Illustration Books

Once upon a time I stumbled across this book in a book store and could not believe my eyes. This is absolutely one of the most beautiful books I've ever owned and it is totally relevant to my life. I am Dutch descent and some of my ancestors come from Zeeland, and Poortvliet focuses on life in Zeeland over a two hundred year period, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover a beautifully illustrated book by a Dutch artist whose ancestors came from a village not far from my own.

Poortvliet tells his story with illustrations. There is little text, and it is mostly captions for his illustrations. He begins his book with his own father's life, and moves back through time telling about his grandfather's life, then his great-grandfather's life, then his great-great grandfather's story in pictures. Only an artist could vividly bring the past to life in this manner.

If you are of Dutch descent, you must see this book. At the least check it out of the library, but I think you may want to own it. I am sad to see that it is out of print because next to the geneology chart on your family, this is the best way to get in touch with the lives of your Dutch ancestors.

Actually the title of this book in Dutch is: "Along the garden path of my forefathers" ! and this book is probably the best!! It tells a story, in word, and much more in picture, how people lived (Rien's ancestors) in the Netherlands during the last three centuries. The illustrations are superb, beautiful, done with a great sensitivity that portrays accurately how people were living in these times: their home life, work, school, their times in distress, death, sickness, as well as the more joyfull days; it shows what clothes they wore, the interiors of their dwellings, the furniture they had, utensils, tools, the trades the men had, how children amused themselves. The faces of the people, children included, their bodies, actions, are depicted with such naturalness,that the book becomes alive and one can read the emotions of life on their faces which will touch you deeply. The artwork was done in gouache, watercolour, maybe an oil here or there, charcoal and pencil. The artwork is truly beautiful and delightful but depicting the truth of those times.

I bought as a guide to possibly get a tatoo with Jason's art. I loved the art!

This must-have archive is just the beginning of a career that will only improve with time and experience. Combining traditional art with the digital medium, Jason Engle creates entire worlds within a single frame.

To correct the previous reviewer, these designs are by no means Russian! Neither are they Arabic, but, as the name of the book states, they are Islamic. The designs were collected in Central Asia area, mainly in Bukhara, the center of ancient culture, and are the great sample of the wonderful art of the region.

If you are looking for arabian designs this is not the book, the designs are russian, but the drawings are very good.

An historical treasure trove with COLOR examples of an art that today has been supplanted, in large part, with cookie cutter hackwork. The authors' informed commentaries are to-the-point and invite further exploration. I found it to be an elegantly designed and useful resource book.

A handsome book of 270 book jackets clearly showing the very wide range of styles publishers used to sell their wares. All the covers are shown complete with the designer's name in most cases, none of them are angled or overlapped, thankfully! A lovely feature is the use of still life photos of the book and the jacket complete, many of them with tears and creases on the jackets, looking as if they have just been rescued from a second-hand bookstore.

These jackets are such a contrast to the covers shown in a book I recently reviewed, 'The Great American Paperback', a colorful collection of six hundred covers (annoyingly designed so that they nearly all overlapp each other) from the forties, fifties and sixties. These covers are extremely conservative in their design approach, a predictable painting with crude typography for the title. It was not until the mid-sixties that paperback publishers turned to eye-catching paintings and photography with intergrated typography.

In contrast the covers in 'Jackets Required' are bursting with creativity, the chapter on non-fiction has some particularly striking designs. The back of the book has a portfolio of six designers including my favorites, Alvin Lustig and Paul Rand. There is a designer and title index, someting that was sadly missing from 'The Great American Paperback.

Heller and Chwast have produced a super book that design students and fans of popular culture will enjoy for a long time.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This is a lovely book that I look forward to reading to my first grandchild due to be born in August, 2007.

This splendid book should be in every nursery library. It contains hundreds of nursery rhymes, some very well known to American children and some not so familiar including the 51 rhymes with morals found in the original Mother Goose collection that was printed by Isaiah Thomas in Massachusetts in the years just following the Revolutionary War.
The book is printed on high quality silk-smooth paper and is printed in large clear type with charming black and white accent illustrations of children and characters from that era. Familiar and well-known Mother Goose verses as well as perhaps unkown verses are included. Many beautiful illustrations by the amazing Jessie Willcox Smith enhance this volume, a few in black and white, but most in full color, full page glory. Smith, born in 1863 is, in my opinion, one of the finest illustrators of children ever. She never used professional models and preferred to search out the right child for the picture. As a result her illustrations bring images to us straight out of history and capture with an appreciative heart the sweetness of childhood, unsurpassed.
This book is truly a treasure, one that is sure to be enjoyed for many years to come.

I have placed the last four versions of this calendar on my wall at work. It is one of the few items I keep over my desk that has a more human touch. The calendar has never failed to engage people in questions about the beauty of the illustrations as well as the rich diversity of Jewish Culture and History.

I love "The Jewish Calendar 2001: With Illustrations from the Jewish Museum"! It contains beautiful illustrations and photographs and is also a very practical and complete Jewish calendar. The illustrations are varied and range from a gorgeous painting of a Shabbat dinner table, to photographs of an etrog container and a 19th century menorah. I especially apreciate the listings of sunrises and sunsets for several major cities including Jerusalem. This calendar also comes with four usefull business card sized pocket calendars listing the major Jewish holidays. Anyone who needs a practical religious calendar, but who also wants to add a very nice decorative touch to their kitchen or family room will love this calendar!

