Portraits of Combat: The World War II Art of Jim Dietz

Artist James Dietz's work comes alive in this magnificently illustrated and highly anticipated volume, well timed to benefit from the growing wave of interest in the Second World War. Portraits of Combat boasts one hundred pieces of art, seventy-five of which are in full color. Each is a moment frozen in time, carefully chosen to depict the war's most compelling land, sea, and air actions. The presentation is chronological, beginning with the war in the Europe and branching out thereafter as the conflict assumed global proportions. Accompanying each reproduction is the companion text of Jay Broze, a veteran historical writer specializing in aviation and maritime subjects. Broze's word portraits compliment Dietz's efforts perfectly, describing the people and events depicted by Dietz's brushes and pens. These narrative text essays are both helpful and insightfully written. The mainstay of Portraits of Combat is its color reproductions, which indeed are stunning in their artistic quality. The black and white pencil sketches which often escort their more resplendent sisters through the pages of this lovely book, however, are in many ways just as bewitching. A certain grittiness of war lingers about them, something the color images often lack. Each black and white drawing comes with explanatory captions describing specific attributes of the drawing, such as the thought that went into each, and how the final color composition came to be. Each sketch, regardless of size, tells a story worth reading. Thus each mini-article and piece of art stands on its own--a rather remarkable achievement in and of itself. Portraits of Combat is one of only a handful of military art books greater than the sum of its component pieces.Rounding out Portraits of Combat are a preface by James Dietz, an introduction about the artist, a recommended reading list (which is rather gaunt), and an index. Even the end papers, which tell their own sad tale, evidence careful advance planning. There was a team of experts behind this production, and its shows from beginning to end.Almost certainly some students of World War II minutia will carp that "such and such" an event should have been depicted, or a particular button on a uniform is not correct. No rebuttal is necessary. The beauty and horror of war that leaps from the pages of Portraits of Combat will discredit such banalities.Theodore P. SavasBox 4527 El Dorado Hills, AC 95762