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Peinture orientaliste =: Orientalist painting
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April 30, 2023
Patrick and Viviane Berko should be credited with publishing the first systematic book on Orientalist painting as early as 1982, a year before Lynne Thornton “Painters Travelers”. Another credit is making it bilingual – it is written in English and French in parallel – quite important to those who are not good with French. The introduction to the topic is very short, but the book excels in its attempt to catalog many Orientalist painters. It organizes painters by countries of origin and offers separate sections for France (pp 20-68), Italy (pp 60-66), Spain and Portugal (67-73) Great Britain (74-81), Belgium (82-96), Netherlands (97-98), Denmark and Sweden (99-101) Switzerland, Germany, Austria (102-127), Hungary, Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia (128-130), Greece, Turkey (131-133), America (134-138). Each section starts with a list of artists from the region. For most of these artists, nothing by the name and dates are shown, yet collecting these names is probably the main contribution of the book. A small subset of these artists is reviewed in more detail. The selection is uneven – France and Belgium sections list many artists, while others are quite incomplete. This review is also uneven, some selected artists are represented by several color images (Gerome, Deutch, Ernst), some just by one BW image. For each selected artist it presents a brief biography. For paintings only title, size, and locations are shown. While the total number of reviewed artists is rather small, the book covers several artists (especially Belgians) that can’t be found in other books on Orientalism.
The book is printed on excellent thick paper and boasts 80 color plates and 40 black and white reproductions. The quality of most color images is very good, moreover, a good number of color paintings shown in the book are unique – I was not able to find it in other books. Yet, the fraction of BW paintings in the book is too high for an art book. Moreover, a good fraction of color reproductions are not quite “plates” since they are small. The book was an excellent value when it was one of the first books on the subject. Still, now, when the majority of painters covered in the book are much more extensively reviewed in the newer books -with both larger numbers and better-quality plates - the book is mostly obsolete and could be of interest only to the most devoted book collectors.
The book is printed on excellent thick paper and boasts 80 color plates and 40 black and white reproductions. The quality of most color images is very good, moreover, a good number of color paintings shown in the book are unique – I was not able to find it in other books. Yet, the fraction of BW paintings in the book is too high for an art book. Moreover, a good fraction of color reproductions are not quite “plates” since they are small. The book was an excellent value when it was one of the first books on the subject. Still, now, when the majority of painters covered in the book are much more extensively reviewed in the newer books -with both larger numbers and better-quality plates - the book is mostly obsolete and could be of interest only to the most devoted book collectors.
Displaying 1 of 1 review