Botticelli: The Evocative Quality of Line (Basic Art)

This book has a satisfying amount of content but is compact and approachable. The text is scholarly yet readable and engaging and is accompanied by beautiful picture reproductions. I found this a thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable purchase. I will definitely explore other books in the same series.

fab book on a wonderful artist often overlooked as he was around with Michealangelo and Da Vinci

Great

At first, I thought his art was a little cartoony, but they certainly grew on me.One of the best.

Great for beginners it has useful information and great quality paintings without overwhelming you.

Aunque es caro el libro es un libro de muy buena calidad , tardo mucho en llegar pero dentro del plazo que me dieron

Everything about the book and delivery was amazing the pictures are detailed and look real

Even though Taschen's Basic Art books are only 96 pages long, most of them are very rich in content and in number of paintings included. The Botticelli 'episode' is not an exception in this respect. It is stuffed with his most significant paintings, including the four iconic ones that make him who he is and how he lives in the collective mind of humanity. That's right, the mythological paintings like 'Primavera', the 'Birth of Venus', 'Venus and Mars', and most of all, my all time favorite, 'Pallas and Centaur'. It is these four artworks that make him one of the most beloved renaissance artists of all time. But even when later in his life, under the influence of Savonarola, he became strictly christian and religious, even then he was able to produce marvelous pictures like the two famous Lamentations for instance. These mature works are the evidence that you can supress one's feelings or personality, but you cannot supress one's talent. It is always there, ready to manifest itself. Or, as Irving Stone put it in his brilliant novel,'there will be many popes and kings, but we will never have another Botticelli' (and how right he was). So, once again, this book is so rich in its content that I don't feel like getting another Botticelli book, because the way it was put together makes me completely satisfied. For me it provides a full picture of the artist's body of work. Five stars, now and forever...