Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell: The Ultimate Collection

Beautiful Book

I purchased this book along with Luis Royo's "Subversive Beauty" and I was more impressed by the former. Not because their artwork is better (I sort of find Royo's work more intricate) but rather in terms of substance. The book is kind of a "best of" anthology detailing both Boris' and Julie's artwork over the course of three decades. Julie Bell however, has only been painting for about half that time. The book is divided into three periods: early, middle and late. In each, paintings from each period by both artists are presented on high quality glossy paper. Julie's paintings no doubt date more recently since her art career started much later than Boris'. They're married, by the way. Some of the paintings are a bit small but most fill a page.

I'm not an art student myself but I do enjoy looking at fantasy art, especially featuring voluptuous amazonian women (most of theirs are like this). It's sometimes hard to differentiate between the styles of Boris and Julie but if there's a metallic element to it, chances are it's Julie's. The book features a short write up at the beginning of each section that provides some insight into what inspired our artists at the time. No matter what your background, you'll probably find something there you can relate to. The women in the paintings are sometimes topless but not quite in a pornographic way. There's hardly any nudity below the belt. I don't know why (Boris and Julie equally, it seems) tend to feature such women - and sometimes men - except that they claim to admire perfection of the human body.

The book also features a fourth chapter on some of their photographic work which is for them rather a cyclic means to an end between their pictures and paintings. They appear to say that each inspires the other i.e. photographs help them create realistic landscapes in their fantasy worlds and fantasy paintings help them look at things in the real world as if on a different dimension (e.g. really close-up shots of insects make them look like alien warriors). Among my favourite pieces are "The Prize" (1999 by Julie Bell) and "Euridice" (1991 by Boris Vallejo). I certainly found some of their other paintings and photographs more alluring but these two kind of "spoke to me". The book is generally light material. I finished reading it and admiring the artwork in about an hour. I would recommend this book if you're a fan of fantasy art or of Boris and Julie themselves.