Love your channel, you've helped me add some real gems to my collection. Agree with your assessment completely. For a "Masterpieces of Fantasy Art" book, there's an extremely limited selection of artists - excessively limited. Not even some of the obvious mainstream names like Bruce Pennington, as you mentioned, and certainly scarcely anything beyond the anglosphere at all. I also found myself questioning the quality of the text; the paragraph on Rowena I think is meant to just highlight that the anglo-fantasy illustration industry has historically been male dominated, but manages to imply that there are almost no good female fantasy illustrators, which is a woeful thing to imply. Little things like that could have done with better wording. I found myself really disappointed with the book, but at least I'm glad I didn't drop £150 on the larger version to be disappointed. I've definitely got a number of genre illustration artbooks that collect a lot of different artists that are much more comprehensive (and cheaper) than this one. As a physical product, it's nicely made and feels luxury, but the actual contents feel extremely lacking. I suppose the book wasn't billed as a comprehensive look at genre illustration, but it really missed an opportunity there. I'm still ok with owning it, but it's not really going to be a book that I reach for over others. ...Especially with that annoying page flap!
I think there are many amazing female artists, they definitely could have included many more. When I saw the £150 copy, it was a bit of a disappointment (I think I read it in Selfridges where they had a promo copy on display) but it is ok at the smaller price, as well as size. I also have a number of books on a similar subject that I prefer and it definitely should have included Bruce Pennington, Patrick Woodroffe, etc Taschen books generally have a quality but this one was slightly lacking, it could have been so much more
@@AndrewBuckleBookReviews Agreed completely. One of the main draws of Taschen books, to me at least, is that they're huge chunky tomes that give you a good broad overview of a topic. You don't go to them for expert knowledge, but you do go to them for a big overarching idea of an area or a concept or an industry. Their 2004 book "Manga" was a great example of this, a huge book with over 100 different artists in giving a broad spread of the history of the medium in Japan. That's what I would have liked to have seen for this book. If it was going to be so limited as to only be American-published illustrators (published, specifically, obviously not all featured illustrators in the book are American at all), then I think it should have embraced that and really covered American fantasy art from the 40s or so until now, with 100 or so artists featured. This book being so narrow does it a disservice I think. It doesn't offer any value over seeking out artbooks for the small handful of artists featured, nor does it really give any real insight into the history or cultural contexts of any of it. Again, it's not awful by any stretch, but it's very... insubstantial (despite the page count!).
All very true points. I love those Taschen books, they are a great overview in most cases. Didn't get the Manga one, have about 30+ other Taschen books, if not more, and most are pretty impressive. They could have gone for masterpieces of American Fantasy Art ... then European etc and so on. And, I would have preferred a 100 or so artists, many of them probably will never get a book to themselves but at least you would find out something about them as well as some images of, then more to research later.
Yes, that would be great ! Yes, the current big volume is listed at £150 and there is also the £500 volume, a £30 Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta would be even better
Got this one some days ago, been waiting for an affordable version ever since the original big version was released. Yes, some choices are debatable, but Taschen always delivers quality, I love them.
That looks like a fine book on Fantastic art . I have seen the huge version reviewed ( which i would love to own, its on my to buy list ) This smaller version looks pretty good though .. Great book review !
thank you. The larger one is now out of print, it is fine but I prefer the smaller and easier to store. I have a number of huge taschen books, they fill up way too much of the house even if they are pretty amazing.
I agree but I have done the odd reckless thing with books, actually going through cleaning some of my books and comics, certainly that probably doesn't help them in the long run but they look a lot better afterwards
Many of the Taschen books have the text in English, French and German (it is the same with many art books in my collection as well, many have multiple languages such as Italian and Spanish or Polish etc but all the text in English is the same as the text in German and French (as much as possible)
I was pretty disappointed with this for what it is. On my copy many of the black and gold pages have bled a green outline of the image onto the page opposite; that page flap - while slick - feels like no one ever opened the book once during production and realised how annoying it is; and I know they couldn't have included every artist out there but no Larry Elmore is particularly baffling to me. Overall well printed but these oversights are a letdown.
Love your channel, you've helped me add some real gems to my collection.
Agree with your assessment completely. For a "Masterpieces of Fantasy Art" book, there's an extremely limited selection of artists - excessively limited. Not even some of the obvious mainstream names like Bruce Pennington, as you mentioned, and certainly scarcely anything beyond the anglosphere at all. I also found myself questioning the quality of the text; the paragraph on Rowena I think is meant to just highlight that the anglo-fantasy illustration industry has historically been male dominated, but manages to imply that there are almost no good female fantasy illustrators, which is a woeful thing to imply. Little things like that could have done with better wording.
