Klaus H. CarlReseñas

What even was this tiny garbage book?! Klimt is one of my favourite artists, and while this book may pack quite a bit of his work into its small stature, I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so disappointed in a book about him. The small pages made it a challenge to really appreciate the intricate details of his work, though they did an admirable job highlighting some choice details with cutout sections in the layout, but what really drove me crazy was the text. Completely divorced from the accompanying images, it meanders through a half-assed chronology of Klimt’s life, touches on a few recurring themes, and dabbles at some provocative commentary without actually grounding us in any sort of real discovery of the artist before concluding in a cloud of non-information. The only positive that I can see in this book is that it does introduce the reader to a decently broad range of Klimt’s works - covering (if randomly) his portraits, architectural installations, landscapes, classical (early) work, and sketches. Unfortunately, this breadth without any meaningful paired dialogue makes for haphazard reading and a generally unpleasant experience… I don’t know that I would even buy this book for my collection, even though I tend to hoard everything related to artists I love, that’s how much I dislike this book!

This book is about the Paris Exhibition of 1925, but almost all of the illustrations are of art deco examples in general. (Some of these, such as a Chinese-themed Tiffany desk clock, are stunning, however.) This disconnect, and the sort of 'artsy' tone of the text, which manages to sound almost contemporary to the exhibition itself, make for an only intermittently satisfying read (and look). But they will have you searching the web for more pictures and explanation. Of course, how sad to think that the hope-driven exhibition, full of all this artistic expression in 1925, shortly after the end of World War I, was only a brief interlude in the march to the even greater horrors of Word War II.

A sophisticated and poetic buttocks-related work of art and philosophy.

“I know a girl who has a lovely mouth,
And lovely round cheeks...
And something else round as well,
That I never grow weary of gazing on”
—Göthe

beautiful and nicely printed

Hans-Jurgen Dopp has published a number of attractive and authoritative reviews which have an erotic intent, partly based, at least, on his own collection of drawings. All of these books have been issued by the high-quality Parkstone Press. In 2003 he issued a volume called 'In Praise of The Backside', celebrating the female form in a series of images and text. Interestingly, Dopp has now revised his work and has re-issued it in a 2010 volume (also from Parkstone) which has exactly the same title, but which is different in several key ways. The format is smaller and more convenient, and it has a square shape that is much thicker than the first attempt. The book we consider here contains substantially more images, a mix of classical paintings and erotic photography, all concentrating on the bauty and elegance of a female's rear parts. The text, as a form of necessary compensation, has been heavily abbreviated, almost into bullet points conveying essentially the same information as in the 2003 volume. I feel that the new version is undoubtedly better as a result. Its reduced size, if anything, enhances the impact of the images whose newly generous provision makes the collection much better than before. Dopp's enthusiasm for his subject is truly infectious,