This book is absolutely fantastic! The colours and illustrations are lively and exciting. David Wiesner never ceases to impress.Art & Max is the story of two lizard friends, Arthur, who is an experienced painter and artist and Max who is just learning to become an artist. The story explores Max’s first experience painting and experimenting with different colors as takes the reader on a color-filled adventure. The story really goes through the artistic media in which the book is illustrated in interesting and unexpected ways; from paint to pastel, from pastel to watercolor, and from watercolor to line drawings. The courage and passion Max demonstrates is encouraging in that though he is an inexperienced artist, he is full of bright and new ideas. This would be a great book to go along with a lesson on creativity and individualistic expression. Art, a horned lizard with an artist’s temperament, is doing a bit of portraiture in his desert environment when along bounces happy-go-lucky Max. Max wants to paint just like Art, and the grumpy elder agrees grudgingly, informing the little guy, “Just don’t get in the way.” When Max asks what he should paint, Art suggests himself. Unfortunately for him, Max takes this advice a little too literally and Max finds himself covered in oils, turned into pastels, and eventually nothing more than a mere outline of his former self. By the end, however, he has come around to Max’s exuberance and the two decide to paint. Max makes a portrait. Art throws paints at a cactus. The thing I forget about Mr. Wiesner is that he always has the child reader in mind. Sure, he may break down the fourth wall in The Three pigs, but he’s still having fun with the kids reading the book when he does so. That said, a friend of mine suggested that Art & Max are different from The Three Pigs in this way. She was concerned that Art & Max wasn’t kid-friendly enough. She said it deals with characters coming to terms with the fact that they themselves are drawn, but not in a way that kids would relate to. With that in mind I gave the book another reading and I have to say that I respectfully disagree. I think kids could get a lot out of this book, particularly if it was read in conjunction with fun art projects. Yet Wiesner isn’t treating this book like an art lesson. Certainly an art lesson can be garnered from what he’s done here, but not once does the word “watercolor” or “brush type” enter into the conversation. He lets the books speak for itself.
What do You think about Art Y Max (2011)?
I don't care how old you are--you should read anything and everything by Wiesner. While FLOTSAM and TUESDAY are my personal favorites, I like the experimenting with different kinds of art in ART & MAX. The way Max keeps trying to correct his original act of "painting" Arthur/Art escalates as Art gets rendered in different media. My favorite is when Art literally gets washed out from his watercolor phase and becomes a line drawing that unravels in Max's hand. Max is a comic kid who learns about art ("More detail, I think"), but Arthur changes even more and definitely gains a new vision of the world and learns artistic possibilities from the at first alarming, and finally enriching, experience. Sounds like the parental experience at times!
—Ahadley
I don't care how old you are--you should read anything and everything by Wiesner. While FLOTSAM and TUESDAY are my personal favorites, I like the experimenting with different kinds of art in ART & MAX. The way Max keeps trying to correct his original act of "painting" Arthur/Art escalates as Art gets rendered in different media. My favorite is when Art literally gets washed out from his watercolor phase and becomes a line drawing that unravels in Max's hand. Max is a comic kid who learns about art ("More detail, I think"), but Arthur changes even more and definitely gains a new vision of the world and learns artistic possibilities from the at first alarming, and finally enriching, experience. Sounds like the parental experience at times!
—Sasaaa
Surprisingly delightful. Very artistic.LOVE IT!
—rhods
