Series / 所属系列: |
| Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents
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Overview / 简介: |
| This wide-ranging and informative series introduces children to the world's greatest artists. "A great way to prepare children for the pleasure of a museum visit."—Booklist |
From Organization / 国外机构评价: |
| Grade 2-4 A bizarre juxtaposition of cartoons and sly jokes with reproductions of the intense chromatic portraits and landscapes of the mentally-tortured painter ends in a tasteless mix. In an attempt to be lighthearted, Venezia seems to be laughing at van Gogh's unhappiness. The famous Bedroom at Arles is presented as "pretty neat" because his friend Gauguin complained that van Gogh was messy. The Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear "looks like he wished he hadn't done it," and, soon after painting a "scary" Wheatfield with Crows, "van Gogh shot himself. He died two days later." The use of cartoon-like "asides" works in Robert Quackenbush's brief biographies for this age group, but it isn't effective in introducing art. Perhaps it is the incongruity of great paintings and slapstick drawings that jars, but more likely it is that Venezia reduces passion to petulance and explains genius as a matter of bright colors and thick paint. The book has some good reproductions which can be used to introduce young children to van Gogh's paintings, but the text is neither fun nor funny. Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, N.J. |
Foreign Customer Review / 国外客户评价: |
| Rating: four stars.
Well, we should not have been surprised that Vincent Van Gogh presents a challenge to Mike Venezia, because the tragic life of this particular artist does not especially lend itself to the cartoons that Venezia includes in his Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series. On the one hand we are talking about one of the most famous artists of all time, whose paintings now sell for millions and millions of dollars. But on the other hand we have a man who suffered severe emotional problems, cut off his ear, and ended up committing suicide. To be fair, Van Gogh was the epitome of the starving artist, and while none of the cartoons in the book goes too far, the one on the back of Venezia's self-portrait with a paper-cut is over the line given that this is a book for children.
The strength of the book is that Venezia does one of his best jobs of explaining the unique style of the artist with his look at Van Gogh. It is ironic that in a book where the subject presents such problems, Venezia provides ten cartoons in the book, which might be the most I have seen in any of his volumes to date (there are 22 paintings and drawings by Van Gogh). Certainly the cartoons do not reflect the tone of the text, which deals with Van Gogh's problems in a straight-forward manner. But given the fate of the artist, it is hard to find them totally appropriate. Again, to be fair, this is Venezia's format and we could not expect him to abandon it and perhaps he was trying to provide a counterbalance to Van Gogh's self-destructive impulses. Certainly parents should check this one out and make a judgment for their own children, and teachers should do the same thing for their students. A good alternative text, although written for a slightly older audience, is "What Makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh" put out by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
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