From Publishers Weekly
This palm-sized point-of-purchase book, featuring an assortment of color and black-and-white photographs of the ruins of the ancient city of Angkor and Angkor Wat, its stunning temple, feels something like a handheld tourist slideshow, courtesy of a slightly better picture-taker than most. Lacking a real narrative thread (the only text is in the brief introduction) or a particular photographic sensibility, the pictures-closeups of bas relief figures, portraits of natives, panoramic shots of temple and sky-express a genuine but rather vague romance for the ruins of far away places. Grandjean seems to love the details and shapes of Angkor Wat, the twisting trees and crumbling, intricate stonework, but he fails to find much that is undocumented there, and thus falls back on a generic soft focus sensibility (literal focus is clear and sharp) to capture it. The final product is polished and concise, but ultimately fits snugly into what feels like a larger New Age tourist economy.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside Flap Copy
The great temple complex of Angkor Wat, the architectural gem of the Khmer dynasty, was built between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It rises 200 feet from the Cambodian jungle floor like a gigantic mandala, its walls adorned throughout with scenes from the Hindu epic Ramayana and legends of the god Vishnu and his incarnation, Krishna, as well as with Buddhist imagery. Jean-Pierre Grandjean?s miniature photo essay conveys the atmosphere of the temple complex in all its ruined beauty, with special attention to its art and architecture.
