Susan Hodge’s Artistic Places, blends the love of art with the love of travel exploration. Each chapter focuses on a specific location that inspired a famous artwork, the story behind it and the artist who created it. Hodge also brings us a little slice of travel heaven: a brief history of the region, tidbits about the culture, people, food, travel tips and regional events.

When I first heard about this book I was excited to read it. As an artist with a degree in art history, this shot to my must read top of the list.

From Monet’s inspiration of the lily pond of Giverny, France, to Picasso’s anguished depiction of the Guernica bombing in Spain, to Hokusai’s Mount Fuji In Japan, Hodge provides just enough information to tease your curiosity to travel and learn more. The book also covers locations I never would have thought to visit but now I’m itching to discover.

Art history lovers and artist will read this cover to cover. Travelers may keep this on the shelf as a referral for places they’d like to explore that are based upon paintings yet provide a much richer look into the local culture.

The book is lovingly illustrated by Amy Grimes. I will say I was a bit disappointed to see that the art pieces were not depicted in the book. It would have been nice to compare the piece to the description of the location. So I was left to search out the painting online and any information about the area. It turned out this was the better option as it allowed me to learn much more about the artist, art piece and location. Maybe that’s because I was an art history major so I enjoy that research. However, It still would have been more convenient to at least have the art piece represented to better understand it when the author describes the piece.

Luminous locations!

A stunning collection of paintings in various locations around the world. Artists include Kahlo (Coyoacan), Katsushika Hokusai (Mount Fuji) Canaletto (Venice) Matisse (Tangier)—a veritable smorgasbord of wonderfully creative and visionary practitioners and some of their fav places.
I loved the places depicted, the stunning colors (for some I felt like pinks permeated the collection. Ok others shades of colors shine as well but my brain seemed to fixate on this)
I wasn’t that sold on the layout. I wonder how it really works in hard copy due to the size 6” x 8.6”. This is about the size of my iPad which doesn't do the chosen works full justice. I want them to 'sing' on the pages. Still if you were carrying this around as a guide (when travel is an option) the size makes sense.
The combinations of artists and places depicted--a winner makes!

A Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Bit disappointed with this book. I expected the original art work that is reference to be shown but actually we are just given art by one artist throughout. Felt a bit misleading and it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be .

Graphically very appealing. The colour palette is very bright and joyful..
This is a list of places beloved by great artists such as Monet, Magritte, Klee, Michelangelo.. Of each place there are beautiful illustrations and some historical infos.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

This is a very pretty book, with a lot of information. However, it falls short in one key aspect; I find it a little strange that you would make a book on artistic places, but not include any of the artists own works or even pictures of those places. What's the point?

Artistic Places is another beautiful volume in the Inspired Traveler’s Guide series. This one takes us to places inspired by art and artists. Each location is attributed to a work of art or artist that was inspired by the location. Details are given as to sites to see, such as the cafe or pond in the painting, or the artists museum at the location, just like a travel guide. Beautiful illustrations by Amy Grimes accompany each location-sometimes her rendering of the artwork itself, or the location.

This was a beautiful book to make plans for future travel with. The majority of locations are in Europe and most if not all of the artists or artworks should be familiar to most people. I looked up each piece of art as I was reading, even if I was familiar with it, to help give me a better understanding of the author’s descriptions. In some cases, more than one work is notated.

Definitely a must have for people who like like art and enjoy visiting museums on their travels. I have yet to be disappointed with a book in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author for an ARC in exchange for a fair an honest review.

"Artistic Places" would be a gorgeous coffee-table book! Susie Hodge discusses in this book the various places that inspired famous artists to travel to, despite the difficulty of their times, just to capture those unique landscapes.

An interesting concept with beautiful illustrations that could have been even longer. The facts and history are interesting and there's a great balance between text and illustrations. Monet's "The Water Lily Pond" is one of my favorites, so I loved those illustrations the most!

This book is a great coffee table book for lovers of art and travel; especially now, when travel is limited for most people, it was enjoyable to take a trip around the world via this book and its information about the places that inspired famous artwork.

