Look! Really Smart Art

Gr 2—5—In this fifth volume of the series, Wolfe discusses techniques that artists use to make viewers "see things differently." It's an intriguing premise that falls slightly short in its execution. A spread introduces each artistic concept with large, full-color art reproductions and a creative use of fonts to emphasize important ideas. Wolfe provides an excellent overview of clever techniques meant to fool the eye, such as perspective and vanishing point. Less clearly tied to the book's theme are sections about depicting things that don't physically exist, such as dreams or mythical creatures. The narrative is accompanied by brief, fairly standard suggestions for projects based on the techniques discussed, like creating a drawing from small dots to imitate George Seurat's pointillism technique, and a useful appendix that includes brief biographical information about the featured artists. Wolfe writes from a Western perspective, assuming that her audience comes from one as well as she notes, "In China, dragons are colorful, friendly….Yet we think of the poor old dragon as terrifying." Also of concern, in her discussion of techniques used to depict movement in Alexander von Wagner's The Chariot Race, Wolfe explicitly states that horses cannot have all four legs off the ground at one time, a fallacy famously disproven in 1878 by photographer Eadweard Muybridge. An additional purchase for libraries with a generous budget.—Allison Tran, Mission Viejo Library, CA