Travis Elborough

Siga los pasos de algunos de los artistas más famosos del mundo: algunas obras de arte realmente excepcionales han sido inspiradas por artistas lejos de su entorno habitual. * Desde interesantes viajes por mar y arduas caminatas por territorios remotos hasta rutas culturales y vacaciones veraniegas: 30 treinta influyentes viajes realizados por artistas célebres. * Se analizan y revelan las repercusiones que han tenido esos viajes en las vidas personales de los artistas y en el panorama cultural en general. Un atlas que constituye una especie de nomenclátor de viajes y lugares visitados por artistas de diversa índole y en diferentes etapas de sus vidas. El galardonado escritor Travis Elborough da vida a cada uno de estos viajes con fascinantes historias detrás de la creación de algunas de las obras más famosas del mundo, como las vívidas pinturas de Marruecos de Henri Matisse, los cuadros de piscinas de David Hockney, la influyente serie de grabados del monte Fuji de Katsushika Hokusai y las ilustraciones botánicas de Marianne North realizadas a lo largo de su estancia de un año en la India.… (plus d'informations)

Wikipedia style short chapters on select places, with B&w photographs, and maps. Interesting history from archaeological finds, noteably the Hittites, where texts in their own language were discovered, and had to be deciphered; and Xandau, Kahn's residence, including references to Coleridge and Marco Polo.
Rhakotis - original fishing village that became Alexandria.
Chan Chan (Peru AD 850), highly advanced irrigation, hailed by UNESCO as the first true engineering society in the New World.… (plus d'informations)

The Artist's Journey by Travis Elborough is a fun look at how travels, whether short or long (time and/or distance), influenced some of the greatest artists.

Just in case anyone else gets confused, I saw that one person did figure out it wasn't chronological or geographically ordered but was baffled as to how the book was organized, it is alphabetically ordered. Since these are all separate accounts about each artist, they are essentially a collection of essays, so, of course, can be read as such rather than a single narrative that has to be read in order. So utilize it as it best suits you.

The book is enjoyable and, since the artists will be mostly well known to anyone with an interest in art, it can serve to give you another perspective on their work. For any you aren't familiar with there is a short bibliography in the back that has several books listed for each artist. I'm not widely read in the area and I saw several I have read and enjoyed. And, of course, there is the internet with everything from dedicated sites to broad if sometimes not fully accurate Wikipedia entries. Don't limit yourself to the short entries on Wikipedia, they can mislead simply because they skip a lot of the nuance and detail in order to make it widely useable.

If one or several of your favorite artists are included, you may want to see if their travels might intersect with something you have planned. Also, if any of these journeys happen to cover ground you've traveled, or lived, it will be fun to see if anything rings a bell for you.

Because these entries are short but informative with a map and several pictures, I think this would make an excellent book to keep handy for those times you just want something short to enjoy without getting back into a longer work.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (plus d'informations)