Introducing Picasso: Painter, Sculptor

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-- Improved printing techniques make this book's full-color plates on coated paper almost ``too good.'' Clarity and accuracy in color reproduction invite viewing. But the printing process also tends to make surfaces look more alike than the originals are, and to deny the impact of scale. The large, monumental painting Guernica is shown in a picture smaller than that of a nonmonumental sculpture, The Goat . Yet, in sum, the 27 reproductions and over half a dozen black-and-white photographs of Picasso and friends are attractive and informative. The text, chopped into 13 thematic sections such as Early Life, Cubism, War, etc., is uneven. Mostly factual, presenting biographic bits specific to each theme (dates, influences, materials), Heslewood's text also incorporates such puzzling statements as, ``The paintings from the Blue and Rose periods tell about the things Picasso chose to paint.'' Don't all paintings do this? And she includes aesthetic judgments such as, ``Yet the women in these paintings are still beautiful.'' Captions also provide some information, while a two-page timeline helps readers to set some key events in Picasso's life in temporal order. It's unfortunate that there aren't more anecdotes to better allow the reproduced artifacts to stimulate youngsters' personal responses. --Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus