$45 and Over
The Sistine Chapel. Text by Roberto Salvini, Ettore Camesasca and C.L Ragghianti. Vol. 1, 307 pages; Vol. 11, unpaged. Abrams. $275. When Michelangelo reluctantly began painting the ceiling in 1508, he still thought of himself primarily as a sculptor. He worked for years, mostly standing on the 62ft. high scaffolding rather than lying on his back, as hoary legend has it, and was interrupted by cramps, colds and periodic skirmishes with his testy patron, Pope Julius 11. When he finished in 1512, he was justly famous as "the divine Michelangelo." Ever since, writers have gossiped about, art historians studied, painters stolen from, and crowds journeyed to Rome to stare in wonder at the most massive and majestic blend of worldly splendor and Christian message that the Renaissance produced. Even though these two volumes cost almost exactly as much as youth fare flight to Rome, plus five days in a modest pensione, they provide more information—as well as more lasting, detailed and dramatic visions of the Sistine Chapel —than any tourist visit.
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Complete text reproduced micro-graphically. 4,1 16 pages. Oxford, 2 vols. With magnifying glass, $75. The complete O.E.D. took more than 70 years to prepare and runs to 13 volumes because it gives sample quotations, going back farther than William the Conqueror, showing how words have changed color through the ages. Before becoming a game, Badminton served variously as the name of an English country estate and a cooling drink. As late as 1848, "snoop" meant "to appropriate or consume dainties in a clandestine manner." The word doom was a synonym for statute until legal proceedings and human nature changed its meaning. Even though the microprinting can be read only with the accompanying magnifying glass, which makes for hard browsing, the whole O.E.D. in two volumes is the etymological buy of a decade.
Edward Hopper by Lloyd Goodrich. 306 pages. Abrams. $50. Lloyd Goodrich is an accepted authority on Edward Hopper, but his prose, a mass of uninformative fatuity, confines itself to such perceptions as "One of the outstanding characteristics of Hopper's art was his unwavering consistency." The reproductions are embarrassingly over glossy. Still this is the first book to present all Hopper's work in a large format, and that at least is a service to the memory of a spare, quiet and lucid painter of the American scene.
The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya by Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson. Reynal and William Morrow. $50. There was room for just one more book on Goya and this is it —the first complete edition of his works. From the pastoral sweetness in the early tapestry designs to devouring melancholy in the Black Paintings, Goya's creations record one of the broadest, most intricate and energetic imaginations in art history. Gassier and Wilson are indispensable guides, as they take up every known painting, fresco, drawing and print by Goya and link the whole with a biographical narrative. The plates, though small, are clear; the book completely justifies its price.