Chihuly Over Venice

This book is required for anyone who loves art. Beautifully photographed and bound, this work will bring pleasure to all who see it for many years to come. Chihuly is a genius!The only thing approaching a dark cloud over Chihuly and this book is the unfortunate presence of William Warmus, who fancies himself a writer. This is my first encounter with Warmus and it was a thoroughly unpleasant one. The 16 pages of useless, if not nonsensical, notebook entries from Warmus are in the beginning. They add nothing and the reader is advised not to waste time with them. Dana Self follows Warmus with a relatively short, but equally worthless, piece in which the nature of beauty is explored. (Has there EVER been any human on this planet who has not had a pretty good idea what is beautiful?) Anyway, though Self describes Chihuly's art as "wildly excessive," Self underlines what we already know - that "in experiencing beauty and pleasure, what we feel motivates our response." Was anything ever more obvious? Do yourself a favor and skip the Warmus and Self sections and go directly to the wonderful photographs, which show both the close-up detail and the distant view of each of the glass sculptures. For those new to Chihuly, there is a complete chronology of his life and work in the back of the book.

After seeing the PBS show and owning the video, the book was a must. It is printed on gorgeous paper and provides not only full color photos, but detailed text. The author takes the reader through each installation with sufficient detail, story and technical information. As a coffee-table art book, it sits on the top of my pile now, and has successfully recruited new art glass fans at my house!