ART OF THE MAINE ISLANDS by Carl Little and Arnold Skolnick, 96 pages, Down East Books, $30.

Put me on a Maine island and leave me there and watch how happy I become. That’s how much I love the islands in this state. I’ve been to many and love them all — physically, imaginatively, aesthetically. For that reason, I was immediately drawn to “Art of the Maine Islands,” the newest coffee-table book collaboration between Carl Little and Arnold Skolnick.

Past the title, I was snagged by the first painting I found in the book. “The Swimmer” by Japanese artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi is currently my favorite piece of Maine art. It depicts a hefty woman buoying her body around a rather demure lighthouse island. It’s a painting with guts, a cubist study in form and motion, and one of the few in this anthology that literally shows a relationship between a human being and an island.

But the ruggedness and glory of the island in and of itself are really the focus of this Down East Books collection of 75 paintings by 66 Maine artists, many of whom are still alive and painting. Carl Little, who works in the public affairs office at College of the Atlantic, explains in the introduction that there are many ways to get to an island, but he suggests, “you can also make your approach through the eyes of an artist.” Therein lies the point of this book: Take a journey on Maine’s islands with George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, John Singer Sargent, Jamie Wyeth and the gang.

Little and his picture editor, Arnold Skolnick, have worked together on several books — most notably “Paintings of Maine,” which came out in 1991 and has quickly become a darling among recent art books about the state. Even in the light of this newer, slicker publication, it remains important and viable.

In fact, “Islands of Maine” doesn’t cover a whole lot of uncharted territory. For those who know the earlier book, and who perhaps also have enjoyed the headier “Monhegan, The Artists’s Island” by Curtis and Leiberman, this newest book seems rather lightweight in its contribution to the annals of Maine art.

That’s not to say it isn’t a fine collection of paintings. Who wouldn’t want to stop and smell the flowers in Childe Hassam’s “Poppies on the Isles of Shoals” or walk out into the textured waters of Nina Jerome’s “Earth, Air, Water, Light”? Eleanor Levin’s “Bald Porcupine,” with its humming translucence is irresistibly illuminating. And the quilted reds and purples and pinks of coastal blueberry barrens in works by Jill Hoy and Sara Weeks Peabody are simply delicious. Note, too, the increased presence of women artists, which is still, alas, a significant factor in art books.

It’s good, too, finally to see works by Richard Estes, Neil Welliver and Michael Lewis, three internationally successful artists whose artistic sensibilities have become immensely attached to living in Maine.

Yet there’s something about this book that left me feeling something less than enthralled. It surely has to do with a cogent point Little makes in his introduction. In presenting the historical relationship between Maine artists and Maine islands, Little points to the development of a market in Maine. He writes: “In their own way, these artists opened up a new territory on the map of the American sightseer.”

To put it another way: Artists have bolstered the tourist industry in Maine — particularly with books such as this one.

In the end, there is not enough original information here to hold the longtime art lover’s interest. However, this may be the perfect introductory book for a newcomer to Maine’s hefty arts scene. To help such a reader along in reflections about visual representations, there are excerpts from writers including Philip Booth, Rachel Field, Samuel French Morse and Sara Orne Jewett — because much of the other poetry and prose is not particularly well-written.

The collection itself is well-rounded, but this is not Little at his critical best in writing, nor Skolnick in his discerning best as picture editor. Buy this book for your friends from away. But for the girl smitten with Maine islands and the study of Maine art, look elsewhere for nourishment.