Art of the Skull

I love skulls of all sorts and hoped this book would be a good addition to my skull related collection but I found it sadly lacking. It felt like going shopping with someone who is randomly saying “Ooh, this one is neat!” whenever they spotted a skull, whether it was actually interesting or not. Very little to no information was offered about the assortment of chosen photos and I personally found the selections to be boring. I’m so sorry! I really hate dragging this book! Maybe it’s better for the light hearted skull lovers out there. It just wasn’t wide ranging or in-depth enough for me. Again, my apologies to the author!

Definitely a conversation piece when friends come by, cover catches the eye and they have to pick it up and flip thru it. I love skulls so this was a great choice for both the educational and the decor factor. Full of facts and great pictures.

good seller and good book full of interesting photos and how skulls are used in art

Another great book by Mary Emmerling. Such a wonderful collection and pictures. This hits on my collection and most interesting. Thanks again for another good Amazon experience. I can hardly wait for books to arrive.

Her books give us a view of the subject in context! This book gives us a glimpse of the skull in cultures of the southwest. It is one of my favorites.

Visual and beautiful,for the collector especially! Easy to read and intersting too! Great pictures with nice captions and a feel for what you need to know!

Bought as a gift

This book was too simplistic....not a lot of creativity went into this book. So many of the items depicted can be seen on eBay; not a lot of unusual pieces were shown.

I was excited about getting this book since I'm fascinated by skulls in art and mythology and their use in jewellery, memento mori et al. I'm afraid I thought the book a joke. What little text there is is badly written and is about the author's tastes and nothing else. No history or explanation of the pieces shown, no provenance of them. One page featuring 11 small photos of various pieces of jewellery just states simply: "Texture has been masterfully crafted into these gorgeous pieces of jewelry art". Nothing about their age, who made them, where they came from, materials - nothing. The quality of the printed text is very bad; the copy is pixellated and faint in places. Some of the larger photos have no info at all - not even a description of what they are or why they were included. I buy lots of books and this is by far the worst I have bought for a long time. I could have constructed a better book than this myself in a couple of hours using more inspiring/inspired photos gathered online (already on my hard drive) and text that's informative and interesting instead of what is, frankly, self-indulgent, inept padding. Needless to say it's going back as it's not worthy of being in my library.