Van Gogh (Mini art series)

If you are looking for an all-around good book about Van Gogh, this is it! Out of all the art books I have in general, this is one of the better ones. There are 256 pages and 120 full page colour reproductions of paintings and a few drawings. The format is rather unique. There are no chapters, no long boring run-on passages attempting to paint pictures with words about the artist's life and times. Instead, on each page one full-sized painting is presented, followed by a one page essay relating to the painting and some biographical information about the artist around the time it was painted. The book progresses in chronological order from his earliest works to his last work, with 120 individual little essays, one for each of the paintings. It's a very refreshing change from the usual art books, which babble on and on with so many pages of text, interupted only by inconsistant pictures of all different sizes, and many in black and white. It is nice to see an art book which has an approximately EQUAL proportion of pictures to text, too, because after all, it is an ART book. As they say, 'A picture is worth a thousand words', and there's no shortage of them here.