A Short Walk Around the Pyramids & Through the World of Art

April 4, 1994
Exuding a sincere appreciation for the emotional impact of art, Isaacson's vividly eclectic tour from the pyramids to a magically photographed New York City forms an outstanding introduction to the rewards of looking at art. More than 70 beautifully presented examples acquaint readers with painting, sculpture, crafts, industrial design, photography and city planning--from Elgin Marble fragments to a Shaker village in Maine, from a Jackson Pollack drip painting to a Peruvian poncho. Simple but eloquent descriptions touch on color, form and the power of art to communicate across both centuries and cultures. The graceful layout allows ample opportunity for reflection stimulated by Isaacson's gentle observations on the links between a West African tribal funerary figure and a Jacques Lipchitz bronze, or on the sinuous harmony of a Karmann Ghia automobile photographed in front of the Guggenheim Museum. ``Art will make our hearts leap,'' he writes, and proves it on every page. Ages 8-12.

September 15, 1993
Gr. 5-8. Using the term "art" in its broadest sense, Isaacson explores how concrete elements such as color and form function in the abstract to help us appreciate a piece of artwork. Using intriguing samples of photography, sculpture, architecture, and painting, as well as forms children do not readily associate with art (the MR chair designed by Meis van der Rohe, a village in Nepal, a 150-year-old fence at Laval University in Quebec, Canada), he turns the world into a grand museum. He shows us how art is linked to our emotions, our culture, our spirituality, and our daily life and challenges us to find its rhythm and harmony even in the soaring skylines of big cities. Isaacson occasionally tries too hard to shape our responses, but his brief perspectives are sufficiently exciting to reshape our view of what constitutes art and to make us see it, and our surroundings, in new, different ways. The numerals found in the running text have the dual function of denoting the picture under discussion and serving as a key to appended information. Unfortunately, their large size is sometimes distracting. ((Reviewed Sept. 15, 1993))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1993, American Library Association.)