I spent a large portion of my teenage life aspiring to be an artist, and I surrounded myself with art books. Hell, my screen name (which I’ve used since the mid-90s) comes from a French Neoclassical artist. For all that, however, I mostly only read the books for the pictures – not the text. So while I’ve memorized every line in some of Ingres’ sketches, or Michelangelo’s sculptures, I can give only quick outlines of Leonardo, or Michaelangelo, or Delacroix, or any number of other […]
In which I am outraged by a book’s audacity to be poorly written, edited, and titled
This book made me unreasonably angry, so here I am, entering the world of the Cannonball Read as an outraged reader. I really wanted to love this book, because it’s about something about which I know nothing. But I wasn’t able to learn much. The narrative is completely scattered, and there are an astonishing number of tangents that are distracting and irritating. I mean, total non-sequitors. An example, “The story [of a prank pulled by Filippo Brunelleschi], known as “The Tale of the Fat Carpenter,” […]