This volume, which accompanies an exhibition in Chemnitz, Germany, contains new versions of Bob Dylan's pencil and charcoal sketches originally published in a book called Drawn Blank
; here they are reproduced along with color versions, digitally transferred to fine art paper and reworked in watercolor and gouache. In Drawn Blank
, Dylan described his drawings as an effort to “refocus a restless mind,” a statement that captures the atmosphere of the drawings,. They seem to be the work of a man who sees many new cities, hotel rooms and other people's houses. Color, however, brings very little to them, despite the inflated claims for their high artistic value made by the four contributing essayists. Jens Rosteck, a Dylan biographer, places him among a group of “multi-talents” who range from Goethe to Jean Cocteau, but the comparisons run up against the indifferent quality of most of the 170 color reproductions. While Dylan's interior studies can be intriguing and psychologically fraught, his portraits and nudes seldom come off as more than earnest imitations of the Expressionist works he admires. Such judgments, however, may be beside the point for the “Dylanologists,” as Rosteck describes them, to whom the book will appeal. (Feb.)
