Ciao, Carpaccio!

July 14, 2014
In this ebullient homage to the Venetian artist, Vittore Carpaccio (1460–1520)—today better known for the raw meat dish named for him than his early Renaissance narrative paintings—historian and travel writer Morris (Venice) compensates for her lack of scholarly knowledge and analysis by relying on her lifelong preoccupation with the artist. Though the book will not necessarily further reader understanding of Carpaccio, it provides a convincing picture of Morris’s devotion to her “friend.” “Mine is an eccentrically intimate relationship with Carpaccio,” Morris writes, “and there is one of his pictures in which I like to think he addresses me almost as an accomplice.” However, Morris is resolute in her determination to understand the artist through his paintings and make thematic connections among his oeuvre. Carpaccio has signature symbols that Morris deems the Carpaccio turban, the Carpaccio hat, the Carpaccio horse, among others. Her observations are driven by an aficionado’s intuition, and her sources are sparse, but her enthusiasm is unrivaled and the book will surely delight her many fans. 75 color illus. Agent: Caroline Dawnay, A.P. Watt (U.K.)

July 1, 2014
A tribute to a neglected Venetian painter.Talented writers are able to share their complete joy or fascination with their subjects and make readers love them as much as they do. Morris (Contact!: A Book of Encounters, 2010, etc.) is an undeniably talented writer, and she has loved the 15th-century Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio (1460-1520) for years, when many others ignored him. In this brief yet entertaining book, she introduces us to a man she has held in close affection. The author draws our attention to richly presented details in the midst of his uncomplicated work: Carpaccio's Dog, a fluffy, scruffy mutt; his turban, so exquisitely twirled around a red cap; and his buildings, rendered in the half-imagined style of a man who never traveled. However, Carpaccio compensated for his lack of exposure to various architectures, animals and peoples in his notebooks, in which he copied images of faces, figures and buildings from other artists, along the way developing his own purposeful symbolism. The excitement of finding a little bird in a shrub in the background of a painting sets Morris off to show us the power of Carpaccio's work, especially his paintings of the Ursula Cycle and the Jerome Cycle, still in situ in the Venice institutions that commissioned them. The simplicity of this book reflects the artist's easy, unforced style in both narrative and painting. The figures in Carpaccio's paintings are plain, straightforward folk set in scenes the viewer can easily relate to. The illustrations of the painter's works, shown both in their entirety and in sections, are edifying-if only the book were in a larger format.Nothing is quite as wonderful as reading about something the author so clearly, manifestly adores and wishes only to share her delight with us.

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