Jonathan Norton Leonard (1903–1975)

A Time-Life history of Japan from about 500 A.D. to near-modern times. It's not a place or period of particular interest to me, but the good folk at Time-Life do their usual fine job of making an erudite topic as interesting as possible. I think the most interesting tidbit here was that the reason that Kabuki theater actors are always men (which I knew), is that in 1629 actresses were banned from the stage when the government found that many were doubling off-stage as prostitutes, and using show more highly suggestive performances to promote themselves. show less

Within is a competent assured brief history if not too exciting one of the English painter Gainsborough and copies of his paintings. Strength and interest is gained by including the paintings and illustrations with commentaries about them of Hogarth and Reynold. One is given a nice picture of an age when English painting gained its spot on the world's stage.

(page 34 with painting opposite) “Much as Hogarth railed against classicized settings that had been used by Continental portraitists show more like Van Dyck, he himself placed the philanthropic Captain Coram before a huge marble pillar, with a conventional back round of draperies. The remainder of the portrait, however, is all Hogarth: the captain sits in his English scarlet coat, his ships in the distance, the globe at his feet. His solid features, firm mouth, broad brow and compassionate eyes reveal the purposeful, high-minded man whom Hogarth and his contemporaries held in high esteem.
Other Hogarth portraits reflect this same preoccupation with middle-class virtues.”

(page 57 with picture on opposite page) “while he was establishing his reputation as a first-class portraitist at Bath, Gainsborough painted his best known work, The Blue Boy, the most popular picture in English art.”

(page 124) “Far from abandoning portraits, Gainsborough actually produced more than 700 of them---'To make the pot boil' was his explanation. But for all his cynicism about portraiture, he worked tremendously hard at the art, sometimes taking more than a year on a canvas, This was hardly pot boiling.”

(page 171) “Reynolds' advice to art students not to follow Gainsborough was sound; Gainsborough was much too original and individual to serve as a model. In portraiture, at least, most of Britain's young painters would pursue the tradition established b Reynolds. In landscape painting, however, and in his sympathetic portrayal of the common people, Gainsborough's influence was great.” show less

A fairly good summary of the pre-Columbian civilizations in the Western hemisphere. However, if you want to discover the Incas and Aztecs, I suggest you read William Prescott's seminal works.

This series is a well-done Time-Life compendium of factual and illustrated material about various great ages of man, this volume covering ancient America (1000 B.C. to 1600). Too slim to be exhaustive, but the books are well-done and interesting,and the 1967 publishing date is not such a detriment to a history book.