Sunday, February 28, 2010

On The Shelves - "The Landscapes" by Richard Schmid


Let me start by saying just this.......This is an AMAZING book! Other publishers should look at this book when they layout all other art books. Not only does this book weigh in at a whopping 11x14 in size, it's also 268 pages with full size images on almost every page, front and back.
I'm so sick of having to buy 5-6 books on one artist to get even a decent amount of his/her paintings in my book collection. I keep having to buy larger bookshelves, and I'm running out of room! With most of these books, not only will you get half of the images in black & white and thumbnail size, a large portion of these are writing. Now, I'm all for reading a good book, but when I buy an art book, I expect there to be nice full page color images. "The Landscapes" does not disappoint!
The soft cover will run you $75, and expect to pay $150 for the HC. Trust me when I say the book is worth every penny!

Here are some images from the book:


3 comments:

  1. I have read from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Landscapes-Richard-Schmid/dp/B0032MJC0C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280721249&sr=8-2
    that the book have problems:
    "Many of the images had the contrast so bumped that details in the darks were lost. I know this because I could compare some of them to the same paintings in his previous books. Also, the images were not as sharp as the smaller ones in these other books I have. ... Almost all of the images had a pronounced darkness to them and to add insult to injury the color was off as well."
    Is that true? (e.g. comparing it to 'Alla Prima') Thanks a lot

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  2. Hey James- It's unfortunate that there is only one review, which happens to be poor, for the book on Amazon. Trust me when I say, this book is a highlight in my collection. I own "Alla Prima" as well, there may be some small contradictions from book to book in some of the paintings, but you're going to get that with any book. If you're a fan of Schmid's work, you'll love the book! Hope this helps.

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  3. Thank you Locas. I will buy the book.

    I totally agree with you that art books should have large image size with least text. Text is often written by gallery historians. The art of musics never have history texts attached to them while art of paintings have to be hung on gallery where historians have to be busy to make a living, not because the art really needs text.

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