By Pam Walatka

When a book is written to mirror a television program, the book may be a bit odd. “Imagining America: Icons of 20th Century Art” by John Carlin and Jonathan Fineberg (Yale University Press, 2006) is a bit odd but nonetheless good. It was published as a companion to a PBS film.

The images are striking, the best of 20th century America, although some important works and artists have been left out. As the subtitle suggests, the art and artists represented are the well-known icons, familiar to anyone who follows art.

The color reproduction is as true to the original art as possible. The works are beautifully represented - often several times. A work might be presented in its entirety, then a full-page enlargement of one of the details and then a further enlargement of a smaller detail.

The graphic layout is the odd part. Sometimes the layout is too unusual and the conventions intrusive, such as the use of a 30 percent triangular overlay connecting a magnified detail to the spot from which it came. I don’t like having fabulous pictures overlaid with somebody’s idea of helpful graphics.

The text is nicely broken down. Many pages are predominantly art with a few words printed in big type for quick reading. For example, “In the middle of the century Jackson Pollock proclaimed ‘I am nature’ to show how he was able to represent himself better through abstract gestures than through pictures from the real world.”

Elsewhere, also in big type, Pollock is quoted, “Today, painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Modern painters work from a different source; they work from within.”

With varying type sizes, the book is organized so that the reader can glimpse what each artist was doing without making a big commitment of time. You could view the book as you would a TV program - casually. There are pages of smaller, denser text, for the reader who wants more information. The smaller-type sections include gossip about artists’ lives and some cultural background for their work, but not much criticism.

Throughout the book, Carlin and Fineberg connect the artists with their cultures. The work of nature painter Thomas Cole of the 19th century Hudson River School is explained in the context of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy of the same period.

“Before that time, most Americans viewed nature as something they had to overcome in order to survive,” the authors write. “But Emerson and Cole both found redemption in nature.”

As a companion to a PBS film, the book is meant for the general public more than for serious art historians, who may find little new information.

I enjoyed this book and learned from it. The pictures are great.

“Imagining America” is available at the Los Altos main library.