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Loading... Walton Ford: Pancha Tantraby Bill Buford
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Walton Ford is one of a few contemporary artists that I like. His work is daringly different in how it embraces painting as a beautiful medium and how it at once recalls 19th century artists (notably Audubon) and speaks to modern problems. At first glance Ford's paintings look like scientific renderings of exotic animals but the closer and longer you look you begin to see that his images are all allegories for today's societal problems and moral dilemmas. This volume was really well produced with great reproductions of the paintings and with lots of details blown up. ( ) no reviews | add a review
At first glance, Walton Ford's large-scale, highly-detailed watercolors of animals recall the prints of 19th-century illustrators John James Audubon and Edward Lear. A closer look reveals a complex anthropomorphic universe, full of symbols, sly jokes, and allusions to the 'operatic' nature of traditional natural history. In this stunning but sinister visual world, beasts and birds are not mere aesthetic objects but rather dynamic actors in allegorical struggles: a wild turkey crushes a small parrot in its claw; a troupe of monkeys wreak havoc on a formal dinner table; an American buffalo is surrounded by bloodied white wolves. In dazzling watercolor, the images come to impress as much for their impeccable naturalism as they do for their complex narratives. This updated edition of Pancha Tantra features the artist's most recent works and contextualizes his collection of bestial tableaux with an in-depth exploration of his oeuvre, a complete biography, and excerpts from his textual inspirations: Vietnamese folktales and the letters of Benjamin Franklin, the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, and Audubon's Ornithological Biography. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)704The arts Modified subdivisions of the arts Special topics in fine and decorative artsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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