From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5-Eighteen paintings have been carefully chosen to invite children to look up, down, outside, inside, close up, all around, etc. Questions and activities on each spread encourage intense viewing. For example, "Look Behind" features two paintings, The Scullery Maid and William Hogarth's The Graham Children. For the former, the author asks, "What do you think will happen next?" and for the latter, "How would their lives have been different?" Work from the Renaissance to the present day is represented, and subjects include trapeze artists, clowns, trains, animals, and children. The last section, "Look It Up," functions as an index, giving biographical information about the artists and where to view the paintings. Unfortunately, it does not include answers to the questions asked throughout the text, and some of them will not be entirely clear, even upon careful viewing. For example, for Eric Ravilious's Train Landscape, the author asks, "How can you tell that this is an old-fashioned train?" Many children won't be able to answer this without help. Overall, though, this book is a good introduction to different ways of looking at art.Robin L. Gibson, Perry County District Library, New Lexington, OHCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 2-5. Using headings that demand action--look up, look through, look again--this teaching book supplies children with interesting ways of approaching pictures. The paintings are well chosen though not always well known: Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie and van Gogh's self-portrait are here, but so are a few of Arcimboldo's vegetable portraits and Landseer's portrait of Queen Victoria's dog, Eos. Wolfe urges activities upon her audience to engage them with the pictures; for instance, turning a painting upside down or seeking out what's going on in the distance; occasionally this approach gets tiresome. Many of the suggested exercises involve getting children themselves to draw, sketch, or doodle, which may be a stretch for some. For other, less insistent, approaches to art, try James Mayhew's Katie and the Sunflowers (2002) or Bijou Le Tord's A Bird or Two: A Story about Matisse (1999). GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Look! Zoom in on Art FROM THE PUBLISHER
"LOOK! is a beautiful guide to looking at art, written especially for children. Acclaimed art educator Gillian Wolfe has selected 18 paintings from around the world and across art history to teach young art enthusiasts how to look - the most important skill in learning about art." Brilliant color reproductions allow children to look UP at flying trapeze artists and DOWN at clowns in the circus ring, THROUGH an archway to the background scene and BEHIND a posed group of children to see the cat staring at a pet bird. The book presents figural and abstract painting, portraits and landscapes revealing the keys to messages the artist has hidden in his or her work. The author suggests turning a picture upside down to see how the look of it changes and asks questions about how the artist makes things look like they are moving quickly. She makes Piet Mondrian's abstract work easy to understand by asking children to imagine a bird's-eye view of city blocks - and the hidden figures in Giuseppe Arcimboldo's vegetable paintings pop out under Wolfe's guiding eye.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Questions and instructions accompany 18 paintings, which span a range of styles and time periods in Look! Zoom in on Art! by Gillian Wolfe. "You are looking up in the tent, yet you seem to be looking down at the top figure. Why?" Wolfe asks, referring to John Steuart Curry's portrait of trapeze artists The Flying Codonas. Back matter contains more information about each work of art (all but one are by male artists).
School Library Journal
Gr 2-5-Eighteen paintings have been carefully chosen to invite children to look up, down, outside, inside, close up, all around, etc. Questions and activities on each spread encourage intense viewing. For example, "Look Behind" features two paintings, The Scullery Maid and William Hogarth's The Graham Children. For the former, the author asks, "What do you think will happen next?" and for the latter, "How would their lives have been different?" Work from the Renaissance to the present day is represented, and subjects include trapeze artists, clowns, trains, animals, and children. The last section, "Look It Up," functions as an index, giving biographical information about the artists and where to view the paintings. Unfortunately, it does not include answers to the questions asked throughout the text, and some of them will not be entirely clear, even upon careful viewing. For example, for Eric Ravilious's Train Landscape, the author asks, "How can you tell that this is an old-fashioned train?" Many children won't be able to answer this without help. Overall, though, this book is a good introduction to different ways of looking at art.-Robin L. Gibson, Perry County District Library, New Lexington, OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Wolfe, head of education at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, uses 18 paintings to hone observation skills and teach art history. Each double-page spread discusses one painting that appears in its entirety and also in one or more close-up details. The text offers information about the painting-its content, the artist, and his or her intention. Questions seek to engage the reader in a closer examination of each work. Some of the questions miss the mark, however, either by being too leading or irrelevant. About Georges Schreiber's Three Clowns in a Ring, Wolfe asks, "Do you think these clowns are clumsy, or are they really very skilled?" while for Frederick George Cotman's One of the Family, she refers to the grandmother slicing bread and asks, "How do you do it in your family?" Meanwhile, aspects of paintings that are sure to raise the curiosity of a young person are not commented upon, for example, the child named Thomas in William Hogarth's The Graham Children, who is wearing an elaborate dress. Similarly, suggestions for projects seem oddly inadequate for being put to actual use: the directions for making a flip book, for example, are too sketchy for someone who has never made one and redundant for anyone who has. There is plenty of interesting information here: for example, that the 19th-century animal portrait painter Sir Edwin Landseer dissected animals to improve his skill at painting them. However, material that undoubtedly works well in the give and take of a gallery talk does not necessarily translate well into book form. Brief biographies of each artist follow the body of the text. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Art & Photography
Book Info
