A great book with great art from Bo Bartlett. I'm happy to have it.Bartlett's all too precious scenes of the fair haired privileged reek of insecurity and a deep seated need to impress upon the public that he is of a higher rank than unwashed masses. His shaky, sniveling superiority is an embarrassment to the viewer when one thinks of the lengths he went to to portray his subjects possessing the casual, vacant-eyed superiority of models in a Ralph Lauren print ad. When he is not portraying saccharine vignettes of the children and adults of the idle rich, (perhaps in an attempt to enthrall his prospective buyers that they too can languish among his fortunate subjects by buying a painting), he is trying to use shock value in an attempt to making a liberal elite's political statement ( see "Damascus"). He is a skilled draftsman and can certainly master the skills of light and shade, but his paintings are soulless and empty-headed. There are so many more talented, prolific artists of our time, particularly in the Maine area from which he hails (part time), it's wise to skip his flashy, exorbitant canvases and invest in something with more depth and heart. Even the book is a ridiculous waste of money.As photo based work and satire take center stage in the art world, we ask ourselves what lies deeper beyond a perfectly rendered picture. If you are looking for inspiration from a painter who goes deeper and respects the viewer's intelligence, buy this book.Through essays and interviews, Bo Bartlett lets us in to understand what lies beneath the formalities. His inspirations draw from dreams, psychology, philosophy, literature and history. Immediately one sees the influences of Eakins, Kent, Balthus, and Wyeth...those artists studied during his years of academy training. But open your eyes further and you see symbolism, allegory, nods to American history told through psychological narratives. Prior to Bartlett's training in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy he grew up in the south, where small town living inspired story telling and memories of the civil war still surround you like it was yesterday. Carrying on the tradition of Carson McCullers, Zora Neale Hurston and the more contemporary Barbara Kingsolver, Bartlett weaves together his gift for story telling through skilled painting.He is an American painter who at once is inventive yet respectful of his predecessors with every painting nodding to the continuum of art history.Formally, no one paints flesh like Bartlett. There is a living quality to the rosy complexion as he paints innocence and at the same turn pallor over a subject who perhaps has taken the wrong steps in life. And their stories unfold through the unspoken gaze of their eyes.Anyone who was fortunate enough to see Bartlett's traveling retrospective has witnessed these qualities first hand. This book, which served as the exhibition catalogue, offers a condensed version of Bartlett's transcendent realism. This book is a rare find. You will enjoy it for years.Bo Bartlett is a modern day artist working within the modern realm of life - but painting in a style all his own. It may look familiar - but he is an artist interested in WHAT he says in his paintings, not HOW he says it - much like Wyeth, Hopper, Whistler, Chase or Alexander. Bartlett's paintings speak volumes by speaking quietly and simply. They are of the middle class - not 'high society' - like what majority of the 19th century focused on (besides Corbet, David, Ingres, Blake and a few others). His paintings are large, very large, but that is what is so great about them. Having seen numerous of his works in person, they become another world for you to enter and understand. There is no hidden, secret, 'only if you are into the arts will you understand' meanings, and yet they are allegorical enough to provide multiple viewpoints on why what is being presented in the painting is presented in the manner it is. He is an artist for the 'everyman', the general public - the type of artist that helps the art world by making it more accessible and less threatening - like the hacks in the 1960's who were more obsessed with HOW then WHAT. He is one of the best in America and this book is a great start to becoming familiar with his work.Bo Bartlett's paintings contain a narrative quality that haunts, enchants, challenges and delights the viewer. It is apparent that, like his mentor Andrew Wyeth, he paints people he knows, for the emotion he feels for his subjects is awash in his marvelous brush strokes. The full gamut of those strokes are on display in this gem of a book. The critics who think they have a corner on taste merely expose their own lack of courage. Bo Barlett has conviction and he puts it out there. Bravo!The book is filled with pretentious paintings of an artist trying to be so much more than he is. The fact that he typically paints even the simplist theme in gigantic size points out his overriding hubrus.Bo Bartlett has technique..there is no argument there, but he simply has nothing to say...so he says it as loud as possible so no one will notice the lack of content.The business of art is the business of selling objects d'art with little intrinsic value for huge prices to a rich, idle and foolish aristocracy. It has been this way for three centuries.Jackson Pollack, a semi-retarded alcoholic championed by a desolute upper class,brought this cynical game to its ridiculous peak in the mid twentieth century when we saw silly rich people gather in hushed awe to view and buy the most blatent trash and hang it on their walls with pride.Pollack thought them all idiots and was right.The post modern art world has retreated from this insanity but we still have artists such as Bo Bartlett practicing this silly game whose main purpose is to seperate the idle rich from some of their cash by means of hubris and pretense.This book is a propaganda piece in this corrupt enterprise.