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bunnieslikediamonds's review
4.0
I'm not particularly interested in surrealism, but I love Leonora Carrington's paintings. This is a nice catalogue of her works with some biographical facts and a bit of analysis on her art. Colorful life: a staunch feminist, she rejected her British stiff-upper-lip roots, took off to Paris and painted her ass off while banging Max Ernst. After the war there was a stint in a mental institution, before she ended up in Mexico. The book doesn't go deep, but I did enjoy these fun facts about her: her idea of a practical joke was cutting off her over-night guests' hair in their sleep and putting it into their breakfast omelets. Fun! She liked cooking elaborate food, such as hare stuffed with oysters. Awesome! Here's her mesmerizing self-portrait:
olivianw's review
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
A really substantial intro to one of my favourite artists. With gorgeous reproductions of her artwork on lovely big glossy pages.
thecommonswings's review
5.0
Two of my current projects deal with houses, in a way, and particularly with houses as unsafe and mysterious places, riddled with mysteries and strange happenings behind locked doors. In essence, I’m trying to replicate something of the experience of seeing Carrington’s images in prose without leaning too heavily on her own writing: and the illustrated project tries to capture something of her magic without copying it. Which, I assure you, is really sodding hard especially when you’re being inspired by almost literally the best
Ardath’s writing occasionally falls into overheated academic nonsense, but it becomes more and more apparent as you read on that this is because Carrington’s art is hard to explain or do justice to in simple terms. Ardath is incredibly astute and has some really fascinating insights into images I know very well and it feels like the best kind of art criticism - knowledgeable, witty, thoughtful, intelligent and very enthusiastic. Although Carrington’s art can seem forbiddingly obtuse and tricky to connect with at first, Ardath manages to locate a universality in it for everyone to see how extraordinary this artist and writer really was. A glorious book
Ardath’s writing occasionally falls into overheated academic nonsense, but it becomes more and more apparent as you read on that this is because Carrington’s art is hard to explain or do justice to in simple terms. Ardath is incredibly astute and has some really fascinating insights into images I know very well and it feels like the best kind of art criticism - knowledgeable, witty, thoughtful, intelligent and very enthusiastic. Although Carrington’s art can seem forbiddingly obtuse and tricky to connect with at first, Ardath manages to locate a universality in it for everyone to see how extraordinary this artist and writer really was. A glorious book
sarahsponda's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Nice combo of biography and criticism/analysis with lots of FULL COLOR PLATES.
callum_mclaughlin's review
4.0
As someone who loves Carrington's artwork and wanted to know more about her as a person, this book was ideal. Alongside high-quality images of many of her pieces, there's a great amount of text detailing Carrington's fascinating life. Getting this extra context whilst marvelling at her work was exactly what I wanted. I'm now all the more excited to try some of her writing, and to continue to explore her art.
I would say, the book tells us itself that Carrington was notoriously private, giving few details about her personal life and never wanting to reveal what her art was 'about', so as to preserve an element of mystique and the ability for viewers to form their own meaning (which I really admire). This means that the book does contain a fair amount of conjecture, particularly where the motivation or meaning behind specifically discussed pieces of her work are concerned. In that respect, it's not so much a dot-to-dot style biography and catalogue of work, and more an analysis and discussion, complete therefore with a small but nonetheless present personal touch (the author wrote her dissertation on Carrington, so she's clearly a fan). This isn't necessarily a bad thing (it means there are some interesting opinions and points of thought put forth that add another layer of depth), I just think it's worth knowing where non-fiction is concerned, in case a complete lack of bias is important to you.
I would say, the book tells us itself that Carrington was notoriously private, giving few details about her personal life and never wanting to reveal what her art was 'about', so as to preserve an element of mystique and the ability for viewers to form their own meaning (which I really admire). This means that the book does contain a fair amount of conjecture, particularly where the motivation or meaning behind specifically discussed pieces of her work are concerned. In that respect, it's not so much a dot-to-dot style biography and catalogue of work, and more an analysis and discussion, complete therefore with a small but nonetheless present personal touch (the author wrote her dissertation on Carrington, so she's clearly a fan). This isn't necessarily a bad thing (it means there are some interesting opinions and points of thought put forth that add another layer of depth), I just think it's worth knowing where non-fiction is concerned, in case a complete lack of bias is important to you.
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