The Ultimate 3-D Pop-Up Art Book

Here is a crash course in some easily identified aspects of pictorial art. Although some bits of it do pop up, the meat of the book is in the flat as it leads us through technique and style, 'real' and illusory painting, light, colour and movement, composition and narrative and abstract pictures. The compilers have been highly selective (who would not be?) in their choice of the '60 great masterpieces' through which we are invited to 'discover art'; they include some thoroughly familiar sampling as well as a delightful element of surprise --- eg a D-I-Y Calder-style mobile whose assembly exposes the full intricacy of Tinguely's 'Gismo'. This collection is too full of fugitive parts for library use and perhaps too wacky for readers who always know when they last saw their father (one of the featured paintings), but there is plenty for active households to enjoy discovering. Art Departments might find it (if the concept is not too deadening) useful.