Jim Dine Art Fans are you looking for a bit of inspiration? Are you looking for a great coffee table book? Well, you found it! Jim Dine creates his version of botanical prints by drawing, painting and ceramics. His masculine style gives you another view of what the flowers in our backyard may look like. A great first book to buy to add to your art library! Enjoy!

Blooming with botanical drawings and paintings this coffee table volume by artist Jim Dine is a must for gardeners and flora aficionados.

Here we find beauty in the unexpected intricate charcoal shading in Dine's interpretation of a mandrake root, in an amazing pencil and watercolour study of a hyacinth, and in the bawdy, robust color found in anthuriums.

This is a timeless volume that brings pleasure each time it is opened.

I do the same thing as the presious review when reading discworld books with his illistrations i always look forward to the moment in the book that is illistrated on the cover, and as the previous reviewer also find new things all the time, his work is beautifuly styled.

I never seen such a good (perfect?) match between a writer and a cover illustrator. Josh Kirby illustrated the atmosphere and inhabitants of the Discworld with such an amazing accuracy. I was usually disappointed by graphic interpretations of fantasy novels, it was never really what I have imagined. With Josh Kiby illustrations, I enjoyed going back and forth to the cover while reading the book, there is so many details in these drawings that you always find new things you didn't notice at the first look. Truly inspiring.

Rien Poortvliet's Journey Into the Ice Age offers an excellent and illustrative insight into the natural history of Europe. He begins the story from his modern-day perch built into a tree for the purposes of viewing wildlife in their most relaxed state, and continues as a virtual daydream which illustrates to the reader with both personal reflection and visual images how the wildlife of earlier days may have appeared had he been in the same perch hundreds or thousands of years ago. His illustrations are very detailed and anatomically perfect, and his handwritten notes add a very personal touch to this aesthetically as well as literally pleasing work of art. I enjoy reading the book to my children and leave it on the coffee table for guests to thumb through as well. I will definitely seek other titles from this author

Dutch illustrator Rien Poortvliet has done an outstanding job with this work, depicting in a series of illustrations the modern and Ice Age wildlife of the Netherlands. Beginning in the present with deer and rabbits seen from his treestand, he goes further and further back in time, showing more and more exotic wildlife. Soon he shows pheasants, partrides, foxes, deer, and wild boars, as well as bringing us to early modern and medieval Holland. Eventually the work progresses all the way back to the Pleistocene, with wonderful illustrations of early man and such long vanished animals as Irish elk, woolly rhinos, and his crowning acheivement, the woolly mammoth.

Though the modern animals are well depicted, the main reason to buy this lavishly illustrated book are for its Ice Age fauna. In addition to extinct mammals, animals no longer found wild in the Netherlands such as wolves, horses, lions, bears, and elk are well covered as well.

This book is again extremely beautiful; many of the paintings have a very haunting quality. The way he takes you back in time really shows a unity of theme and makes the Ice Age fauna that much more real, showing they were as natural a part of the landscape as trees or rabbits, and look all the more real for being depicted in landscape still around today.

The book is not only on wildlife and landscape, as he shows a great deal of the life of peasants, farmers, fishermen, hunters, and eventually primitive early Man in Holland. He shows the building of ancient burial mounds, the dolmens. Poortvliet takes you on an Ice Age hunt for reindeer, then back to the village to show how the skins were prepared for clothing. He richly depicts a medieval hunt, complete with peasant drivers pressed into service, magnificent hounds, and the deadly last stand of the wild boar that was often the subject of the great hunt. A good number of pages are depicted to the interaction of wolves and humans in the Netherlands, showing wolf attacks and the campaign to wipe them out in response.

Sorry if I ramble in this review but there is just so much to take in with this magnificent work, it is like a concentrated blast of Dutch natural and human history, rich with wonderfully depicted landscapes, wildlife, human interest, and magnificent Ice Age fauna. Truly a rare book. A great book to get lost in, a great coffee table book, just a great book.

Jerome Kildee is a shy stonecutter who retires to the redwood forest to be alone. He finds, instead, friendship for the first time in his life. Delightfully simple, soothing, and serene, this little book takes the reader into the heart of an unassuming man who finds joy in the animals and children he learns to know; the reader has the sublime opportunity of gaining the friendships Jerome finds in spite of his self-imposed isolation. His quiet ways allow for the local animals and children to invade his space, and that is when the fun begins. Jerome learns to relate to a variety of personalities and resolve the issues in an unusual community of innocence. The descriptions of his little home will charm you enough to want to retreat there. For anyone who enjoys nature and self discovery, Kildee house is a book to savor. I have read Jerome's story about 30 times. I love sharing it with the people I care about because it has never failed to delight and satisfy its new friends.

This is a heartwarming story, very well written, about a man who builds a home on the side of a giant redwood tree. A family of skunks claim the house as their own, and the man is kind to them. Other forest animals visit, as well. The man doesn't have the heart to turn the animals away, nor can he turn away children from two fueding families. My eight year old son loved this book at bedtime. It's a gentle story written decades ago, in a gentler time. Highly recommended.