Acquired Book By: I started hosting blog tours with The Write Reads in 2020 and prior to hosting with Dave (who runs the tours and has built an incredible community of the socially bookish behind it) I was following their feeds via Twitter. I took an unexpected hiatus from hosting their tours until this Summer, 2024 wherein I reconnected with Dave and started to get back into the tours as they were available to join. This marks my first blog tour with The Write Reads this year and I hope it will be the first of many yet to come before the year closes, too. I love finding new Independent publishers as much as I love finding new niches of fiction and Non-Fiction alike in which to absorb a story or style of narrative I haven’t yet come across and through hosting for The Write Reads I am finding my journey of discovery is regularly heightened to travel into new spheres of where story can take us all.
I received a complimentary copy of “The Vanitas” from the publisher Neem Tree Press in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
Art and Art History have been mutual passions and interests of mine for quite a long time throughout my life. I used to study art as a child and as I grew into an adult, art started to fall by the wayside. It never lost its glow of joy in me but the hours I could devout to learning it and cultivating my own style within the mediums of interest waned a bit and that was one reason I developed my passion for photography a bit faster than (traditional) formats of art. One day I’d love to re-explore art in tangible mediums of joy but for now, photography makes me happy.
On this note, I have been curious about understanding the different styles of Classical Art and what drew the classical artists to create their styles of art in general. I studied a bit of this in school but being it was high school and not college, I can’t say they went into a lot of depth of detail about any of it but just scratched the surface of it for the casual reader. What drew me into wanting to read this book was the creative way Kendall approached writing it and how he encouraged all of us to peer back into History and seek out a better understanding of both art and the inspiration behind the art itself.
I love learning new things but with art, what is dynamic about the learning curve is how it is interpreted and understood by the eye of the beholder looking at the art directly. Art changes perspective and understanding each time one of us glimpses it and thereby, art itself expands and contacts its own unique version of itself continuously per each new person who awakens a keen interest to pursue it.
This marks my first journey into reading selections of interest by Neem Tree Press – as they are a new publisher for me to read and discover, too. It is a lovely segue this end of Summer to read something outside my regular choices within literature and to dive into a topical exploration of something I had a marked interest in seeking out when I was younger. It is lovely how those interests and passions can come back to us lateron and when we’re not expecting them to re-arrive in our lives, too.
Brew yourself a cuppa and enjoy reading my thoughts on this lovely collection of stories.
The Vanitas
Subtitle: And Other Tales of Art and Obsession
by Jake Kendall
Source: Publisher via The Write Reads
Spanning three hundred years of art history, The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession tells the stories of those with an insatiable hunger for creation – those who may sacrifice friendships, careers, romance, and even their own happiness in pursuit of a vision.
Weaving art styles such as Cubism, Surrealism, and the Baroque into his prose, Jake Kendall has crafted a vivid and inventive collection. Each story is complemented by a black and white illustration, drawing out the visually evocative nature of the writing and offering readers a unique artistic delight.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781911107019
on 24th September, 2024
Format: Paperback Edition
Pages: 272
Published by: Neem Tree Press | Follow via Insta (@neemtreepress)
an imprint of Unbound Publishing
Available Formats: Paperback and Ebook
Converse via: #ArtHistory, #ArtHistoryFiction, #JakeKendall
as well as #TheWriteReads & #TheVanitas
