Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum
illustrated by Andrew Joyner
Random House, 2019. 77 pages.
Starred Review
Review written September 13, 2019, from a library book.
This fascinating picture book look at Art is based on manuscript notes and sketches found in Dr. Seuss’s files. I haven’t been completely impressed with some of the other things dug out of his collections after his death – but this book is a delightful way to get kids thinking about Art.
Here’s how the book begins:
ART.
What’s it all about?This is what ART is about…
ART is when an artist looks at something…
… like a horse, for instance…
… and they see something in that horse that excites them…
so they do something about it.
They tell you about it…
… in any one of a number of ways.Artists have been excited by horses for as long as there have been artists. But what an artist tells us about horses and how they tell us is different for every artist.
What an artist sees in a horse depends on many different things – their background, likes and dislikes, you name it.
So come with me…
Let’s look at how different artists have seen horses. Maybe we can find some new ways of looking at them ourselves?
The pages that follow incorporate 35 different pieces of art that include horses. They talk about what the artist may have seen in a horse to express it that way. The book goes through different time periods and styles of art as well – all looking at horses.
The result is brilliant – lots and lots of artwork, all expressing horses, and all looking completely different.
There is extensive back matter, with more information about each piece of art and details about Dr. Seuss and his relationship with art (He was self-taught.) and the manuscript and sketches for this book and how they went from there to completion.
Future artists should read this book.
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