The Art Book: New Edition

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The format of the book dictates that we can only see one painting per artist and to see the rest, we would have to turn to other books or the internet.

A small detail, I wish the artwork dates were moved from the bottom to the top (next to the artwork's title and artist's name), so one has seen all the info/context before checking out the art.At two or three paintings per trip to the washroom, the enjoyment will last for the better part of a year! Yet, let's find something good to quote from it from Wikiquote (and as it turns out, even the quote on its own is repetitive). demonstrates Judd's simplification of shape, volume, colour and surface, and reduces art to its basic essential, the cube. Is that even legal by the way, using photographs of dead people from local newspapers for the unauthorized purpose of an art installation?

In addition to a large number of classical nudes, to which I have less objection, there are also quite a few more modern ones some of which I would not want my kids to see. I guess I'm being narrow-minded at best or philistine at worse, anyway these are old criticisms that others have expressed better. If the blurb is talking about symbols, concepts, ideas and the philosophy of the artist, chances are something ridiculous follows and that something is from the twentieth century (with exceptions of course, the century has had its share of impressive artists).

Merz was an exponent of "arte povera", a new form of conceptual art developed in Italy in the 1960s, which aimed at disassociating artistic creation from the notion of high culture. So many times, the artist is described to follow philosophy/school A, then switches to philosophy/school B, or idolizes artist/mentor C, then switches to artist/mentor D, or creates a clique E, then switches to collective F, and so it goes. But if any such book should be part of every home, surely its an art book like this one, where the great Western artists and (alas only) one of their representative masterpieces is laid before you. However the captions talk about an active volcano Cotopaxi supposedly being in the painting, which actually is nowhere to be found.

It's for such an audience/reader that this book is great, to get acquainted (to pick a sample of names) to "older" (say, born before mid nineteenth century) artists like Hendrick Avercamp, Honore Daumier, Atkinson Grimshaw, John Martin, Jean Francois Millet, and also more modern ones (again, a biased sample of some I found extra memorable) like Max Beckmann, Victor Brauner, Edward Burra, Paul Delvaux, Otto Dix, Raoul Dufy, James Ensor, George Grosz, Gwen John, Wifredo Lam, Laurence Stephen Lowry, Roberto Matta, Paul Nash, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Alfred Wallis, Carel Weight. The good things about it: the wealth of periods it hits on and the quality of the reproductions, to say nothing of its size (I have the pocket size version, in case there are others).

If you take it as a coffee book only to browse here and there, this book is ok, even if the quality of the repros is below average. The inevitable juxtaposition of different eras/periods (since the entries are alphabetical), creates an unintentionally comical and sad effect. Unlike other reviews, I actually liked the alphabetical arrangement of the artists, as it really demonstrated the diversity of the North American and European art tradition.

It also seems unfair to have some amazing, iconic painters reduced to just one work of art, which is hardly representative of their overall contribution, whereas others (especially some of the more contemporary artists) could easily have been left out of the book altogether.

that book is very good, in this book your can learn more about the art and in this book have something is so surprised for me. A couple of lines about the artist, a couple of lines about the artwork, a couple of lines about the historical context, and that's it, the art can speak for itself after that.