LOOK Really Smart Art

LOOK! Really Smart Art by Gillian Wolfe (Walker Books)
PB RRP $17.95
ISBN 9781847804143
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Gillian Wolfe, Director of Learning and Public Affairs at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and award- winning creator, has produced another amazing art book for children.

Look! Really Smart Art draws on the many inventive ways artists have to help people see things differently. There are 17 pictures used to show how each artist uses their own unique method to produce their effect.

It begins with the trick of 3D and its deep shadows that help to model something solid into looking real. Escher’s, Drawing Hands, are used as an example here.

When drawing speed and movement, artists take liberties. Looking at The Chariot Race by Alexander Von Wagner, you’ll question the reality of the horses’ hooves all up in the air at the same time. But how else can an artist portray the speed at which the horses are travelling?

 Music and poetry is combined with imagination, memory and dreams in Marc Chagall’s Birthday, to create a floating sensation. This is in total contrast to Jackson Pollock’s White Light, where ‘paint is the picture’.

The computer-generated art of Akiyoshi Kitaoka and Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book style in Blam stand apart from Salvador Dali’s double image in Paranoiac Face, and the extraordinary story pictures of Forever Always by Octavio Ocampo. The listed works are only half of what is to be discovered inside this exciting new book.

The ‘Look It Up’ section at the back depicts all the featured artists and their work with information on where each piece is held, plus a blurb for those interested in further research.