The Saturday Morning Post (No. 189)

 

This week we have something different. Once again we can blame it on YouTube. This time it wasn't a booktude video, but a video about art. No doubt it was served up to me because I watch all the Peter Beard videos on illustrators. In any event, I had to order this book, used, from Britain, but even with $21 shipping, it was affordable, and proved well worth it.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Landscapes Under the Luggage Rack  Great Paintings of Britain by Greg Norden  A

I came across these paintings on a YouTube video series "When Trains Were Traveling Art Galleries" which I think was based on this book, as reading this book I had a definite sense of deja vu. The presenters might have been reading out of this book, and well may've been involved with its production as well. This book seemed right up my alley, art-wise, as I am a great fan of landscape/travel poster art from the 30's into the 50's. These painting, commissioned by the various railroad companies needed to be long an narrow in order to fit above the seat and under the luggage rack in compartments, or above the seats in pullman cars. In this case most of them are water color paintings rather than the flatter and brighter gouache paint used for the larger and brighter-colored travel posters. They were painted by some of the most recognized water color artists of Britain.

Kelso  by S R Badmin

The book has something like 200 paintings, all in color on nearly 200 pages. Some of the paintings are displayed in double page spreads like the one above, while many other pages have smaller. but multiple paintings like the page below. Each painting has a description of the scene and its connection to the railroad that commissioned it.

The book talks about how these paintings evolved from earlier photographs to illustrate the places the train company hoped to lure tourist to. Paintings allowed the artist to do a little artistic editing to make the scene a little prettier, as opposed to photographs. And they were in color as well. It profiles three of these artists, and includes the work of many other artists as well. It tells how these artist were recruited, and assigned to paint scenes, with travel and lodging supplied by the railroad as a perk, in addition to being paid for the art. It also talks a lot about the railroads and the places painted, with their connection to the railroad. Stuff for the true train enthusiast. I came for the art, and was very pleasantly surprised at just how well produced the paintings were, and just how many of them there are. I was buying this more or less blind, so it was a gamble that paid off handsomely.

Whitby Yorkshire, by Rowland Hilder

As for the art itself, I love landscapes, and I love Britain, so I really enjoyed discovering these paintings, and enjoying them on paper for as long as I want instead of briefly on a computer screen. Not all of them I liked, of course, but seeing what can be done with water color paints is pretty awe-inspiring, and humbling, says an old water color painter.