I found myself really disappointed with the book, but at least I'm glad I didn't drop £150 on the larger version to be disappointed. I've definitely got a number of genre illustration artbooks that collect a lot of different artists that are much more comprehensive (and cheaper) than this one.
As a physical product, it's nicely made and feels luxury, but the actual contents feel extremely lacking. I suppose the book wasn't billed as a comprehensive look at genre illustration, but it really missed an opportunity there. I'm still ok with owning it, but it's not really going to be a book that I reach for over others.
...Especially with that annoying page flap!
I think there are many amazing female artists, they definitely could have included many more. When I saw the £150 copy, it was a bit of a disappointment (I think I read it in Selfridges where they had a promo copy on display) but it is ok at the smaller price, as well as size. I also have a number of books on a similar subject that I prefer and it definitely should have included Bruce Pennington, Patrick Woodroffe, etc
Taschen books generally have a quality but this one was slightly lacking, it could have been so much more
@@AndrewBuckleBookReviews Agreed completely. One of the main draws of Taschen books, to me at least, is that they're huge chunky tomes that give you a good broad overview of a topic. You don't go to them for expert knowledge, but you do go to them for a big overarching idea of an area or a concept or an industry. Their 2004 book "Manga" was a great example of this, a huge book with over 100 different artists in giving a broad spread of the history of the medium in Japan.
That's what I would have liked to have seen for this book. If it was going to be so limited as to only be American-published illustrators (published, specifically, obviously not all featured illustrators in the book are American at all), then I think it should have embraced that and really covered American fantasy art from the 40s or so until now, with 100 or so artists featured.
This book being so narrow does it a disservice I think. It doesn't offer any value over seeking out artbooks for the small handful of artists featured, nor does it really give any real insight into the history or cultural contexts of any of it. Again, it's not awful by any stretch, but it's very... insubstantial (despite the page count!).
All very true points. I love those Taschen books, they are a great overview in most cases. Didn't get the Manga one, have about 30+ other Taschen books, if not more, and most are pretty impressive.
They could have gone for masterpieces of American Fantasy Art ... then European etc and so on. And, I would have preferred a 100 or so artists, many of them probably will never get a book to themselves but at least you would find out something about them as well as some images of, then more to research later.
Bonjour je découvre juste votre chaîne et je m abonne 👍 merci de France 😊.
Merci !!
Hopefully they'll do the Frazetta book in this format as well!
Yes, that would be great ! Yes, the current big volume is listed at £150 and there is also the £500 volume, a £30 Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta would be even better
Looks like it's coming next month...
Got this one some days ago, been waiting for an affordable version ever since the original big version was released.
Yes, some choices are debatable, but Taschen always delivers quality, I love them.
Yes, most of Taschen books are excellent ... got many of their smaller (as well as a few of the large ones) books
I wish it had Barry Windsor-Smith also.
Especially the Barry Windsor-Smith Storyteller #1 issue.
Barry Windsor-Smith OPUS both #1.
Yes, that would have been great. I must admit, I would like a few more BWS mags / books in my collection, enjoyed his recent book, Monster
That looks like a fine book on Fantastic art . I have seen the huge version reviewed ( which i would love to own, its on my to buy list ) This smaller version looks pretty good though ..
Great book review !
thank you. The larger one is now out of print, it is fine but I prefer the smaller and easier to store. I have a number of huge taschen books, they fill up way too much of the house even if they are pretty amazing.
Got this one too, super nice and agree with that weird extra page, I just cut mine out, but I hate doing it. Same issue with their Haeckel book
Yes, perhaps I should do the same ... I really don't like doing that to books but sometimes, it just bugs
@@AndrewBuckleBookReviews yeah I tried to cut it precisely, but it was a questionable move in the heat of the moment, not sure I fully endorse it
I agree but I have done the odd reckless thing with books, actually going through cleaning some of my books and comics, certainly that probably doesn't help them in the long run but they look a lot better afterwards
you could easily just fold it in tho, it fits fine and doesnt get outside at all...
Hi, I'm interested in this book but what's this that it has text in French and German? I can only read English :P
Many of the Taschen books have the text in English, French and German (it is the same with many art books in my collection as well, many have multiple languages such as Italian and Spanish or Polish etc but all the text in English is the same as the text in German and French (as much as possible)
I was pretty disappointed with this for what it is. On my copy many of the black and gold pages have bled a green outline of the image onto the page opposite; that page flap - while slick - feels like no one ever opened the book once during production and realised how annoying it is; and I know they couldn't have included every artist out there but no Larry Elmore is particularly baffling to me. Overall well printed but these oversights are a letdown.