Editorial Reviews

Book Description
This unique and intimate treasure of a book captures the sensual pleasure of an artist’s sketchbook as well as the genius behind Klimt’s vision of women.

Throughout his career, Gustav Klimt completed hundreds of paintings and drawings of delicate beauty, many of them featuring the female form. Designed to imitate an artist’s sketchbook, this exquisite volume culls the artist’s most beautiful erotic sketches and watercolors.

The experience of viewing it awakens the senses, while affording the reader the guilty pleasure of leafing through an artist’s most private visions. The stunning color reproductions, embossed cover and calf binding make this a perfect gift for lovers of art and for lovers everywhere.



Details
Hardcover: 63 pages
Publisher: Prestel Publishing; Bilingual edition (September 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 3791333968
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.76 ounces

Customer Reviews

Not worth the pretty binding and ribbons
Reviewer: B. Stockwell (San Francisco, California United States)
The presentation is great - I thought this would be a treat. Great binding, nice ribbon, and maybe this would make a good introduction to Klimt's erotic figure-work BUT . . .! There are only 56 drawings, most of them have been seen and reproduced in other books. An index gives specific information about the images but since the pages are unnumbered, good luck trying to match a drawing with its description.

The drawings are not in chronological order so you can't see Klimt's style change. The drawings are cut off and cropped sloppily and set on the page arbitrarily; some in the middle of the page, others shoved to the top or bottom for no particular reason. Actual image quality varies since the drawings are taken from a variety of sources; some look as if they were hastily run through Photoshop to clean them up. (But if you tell this was done, if you can SEE the digital manipulation, that doesn't say much, now does it?) Judging by the screen dots and other indicators some drawings show, a lot of these drawings were scanned from other books, run through a Photoshop-type of program to fill out the page - and not very diligently. I think the publishers were trying to be artistic. Or something. They've failed miserably.

Thames & Hudson did an Egon Schiele book a while ago that shows you CAN do this kind of thing well, at a great price and with tons of illustrations, not just 56. In April of 2006, they are going to release a Klimt book. Skip this feeble Prestel book and wait for the T&H book.

One last observation about the book at hand: the drawing on page 34 is badly placed at the bottom of the page . . . and is UPSIDE DOWN.