Giorgio Morandi 1890-1964: Nothing Is More Abstract Than Reality

I happen to have loved this artist's work for a long time and have collected many books about him. Thia is an excellent treatise which makes me even more excited to visit the Phillips Collection in the Spring (2009) to see more of his work.

Having just seen Morandi's show at the Met and purchasing this book (and having seen quite a few other Morandi publications), I can say confidently that this is an excellent book in all respects. I'm not sure what Mitchell Johnson expects from an art book. All of the plates are large, focused, and as close to Morandi's color as can be achieved without gluing the paintings themselves onto the pages of the book. There are also some excellent close ups of several paintings which are fascinating. This is a top rate publication with excellent reproductions.

I feel I need to write this review partially as a response to the one offered above which praises the color plates. I have not seen the show at the Met yet, but I travel to Bologna frequently and I am very familiar with Morandi's work from viewing it in person. I own every book published on Morandi in the last 15 years. I have anticipated this book for months hoping that it would cover new territory and include unseen reproductions. I am extremely disappointed with the color plates in this book; they are flat, lifeless, inaccurate color separations. For all of the advancement in print technology and the for all of the effort that has gone into this new Morandi show, the organizers must be ashamed that they have not put their best foot forward to get a broader audience involved with Morandi's important work. Either of the books by Karen Wilkin will give you a superior experience and memory of Morandi's special paintings.

This is the catalogue for the current Morandi exhibition at the Met in NYC. It basically follows a strict chronology after two introductory essays, one attempting a reassessment of the artist's oeuvre in the light of the many studies that have been carried out in recent years and of his influence on contemporary art (no longer limited to abstraction)and the other dwelling on the visual sources that inspired the painter (Cézanne obviously, but also the Douanier Rousseau, Corot, Chardin to name but a few). These two essays are particularly interesting in that they provide in-depth information on the technique and working process of the artist and also on the somewhat paradoxical recognition of Morandi as a great master in the 1950's, at a time when abstraction was the dominant trend.

The book is then divided into five distinct periods, first displaying wonderful commented illustrations of the works pertaining to each period, and then followed by various essays (on the debatable influence of Piero della Francesca, on Morandi's etchings, on the critical reception and the market in Europe and the Americas, on debunking the myth of a reclused closed-off artist, on Morandi's famous saying that "nothing is more abstract than reality"). The book ends with a short text by Umberto Eco describing his discovery of Morandi's art, followed by transcripts of interviews of the artist.

This is probably the best artbook I have ordered this year (and I have ordered many!). The text is riveting, the illustrations (more than a hundred still-lifes and a dozen landscapes, all in full color) could not be better and some close-ups even give you the impression of holding the actual painting in your own hands (when I go through my library of some 800 artbooks, I have to disagree with the other reviewer of this book: the illustrations are outstanding).

Highly recommended.