That being said, I found it a little confusing that the artwork featured was all by the same artist, and was not the actual artwork referenced. I don't know if that was an artistic choice or one based on permission to reproduce art, but I found it strange to read about Guernica and the place that inspired it while looking at art that wasn't Guernica. I was familiar with many of the works, but not all, and even the ones I knew would have been nice to have on hand as a reference. I enjoyed the illustrations in the book, but I wish that they were there as a supplement to the actual artworks referenced, rather than instead of them.

A beautiful book to escape into for some armchair travel. Amy Grimes' illustrations for this book are stunning, but I would have liked it to have also included images of the original artworks that inspired each selection.

3/5 - Liked it

A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

This is a lovely book, filled with beautiful illustrations of some of the most enchanting places in the world, replete with facts about these locales' artistic history. The illustrations are stunning - there were several that I wished I could pluck out of my book and hang on my apartment wall. The writing was clear and concise. I appreciated the focus on artists I was familiar with (van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin) as well as some new artists who paint or create outside of mediums I'm aware of. There were also a few interesting stories - for example, how "Guernica" was a rebellious piece of political art, or how "American Gothic" was painted in sections. I felt like this book took me not only on a tour of new art pieces, but also on a tour around the world, which was very pleasant.

However, I have two major reasons as to why this isn't rated higher.

1. While the illustrations were delightful, I found it frustrating that the paintings being referenced were not included. I read the book with a Google browser open - even for the paintings I knew well, I wanted to reference some details. For the paintings I did not know, I was discovering them for the first time. I also wished there were some photographs of the locations for comparison, or that there were multiple artists' depiction of some places.

2. The locales were mainly confined to Western Europe. 18 of the locations were in Western Europe, 4 were in North America, and 3 were outside of Europe (but two featured European artists). There was a distinct lack of perspectives. As a Russian-American, I was thoroughly surprised not to see any mention of places like Saint Petersburg or my second home - California (which was mentioned in the intro, but not the book!). I would have loved to see more art from the Middle East, more Native American art, Indian landscapes, etc.

That being said, this is an absolutely wonderful book and it has definitely inspired me to visit some new places with a mind to explore their artistic history.

This is my new favourite book on art - beautifully illustrated and informative. It left me feeling inspired to paint having transported me to many different places which influenced great artists such as Monet and Gaugin. Highly recommended for art lovers worldwide.

I think I may have been the wrong reader for this book, because I came away disappointed. The idea of it - places which inspired great artists - was immediately fascinating to me, but as I opened the first pages, I realized that it's literally just descriptions of the places with some history, and I'm going to have to Google the artworks by their name (not all of them were known to me). What I expected (possibly in a silly way) was to be able to read the descriptions while looking at the artworks, comparing them to the photos of the locations and pondering the feel. Then I thought about it more, and now I don't know what I was expecting - after all, including famous artwork in your book probably costs a fortune for the rights of using the image. But it would have made the book so much more... Don't get me wrong, the book has illustrations and they're very good, but they're purely associative and all done by a single artist. You're going to have to Google the artwork that relates to the places. It makes sense - but I imagine many people will pick up this book expecting to see the artwork on the page - so I'm just letting you know, it's not there.

And that's fine, as cool as it would have been, it's not like it's hard to Google it. However, the book also fell short in another way for me - I'm not sure if it's clear what the book is for. I mean, if it doesn't have the artwork - then it's literally just short descriptions of the places and what they're famous for. Why not include photos of the places? It's not an art book - so is it a travel book then? Apparently not, because it doesn't have handy information about how to visit the places and what to expect, only rough mentions of what can be visited - in terms of "there's half a sentence for the museum, half a sentence for the authors house", etc. If you can't include the artwork, including detailed info about the places and photos would have still made the book awesome. And yet, it's not there.

So in its current state, I don't understand what the book is for. At best, it's a coffee table book based on a nice idea, but it doesn't come together and doesn't really stand up in terms of practical value. It's a shame, cause the idea is brilliant, and I'd love to visit some of these places and ponder the art created there (and let me cut it some slack, the descriptions ARE good, my favorite one was the history of the Bauhaus school - but they're just that, descriptions. I can read that in Wikipedia - there is no real added value).

So if you feel like you would love to visit these places too, treat this book as a list with associative illustrations and get ready to Google both the artwork and the info on how to get to the places, how they look and where to stay when you get there.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

This is my second book by this author; a couple of years ago I read Why your five-year-old could not have done that: Modern Art Explained; which I loved, so I was pretty excited to find out she was coming out with a new book.

