The World of Interiors

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All titles can be ordered for the prices indicated (plus £5.50

UK p&p) from the World of Interiors Bookshop on 0871 911 1747

books
Spanning thirteen centuries and stretching from Spain to
India come 116 objects held up for scrutiny. Certainly master-
pieces abound among the three titular components of INK SILK
& GOLD: ISLAMIC ART FROM THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON [ 1 ]
(ed. Laura Weinstein; MFA rrp £29.95 Wo I price £26.96). In a
15th-century Persian album folio depicting mandarin ducks
ink lines of different weights perfectly capture swirling water
downy necks and looping tail feathers. Elsewhere a silk-velvet
ikat robe worn by an Uzbek bride in the 1850s packs a scarlet
punch; while a mosque lamp globe twinkling with gold touch-
es survives miraculously from 1340s Syria. Throughout a crack
team of scholars flesh out the social and courtly contexts.
Many Modern-art books are stopped in their tracks by the
huge expense of the visuals. On top of time-consuming pic-
ture research there’s a hefty fee to the museum to reproduce the
original; then publishers must toss a big financial bone to the
artist’s rights-collecting agency... For its series of 20th-century
greats Laurence King has hit on the clever wheeze of deploying
sympathetic illustrators alongside reproductions of original
works. Turns out it’s not just a cost-cutting exercise either
but genuinely enhances the snappily written content. Adam
Simpson’s images are brilliant at communicating abstract ideas
in THIS IS KANDINSKY [ 2 ] (by Annabel Howard; rrp £9.95 Wo I
price £8.96) while Aude van Rhyn’s bring narrative verve and

• sneakily – pictures of famous works hung frame to frame to
  This is Monet two recent titles in this punchy ten-strong series.
  Lush with mother-of-pearl inlay gilded watercolours and
  intricate ivory carving SULTANS OF DECCAN INDIA 1500-1700:
  OPULENCE AND FANTASY [ 3 ] (by Navina Najat Haidar and Marika
  Sarder; Yale rrp £40 Wo I price £38) is a banquet for the eyes.
  Before succumbing to the Moguls Deccani patrons oversaw a
  lyrical painting style characterised by an audacious use of col-
  our. After page upon page of caparisoned elephants pink jas-
  mine crimson parrots and shimmering princes I felt like the
  rotund Nobleman at Repast in an Aurangabad watercolour of
  c1700 depicted gorging on betel nuts and lychees. Take it away!
  Whither the ‘I’ in EUROPEAN PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE
  1990 [ 4 ] (ed. Frits Gierstberg; Prestel rrp £40 Wo I price £36)? In
  the last 25 years as the internet has shrunk the world much
  work as the introduction has it expresses ‘the fear of losing...
  local cultures the small stories’. So Adam Pa ́nczuk’s Polish
  peasants (draped in straw clutching bread) comically hint at
  their unity with the landscape; Denis Darzacq’s long-befriend-
  ed mentally disabled subjects choose their own settings and
  poses bringing a warm agency to what might have been conde-
  scending; while Stratos Kalafatis’s pictures of monks at Mount
  Athos are paradoxical since they have opted to remove them-
  selves from the world. In this well-curated selection of 31 prac-
  titioners many come from neglected corners of the Continent.
  In GOTHIC FOR THE STEAM AGE: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY
  OF GEORGE GILBERT SCOTT [ 5 ] (Aurum rrp £30 Wo I price £27)
  Gavin Stamp reassesses this most prolific architect of the Vic-
  torian or perhaps any era. From Newfoundland to New Zealand
  his buildings bridged the empire. In England alone some 800
  structures – from asylums to universities – emanated from his
  office and he restored 18 of Britain’s 26 cathedrals and count-
  less churches. Though accorded a state funeral at West minster
  Abbey he was regarded as a vandal by Ruskin guilty of insensi-
  tive restoration and his arch-enemy William Morris referred
  to him as ‘that happily dead dog’. This long-overdue biography
  offers a reappraisal of a much-maligned figure. r

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