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Title: N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings
ISBN: 1857594789
Author:
Christine B. Podmaniczky
Publicate Date: 2008-05-30
Publish: 2008-05-30
List Price: $400.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $320.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $594.51
Amazon Merchant Price: $320.00
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Beautiful set, worth the investment
I do understand why other reviewers are miffed at the small reproductions. But in balance I felt there were an ample number of decent single page images. Yes there is heaps of whitespace but the worst excesses are around the chapters of text, it's not so bad in the image sections. The reproduction quality and colour balance is gloriously good, so the full pagers are a real treat and even the 1/9th page images are enjoyable. The best thing about the volumes is the quantity of images - there are literally thousands that have been tracked down and reproduced. If they were to give each the full glory treatment of a page apiece, then there would be several more volumes and a price tag many times higher. I would commend that Wyeth fans buy this set and, rather than moan to Brandywine about the average image size, lobby the publishers to produce some supplementary volumes that can expand on themes within his work - eg: Wyeth pirates, Wyeth cowboys, Wyeth civil war etc. It would be great if supplementary volumes could be done in a similar manner - slipcased, cloth bound hardcover and at this large folio size.
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2: disappointing arrival
I have long awaited the arrival of a good N.C. Wyeth book. When I saw this book was released I was elated...a bit taken back by the price though. Well I justified it seeing that it is a 2 book box set. When it arrived the first dissapointment was bad shipping. This set had inadequate protection and recieved a hole through the box from an shipping. Secondly, and most disappointing, was the fact that the images were often soooo small. Some that I've seen previously published much bigger are shown so small I felt compelled to get a magnifying glass. Because I'd seen them larger I knew it was a possiblity. I personally feel that the Brandywine museum should be ashamed of this publication. The Wyeth family should be outraged! As the first reviewer stated, the white space is huge. In some areas, 4-5 inches large, while the images are small! I have to say, since I so longed to see this publication, or at least the one I had hopped to see, my heart actually ached after the waiting and the cost of this item. My recommendation is to save your money till they lower the price even more and do what I plan to do, send a letter of complaint to the Brandywine Museum. After all the great publications on Andrew, this is what we get to represent N.C.? How disappointing!
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3: More is Less
It's great to see the length and breadth of N. C. Weyth's work, but this Raisonne despite its size (at 10 pounds a book) and quality printing, suffers from the artists own prodigious output. So exciting too see so much unseen work, but so disappointing to see so much of it so small. The exhaustive technical descriptions and layout choices to leave tons of white space around everything makes it time and again feel like a collection of stamps. A third volume was needed to do this the right way so the best of the art could be shown at the size it merits. More is less in this case.
That said this is a long overdue book that clearly shows the N.C. Weyth was unfairly overlooked in the art histories as a master who should have not been over shadowed by his talented, but rendering oriented son. N.C. was a painter; Andrew is a fastidious observer of detail. The combination of Weyth seniors style exploration, staying to long in illustration, his early death, the ugly discrimination of the art world, and his son's overriding pureness of personal vision prevented N. C. from being considered one of America's most important artists. I hope this book corrects that perfect storm of ignorance of his greatness. I urge the publishers to a expanded version that shows more the art at a good size, I'll buy it too.
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