Ursus Wehrli got there first with this wonderful idea but I was rather disappointed that there are only nineteen examples of his artistic tidiness and really less than ten are worth a second look. Seurat's 'Models' is the best example I think, the painting is on the left-hand page and opposite is a photo of a big plastic bag of colored chocolate buttons, just brilliant!
Mondrain, Klee, Picasso, Heering and Lichenstein all get fascinating tidy versions and the Van Gogh (see the book cover above) is another winner. I was though, expecting to see many more like the Van Gogh, that is keeping the basic painting and moving objects within it. Too many of the examples are just moving one or two items, like the three apples in Magritte's 'Young love', placed in a triangular shape in the original with Wehrli's version just having the apples in a straight line. Why are there no examples of tidy sculpture?
'Tidying up art' is a great idea and the book is well printed and designed but I wish there were lots more examples of Wehrli's creative fun. Maybe a second edition is on the way.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.