British Baroque: Power and Illusion

Beautiful illustrated book

I wanted to see this exhibition last year, thank goodness for the book .

Acabo de recibir el libro encargado, en un principio llegaba el 27 de Abril , pero como la atencion de uds. es EXCELENTE , lo recibi ahora a las 15, 20 pm. de Santiago de Chile .- Congratulations.FELIPE GAZMURI

If you want a shotgun sweep of the Brits and Baroque yes go ahead you wont be let down it has all the innate things you could want, but really page after page after page of the most mundane and poorly executed full page clear color portraits of aristocratic bozos.....really?But when you get to the real Baroque which normally means outstanding innovations in interiors, frescos, and grander themes the book misses the target by about the distance from England to Rome.So yes the Brits spent a lot of time on gravity so that was within their skill set, but to create a Baroque book and have the most boring portraits in clear full page large color and have the real Baroque art as very very very small photos, that are out of focus and almost all in total darkness I means yes its a silly attempt at a joke with the understated British humor but why waste it on a one of kind book.They do give Wren (great great but still a copycat) and the gardens good coverage so as I said it is a shotgun sweep of all areas, but to downplay all the walls and ceilings like they are some condescending chapter when most Baroque books treat that area with some higher level of respect as the true innovations of the period is fairly sad.Very little sculpture (more heads and aristocrats) so maybe I am being unfair, maybe Britain just did not have the internal gifted genius to really pull off the Baroque so they did the best they could with whatever swap meet artists they could find on the street corners and that is probably the truth of it.From the most generic high level as a " generic smorgasbord history book" it is a success but as a "Baroque art book", sadly it is a total fail, a total fail, it is amazing they are not embarrassed.The only good art photo it has is just the cover, had they spent more time with details of the interiors as they did on the cover it could have been a really great book, the art was not there , the interest and photography wasn't either.If you truly believe the genius of the Baroque is best represented by pages of very goofy portraits then this is your book, but I guess Henry is to blame he was the one who put the screws on Art in England.Better to paint and be a sinner in Baroque Rome than to spank yourself for liking art in Britain, thank god they at least got Turner and Blake eventually, so what did they do with all that tax money, just build ships?And...no I am not a Catholic or an art snob,...... well anyway...."Off with my head"...oh geez it missed the basket....sorry!!!