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THE MAGIC IMAGE by Cecil Beaton and Gail Buckland. 304 pages. Little, Brown. $19.95. This is that rarest of items: a photography book in which words are more important than pictures. Authors Beaton, noted stage designer and photographer, and Buckland nave attempted nothing less ambitious than a full history of photography and its practitioners from 1839 to the present. Beaton's introduction is elegant and concise, as are the biographical sketches of more than 200 photographers. Inevitably, gaps and biases appear. Salon and experimental artists receive favored treatment, while the works of such realists as Matthew Brady, Jacob Riis and Walker Evans are hastily passed by. Even so, the book is painless instruction and inspired anthology.
LIFE GOES TO THE MOVIES. 304 pages. TIME-LIFE Books. $19.95. "This book," reads the candid introduction, "is about a magazine's love affair with an industry." It was not unrequited. LIFE's crisp pictorial layouts, its salty reportage and limitless palette made it the studios' favorite. The proof is on view in the pages of this opulent valentine: sections on "The Stars" ("More than there are in heaven" boasted MGM), "The Buildup," "The Movies," "The Studios" and "Behind the Scenes"; pictures of every player from Charlie Chaplin to Dustin Hoffman; stories of scandals, sex and scenarios. Between the book's oversized covers are enough memorabilia to turn the most indifferent Late Show viewer into an instant nostalgia buff—and bring the whole of Hollywood's fabulous past to LIFE.
$15 AND UNDER
KING RENÉ'S BOOK OF LOVE. Introduction and commentaries by F. Unterkircher. Braziller. $15. During the waning of the Middle Ages, these illuminated manuscripts lighted lives. The medieval characters are allegorical: the Knight Cueur confronts the enemies of Love—Denial, Shame and Fear—in his search for the Lady Sweet Grace. He finds his lady—only to lose her again, and end his days in prayer and remembrance. The story, Cueur d'Amours Espris, was written in 1457; the gold-trimmed illustrations were executed a decade later—possibly by the King himself. An informative commentary precedes each folio, describing its place in the story. That part of the knight's adventures not illustrated is told in the introduction, along with the historical background of René, the royal poet. And artist?
A NEEDLEPOINT GALLERY OF PATTERNS FROM THE PAST by Phyllis Kluger. 191 pages. Knopf. $15. No mere woolgathering, the craft of needlepoint combines a meditative activity with the hard-core work ethic. Time is casually suspended stitch by stitch, but in the end something palpable gets done. Phyllis Kluger's stitches in time span nearly 5,000 years—from the arts of ancient Egypt and Byzantium to Renaissance Europe and early America. All are shown in full-color photos as well as instructional graph patterns. Kluger's historical commentary and analysis of her motifs provide an enriching dimension. One of the best needlepoint books of this or any other year.