Fantasy Worlds (French Edition)
by John Maizels
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Book Summary Information
Author: John MaizelsEditor: TASCHEN
Photographer: Deidi Von Schaewen
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); German (Original Language); French (Original Language); French (Published)
Published: 2007-07-01
ISBN: 3822832197
Number of pages: 236
Publisher: Taschen
Book Reviews of Fantasy Worlds (French Edition)
Book Review: Gorgeous art book a nice visual introduction to the work of outsider artists & builders
Summary: 5 Stars
First, because Taschen often releases its books in a variety of formats, some basics on the copy I'm reviewing - this is a large-format hardcover (9 1/4" x 12 3/4") with a hot pink binding and a large white "25" in interlaced design on the cover to mark Taschen's 25th anniversary as a publisher. It is dated 2007; all of the text is in English, French and German.
The book is essentially a visual introduction to the "fantasy worlds" of a variety of (mostly) self-taught "outsider artists" around the world, with anywhere from 2-8 pages each devoted to large and generally excellently shot photographs from 62 total sites in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. It doesn't pretend to be "complete" (impossible) or even comprehensive (difficult at best), so the lack of sites from Australia or South America, or certain other famous pieces in the parts of the world that are covered shouldn't be seen as a problem. The brief introduction sets the tone, linking the work theoretically to that of the French artist and writer Jean Dubuffet and the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, among others in the last century, and tracing a little bit the history of such white elephant works as King Ludwig's Bavarian castles of the mid-19th century, which may have helped to set the stage for some of the more grandiose geniuses represented here.
A great many of the works seem to fall into the religiously-inspired category; others are clearly made by utopianists; still others seem to have no specific spiritual or social intentions - or at least, none that were revealed by the artists themselves. More than half of the environments were created in either the United States or France - such dominance might reflect the authors' chauvanism I suppose, but it could also be a sign of the dominance of the two countries' attitudes towards Democracy and freedom of expression, coupled with a certain yearning for a better future (whether in Heaven or on Earth) that might perhaps be more prevalent in these places than in certain other, older, more stolid cultures. The book doesn't really give answers to these questions, though in the case of France it's clear that the French attitude towards the preservation of art has something to do with it as well.
Everybody will have their own favorites here; mine include the works from my home state, Wisconsin, home to an unusually high number of such oddities. Among those represented here are the crazy science fiction-metalwork "Forevertron" and the wonderful Catholic grotto in Dickeyville, a sister of sorts to an larger and more fabulous Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa. The Georgian artist Howard Finster is represented by his famous Paradise Garden; the Watts Tower in Los Angeles is one of the few big-city pieces portrayed. I also love La Scarzuola, a Utopian arts complex in Italy that never got finished (many of these wonderful places are the visions of single individuals who spent whole lifetimes on them), and the weird mix of medieval European and Asian feudal influences on the castles of Le jardin de nous deux in France. But really, I'd love to visit every single place in the book someday.
Hours and hours of delight, then, for the architecture or art-lover. As I said, it's really more a visual introduction to the subject than anything else; some of the individual fantasy worlds have entire books devoted to them, and the text can't hope to provide any kind of detailed understanding as to what drove most of these artists, or the contexts of their works. There is a fairly long bibliography, though alas it's just a listing, and doesn't give any information as to the contents of the dozens of books and journals listed. But don't let these minor caveats deter you from getting this fabulous book.
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