Cezanne: The Rock and Quarry Paintings

Cezanne is my passion. But I was sceptical about this exhibition. Rock and quarry paintings? Seemed a bit niche. Scraping the barrel of exhibition concepts? I was so wrong. The paintings in here include several I wasn't aware of, and the colour reproductions are mostly wonderfully clear and detailed . . . mostly. The paper quality is perfect and the pictures are printed in a subtle gloss that makes the colours pop. And what colours. The oranges of Bibemus quarry and the deep blues of Fontainbleu . . . I could go on. These pictures, taken in one collection, are almost too much for the eye to cope with. It's magnificent. It's . . . it's Cezanne. And the book? I have a lot of art books, including many exhibition catalogues, and this is about the most sumptuous I have seen. Real cloth binding, rip-resistant dust jacket design, and just quality, quality everywhere. And of course it's a book on Cezanne, the greatest painter ever. So we're off to a flyer. But . . . unfortunately this book continues the wearying tradition with exhibition catalogues of hiring a few ivory-tower academics to add the bits in between the pictures - the words - and seemingly not asking them to make the text broadly comprehensible to mere mortals. So that if you want to actually read the book as well as look at the pictures, it's a monumental struggle. Look, I'm an educated fella. I read a lot of books. I've written a few. Good writing is clear and easy to understand. If I need to read a sentence two or three times before being able to follow it, it's not a good sentence. I wonder who the text in these books is written for. Certainly not for the average art lover who would just like these pictures explained in simple words. Maybe the academics are writing for each other. Maybe they think we all have degrees in art history. Whatever. The point is that the pictures are stunning, the book is beautifully produced, but the text, while helpful in places, has too much of the usual scholarly wordiness that mars exhibition catalogues. It still gets 5 stars. But I wish they'd hire some writers who could write for people, and not for libraries.

Very surprising. Cause book was awesome

Maravilhoso! Worth every penny!

Good stuff but limited to his rocks and Forrest studies. Great study guide.

So often these days images in art books are disappointing. Weak, faded and questionable color is what I find more than I’d like. Not in this volume. Crisp, rich reproductions in faithful color is the case with this book. I’m very pleased and would recommend it.

Book is nicely done, however for the price of the book I feel it lacked enough large pictures. Most of them were small.