Pieter Bruegel the Elder: C. 1526/31-1569: Peasants, Fools, and Demons

This is from the newer set of books in this series ( Taschen Basic Art 2.0 to be precise) but the quality is still the same as with the original series - the production is slick with very good illustrations & reproductions which reproduce the colours well and dedicate a good portion of the book to the paintings.This book on Bruegel really does highlight some beautiful colour reproduction and has some lovely enlarged detailed sections of his work. It also feels really generous and contains 32 beautiful full page sized images with many of these actually being double-page images, which are really nice and not particularly impacted or taken away from by expanding across the central spine. There are then just 48 other images which vary mostly between half-page sizes and quarter page sizes, with far few of the smaller images which are often littered among the text in these books. This means the ratio of full sized images to smaller images is more equally balance din this book than many others in the series and I think this is perfect and works really well as more of the artwork feels like it's being showcased. The works are organised nicely and are of course broken up with text from the author.As always, the accompanying text can be a bit hit and miss with this series. In this instance I think the balance is just right with a lot less text than in some other books in the series and I think this fits better with the idea of this being a basic introduction where you can focus more on discovering the images and a brief introduction of the artist with the option of looking for a more text-heavy bio-esque book on the artist if that's what you're looking for. Bruegel is far from one of my most enjoyed artists but I like his use of colour and some of his similarities to Bosch in certain works (only less Hell infested and a lot less surreal!) so I didn't really know a great deal about him before having this book and these is certainly enough information from the author to offer an overview and some good insights and observations. This doesn't detract from the overall quality of the book in my opinion and the text is easy to ignore if that's not what you're looking for as images are definitely given the foreground in this book and the images are so captivating and command your attention nicely as you turn each page. The colours really do seem very well produced here and the fact that so many images are given double pages is brilliant and well considered.This is a review of the book rather than a review of the artist as chances are you already know who Bruegel is if you're looking at this and you most likely know what type of works he created and what to expect. As I said before, he is not one of my favourite artists but this is a really nice collection of some examples of his work and has been put together very well indeed - space given to the images, images grouped well and easy to flick through. I think any fan of the artist or someone just discovering his work will be happy with this book,95 pages in total with the final three pages dedicated to a brief history of Bruegel's life and works. I think at it's current price this is a very nice well-priced book and these make a really nice set if you're collecting them.As mentioned in my other reviews of this latest series, I started my collection of the Taschen 'Basic Art' series a while back with the original series in its hardback format, which were fairly large coffee-table style books. This is from the new Basic Art 2.0 series which was introduced for the series' 30th anniversary last year (2015). This is again the hardback version of the book but these books are approximately half the size now, but still a reasonable size measuring 26.4 x 21.6 x 1.3 cm and this is reflected with these hardback versions being considerably cheaper that the larger books released in the first series. Just be aware that any books in this newer series (with a release date of 2015 or later) will be one of the smaller books and not the larger ones from the original series unless specifically stated.

A good short read with decent reproductions. Well written and makes me want to get to a gallery.

Print, image and paper quality all good. Bought solely for the reproductions of his work. V happy.

This was bought as a gift. The recipient was delighted.

A lovely book with beautiful painting reproductions.