"To draw everything is good, to draw everything is better still," declared Adolph Menzel, one of nineteenth-century Berlin's premier artists. In keeping with his motto, Menzel exhibited tremendous powers of observation, technical perfection, and an interest in a wide range of subjects. This volume contains 98 black-and-white images and 32 color plates of his works, many of which have rarely been seen outside of Germany. The first major naturalistic artist of his era, Menzel came of age in a country still in the grip of Goethe's romanticism. In addition to founding Germany's realistic school, the artist laid the groundwork for the development of Expressionism. His skillfully rendered illustrations faithfully re-create details of anatomy, costume, and composition. This volume's drawings and paintings were selected by Dinotopia author James Gurney, who also provides an informative Introduction. Serious students of fine art as well as those with a more casual interest will rejoice in this original compilation of extraordinary images by an unjustly overlooked artist.
'Drawings and Paintings' by Adolph Menzel is a collection of the artists works from 19th century Germany. There are 98 black and white images and 32 color plates.
The book begins with three essays about Adolph Menzel, his studio, and notes about the drawings at a museum in Berlin. Menzel was always drawing. He also caught many of his sketches in more natural poses, sometimes while the subject was unaware. He seemed to be a bit of an eccentric. Subjects invited to his studio had to enter by a back entrance. The studio itself had art hung on the walls which Menzel referenced. Models waiting on the stairs would inscribe their names on the wall. The art included in the book varies from completed work to sketches and ideas. His style seems to have been ahead of its time.
I appreciated getting to view this book. I wasn't familiar with this artist and many of the works in this book haven't been seen outside of Germany. I liked the essays and the selection of art.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest reivew. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
I'm really amazed that I had never heard of Adolph Menzel before requesting this book from Netgalley. His work has almost all of the characteristics that attract me the most in art – clear-eyed realism, compelling subject matter, and a gift for portraying that subject matter in a non-stereotypical manner. He's almost the artist I would have liked to be. I loved this collection.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
This is a great selection of drawings of the most amazing German artist. Work looking if you are interested to know, how accurate can you get, often with just a pencil.
**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own and not influenced by my source.**
First, as stated on the cover, this book contains many pictures of drawings and paintings by Adolph Menzel, which I round r really good and interesting. this book is perfect for fans of drawings and painting of Adolph Menzel but also for curious people who want to discover more about this artist. Secondly, at the beginning of the book there is a few pages of informations about Adolph Menzels (his story, his works, his personality, his techniques, etc). I found these pages, although very informative, kind of long to read, I even jumped some passages. Un short, this book is really great for people interested in arts and painters but can get boring for people who are not really interested in those things.
It's been a real pleasure to read this book that treats a great artist so little known nowadays. Actually the text is occupying only about 20 pages of the book, tells us about the artist's social and professional life and about how this, partly unpublished material was collected. As a bonus, it is James Gurney to present us Menzel giving an unusual insight to the artist's life, Instead of a dry, boring biography this kind of introduction is very interesting and entertaining, it contains also some funny but also shocking notes. Gurney who himself is an excellent artist and teacher (I own some of his instructional books,). knows what kind of information is the most valuable to art students, so he underlines the eager will of Menzel to draw literally everything, including dead people, sleeping people but even a man on the toilet The drawings that fill the book are really beautiful, I enjoyed especially the portraits, made with a loose but very powerful technique. .