This book was very informative, and it is clear that the author has thoroughly researched the places that she mentions. Some of them are very famous (like New York, Florence or Venice) but others I was very glad to discover things about, because even though I knew of the place, I knew very little about it (like Dessau and Bern).


The illustrations are so beautiful I don’t even have the words to describe them. I kind of want to hang them in my house.

The text was very hard to read, I don’t know if this was my fault or not, because of the format, but I almost gave up a couple of times because of how much it cost me to read the words.

Artistic Places is another great addition to this series about literary and artistic locations. The illustrations are phenomenal, just the right of realism and whimsy.
This collection of books would make for a lovely library addition. They inspire day-dreams of future travel.
I'd love to keep these on my coffee table to browse and read through periodically.

Inspiring whimsy! These 25 iconic and recognizable places are destinations to re-live and dream of, half of which I have had the fortunate to visit, some many times. But what the author said about "knowing" places we haven't been to is so true...through words and art we can feel we HAVE been there. And during covid we can dream with this book which captures the essence of place.

Each entry includes paintings and descriptive paragraphs with history, what to see, beauty spots and other information. I really like the little symbols included which are fun to identify and make each place so special. My personal favourites include pastoral Constable Country with gentle streams, Giverny, Bern (chocolate and clock tower), Renaissance Florence (David and Florence Cathedra), incomparable iconic Venice and Elbe (romantic nature).

The simplistic art is powerful and brings back gorgeous memories! I love that. If you wish to escape into art and interesting places, immerse yourself in this book.

My sincere thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - White Lion and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this refreshing and lovely book!

This book allows some “armchair travel” during the pandemic. It is a combination travel guide and art guide taking you to different places around the world. The illustrations are gorgeous. I would have liked to see some of the artwork being referenced. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

First up thank you for allowing me to read this book!
I was pretty happy to see a new book in this series pop up. I loved Hidden Places (though I read it in Dutch), so I was excited for this one. However, sadly, I cannot read it. Since it has illustrations I cannot read it on Kindle as the illustrations would lose all their beauty. I thought I would be able to read it through the Netgalley app (my eyes would tire/head hurt but I would still be able to read it in parts), but sadly that also doesn't work as the book isn't one page per time, but two, so it gets smooshed. Sadly, I cannot read that much text on my PC, especially not when it is that tiny. Haha, after just one page (well two but you get what I mean) my already existing headache just exploded.. So I will just have to wait for this book to get translated to Dutch (as I am sure there won't be an English version here) and then read and review it! Hopefully soon! For now I will give it 4 stars as what I saw is something I loved/liked.

This is a combination art history book and travel guide that tells you about places around the world where artists created famous works. I absolutely love the cover and the illustrator created beautiful artwork to accompany each geographical area, but I always have trouble enjoying a book about famous works of art where they don't include the famous works of art. If I'm going to read all about American Gothic and how Whistler felt about Iowa, I'd really like to see a picture of it while I'm reading. Yes, I remember it but when the author talks about the repetition of shapes in the windows and other areas I don't remember that and don't want to have to look up every painting as it's referenced. The accompanying artwork is beautiful but it reflects the illustrator's styles (sometimes with slight nods to the artist they're talking about) and not the works themselves. As a travel guide, I felt it was okay but not terribly accurate. I live by Iowa and the description of how bucolic the state is made me smile a little (no offense, Iowans). Again, we hear about all these elements of the area just as we did with the art, but there are no photographs and nothing to see for ourselves what is described outside of the lovely artistic vision by the illustrator.

This really does have wonderful illustrations and the descriptions of the places and how the artists felt about them are nice. I really would have liked photographs to accompany each section but this was very well done as a piece of art in itself.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

ARTISTIC PLACES features 25+ stunning locales beloved by iconic artists, such as Matisse’s Tangier, Klee’s Bern, O’Keefe’s Taos. Eye-catching art depicts each destination, while info-rich text explains the impact of place on creativity. A soothing read for angsty times.

4 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 16 Mar 2021
#ArtisticPlaces #NetGalley

Thanks to the author, Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Beautiful pictures but unable to read the text. I have had this problem with other books in the series, but I enjoy looking at it