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Icon painting
Book by Taylor, John
- GenresArt
80 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1979
About the author
John Taylor
1,580 books23 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
May 10, 2025
I gave this 2 stars, which is an unexpected rating for me given how long I've wanted to read this book and my longstanding interest in icons.
Let's start with what's good, and the one reason I would recommend iconographers have this on their shelves: it has great photos. This book is a bit larger than letter size (it's about 9.5 x 12.5 inches), it's full colour on all pages, many icon photos are full-page size, and there are several that are on a double-page spread, so almost poster size. In many places there are some great close-up details. So if you want good reference photos for brushwork, colour, and detail, this is a great little book. (That said, it's only 80 pages so while it's a good reference, it's not an exhaustive reference.)
Now for what's not so good: the text. I would hold onto this book for the photos and not bother to read the text. There are many MUCH better books out there about the history of icons, the various iconographic traditions, and so on. The text of this book was so disjointed I hardly even know what to make of it, other than to say that if I were not already familiar with iconography, I would be totally confused after reading this book. He goes into lots of detail about certain stories or traditions that are very minor, fringe, or even heretical (e.g., magical beliefs which are not endorsed by any church with an iconographic tradition), while at the same time failing to establish the big picture of the story that would have tied everything together much more cohesively. He references sources that he clearly hasn't properly read based on what he writes, and there is definitely evidence of a Russian bias especially in the conclusion, even though Russian iconography, while certainly an important tradition, is nowhere near the only one.
So I'd recommend this for the great illustrations, but don't bother reading the text.
Let's start with what's good, and the one reason I would recommend iconographers have this on their shelves: it has great photos. This book is a bit larger than letter size (it's about 9.5 x 12.5 inches), it's full colour on all pages, many icon photos are full-page size, and there are several that are on a double-page spread, so almost poster size. In many places there are some great close-up details. So if you want good reference photos for brushwork, colour, and detail, this is a great little book. (That said, it's only 80 pages so while it's a good reference, it's not an exhaustive reference.)
Now for what's not so good: the text. I would hold onto this book for the photos and not bother to read the text. There are many MUCH better books out there about the history of icons, the various iconographic traditions, and so on. The text of this book was so disjointed I hardly even know what to make of it, other than to say that if I were not already familiar with iconography, I would be totally confused after reading this book. He goes into lots of detail about certain stories or traditions that are very minor, fringe, or even heretical (e.g., magical beliefs which are not endorsed by any church with an iconographic tradition), while at the same time failing to establish the big picture of the story that would have tied everything together much more cohesively. He references sources that he clearly hasn't properly read based on what he writes, and there is definitely evidence of a Russian bias especially in the conclusion, even though Russian iconography, while certainly an important tradition, is nowhere near the only one.
So I'd recommend this for the great illustrations, but don't bother reading the text.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review