Sympathetic bio-critical study of the French painter once savaged for his radical style. The most intriguing thing about Matisse was his bourgeois life, which included law school, a family (with kids), and—after some years of searing poverty—mounds of money: Hardly the background one expects of a man who, for a time, was perceived as Picasso's equal in the creation of modern art and was portrayed as an artistic terrorist or pervert by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. But, as art historian Herrera (Frida, 1983, etc.) points out, Matisse did indeed shock with his early canvases, especially in 1905, when he invented Fauvism, with its garish tints and barbaric strokes. Matisse enjoyed the limelight until Picasso left him in the dust by developing cubism, whose geometric forms were so unlike Matisse's color-oriented canvases. For the next three or four decades, Matisse led a successful artist's life, devising a simplified, decorator's style ``radiant with Mediterranean sunlight.'' His paintings were also steeped with eroticism; Matisse liked to put one hand on his nude model's knee as he painted with the other. In his last years, a burst of creativity with colored- paper cut-outs led to new accolades and did nothing to hurt his reputation as a feel-good artist (a description Matisse wouldn't have minded, since he believed that his paintings could cure disease). As Herrera explains, Matisse's family and friends continue to keep his private life under wraps. This leads to a study thick with surface details (many of the paintings are closely described) but too shallow to encompass the inner currents. (Twenty-eight color, 80 b&w illustrations—not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-15-158183-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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