Dinotopia, A Land Apart ( released in 1992 ) is the first in a series of illustrated fantasy books by highly acclaimed artist James Gurney, whose work has earned him accolades like the Hugo, Chesley, Spectrum, and World Fantasy Awards and has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Delaware Art Museum.

Before writing and illustrating Dinotopia, James Gurney painted reconstructions of ancient civilizations for National Geographic magazine, and this work eventually inspired him to create fantasy worlds of his own. His solid background and foundation in traditional painting techniques as well as the accumulated knowledge of ancient civilizations and their architecture help inform the realistic, yet grand and epic scale of his fantasy worlds.

Looking at his work I am reminded as well of yet another great American artist Gregory Manchess, whose illustrated novel Above The Timberline evokes the same feeling of grand, sweeping adventure and spectacle.

This release of A Land Apart is the 20th anniversary edition.

(image above) This particular piece above ( which is also used as the cover art for this book ) showing a grand parade of humans and dinosaurs quickly caught my attention when I first saw in because it reminded me of the paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema ( see the two images below ), whose work I really like. See my review for his art book.

A Land Apart is but the first volume in James Gurney’s splendid series of illustrated Dinotopia art books, and I look forward to reading them all. The artist’s beautiful art work and his vividly dreamed up worlds are quite the spectacle to behold, and this gets my highest recommendations.

“Dinotopia, A Land Apart from Time: 20th Anniversary Edition” details :

Dimensions – 10.37 x 0.44 x 9.63 inches
Hard cover, 192 pages
Full color, English

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