How Artists See: Feelings: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Love by Colleen Carroll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
‘How Artists See Feelings’ covers a series of artworks separated under the headings of: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Love. Under each heading, Carroll presents a simple spread of the artwork on one side and a little piece of text on the other, which tells us about the piece and asks us a few questions about it.
It’s a lovely little book, part of a bigger series called ‘How Artists See…’ and covers a range of work ranging from ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch through to ‘The Kiss’ by Constantin Brâncuși and ‘Lemon and his wife’s ghost’ by Shunbaisai Hokuei. I welcome Carroll’s choice of artworks and welcome her selections.
My main issue (and sadness) with this book is that it feels very dated now. The front cover is not the best and just throughout, it feels very much of its time. I’d really welcome a new edition along the same principles as Carroll’s text is genuinely engaging, vibrant and friendly. She has a great skill of creating a dialogue with the reader, asking them to engage in the artwork asking them to “Try [to] imagine yourself in this situation. What sounds do you hear?” and to think about “How does the heaviness of the metal help show her feelings?” I really love her stylistics here and it’s probably because of this, that I think this book still has a place in todays dialogue around art. Don’t look past it! It’s worth picking up.
Daisy May Johnson 
Hello! Colleen Carroll here, the author of How Artists See Feelings. Thanks for your lovely review. I hear what you’re saying about the book feeling dated. It was published in 2001, so it does have the patina of age. Good news! Second editions of four titles in the series, Animals, Families, Work, and Play have recently dropped. They are basically new books with a wonderful selection of diverse artworks and revised text for those images from the first editions that made the cut. I hope you will take a look at the new series and agree that they are not only visually comtemporary, but timely in content. Thanks again!
I’m so glad to hear that you’ve got a new series! Congraulations! I’ll certainly keep my eyes out for them 🙂