in my opinion, and this book gives an in-depth account of his life and his extraordinary career on canvas.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly recommended for all Picasso enthusiasts!,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Ultimate Picasso (Hardcover)
Pablo Picasso's was one of the most innovative, experimental, prolific, influential, and controversial painters of the twentieth century. In The Ultimate Picasso, Brigitte Leal covers Picasso's formative years from 1881 through 1916 (including his invention of Cubism with Georges Braque). Christine Piot explores Picasso's productive period from 1917 through 1952. Marie-Laure Bernadac surveys the artistic vigor of Picasso's later years from 1953 until hi death in 1973. The Ultimate Picasso's informative, engaging text is profusely illustration with 1200 magnificent reproductions (720 in full color) document-ing Picasso's phenomenal range of artistic expression throughout his life. The Ultimate Picasso is an essential, core addition to any personal or academic art history collection, and is a very highly recommended "Memorial Fund" acquisition choice for community libraries.
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