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87th out of 100 books
—
38 voters
The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa
A New York Times bestseller—a dazzling and inspirational survey of how art can be found and appreciated in everyday life
Michael Kimmelman, the prominent New York Times writer and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, is known as a deep and graceful writer across the disciplines of art and music and also as a pianist who understands something about the art...more
Michael Kimmelman, the prominent New York Times writer and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, is known as a deep and graceful writer across the disciplines of art and music and also as a pianist who understands something about the art...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
July 25th 2006
by Penguin Books
(first published 2005)
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This was a little better than I expected. While it didn't achieve greatness, it avoided that lazy, thrown-together feel that similar slim, ruminative books often have. Kimmelman has always struck me as a very likable, humane critic, and his text here reinforces that. I would have liked to see better cover art. Instead of the stock photo of a gumball machine on the back (an echo of the chapter on Wayne Thiebaud and his gumball machine paintings), why not an actual piece of art?
The strongest chapt...more
The strongest chapt...more
Nicely written book
This book is not about art per se, but more about how art came about. I enjoyed in particular the chapters on collecting and Antarctica. Collecting led to museums and what went into them (art). Antarctica was about travel photography and how the photographs taken there are now a part of our historical memory.
What is particularly nice is how non-judgmental the author is - this adds value to every chapter and the various types of art represented.
In the last chapter Michael K...more
This book is not about art per se, but more about how art came about. I enjoyed in particular the chapters on collecting and Antarctica. Collecting led to museums and what went into them (art). Antarctica was about travel photography and how the photographs taken there are now a part of our historical memory.
What is particularly nice is how non-judgmental the author is - this adds value to every chapter and the various types of art represented.
In the last chapter Michael K...more
1 like · like · see review
"We can learn, among other things, that a life lived with art in mind might itself be a kind of art." (3)
"But having spent much of my own life looking at it, I have come to feel that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art: that beauty is often where you don't expect to find it; that it is something we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves; that the most important things in the world are never as simple as they...more
"But having spent much of my own life looking at it, I have come to feel that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art: that beauty is often where you don't expect to find it; that it is something we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves; that the most important things in the world are never as simple as they...more
Kimmelman is an art critic for the New York Times, and The Accidental Masterpiece collects some of his essays – interestingly enough, not all about art and artists. At least, not directly. Indeed, if there is a single theme running through these essays, it is obsession. The first essay is about Bonnard, but more specifically, it is about his obsession with his wife Marthe. Later in the book, we encounter an essay on a man who collected lightbulbs – by the time he passed away in 2002, his self-c...more
This slim book is a fabulous collection of meditations on the art that surrounds us everyday. Written by Michael Kimmelman, art critic for the New York Times, it is a collection of essays on paintings, sculpture, etc that is perceived as Art, and the process of looking at our lives and the lives of others as being artful. One of his underlying themes is the importance of passion in creating art. That passion can be in the form of collecting an example of every light bulb known to exist and shari...more
Not every aspect of this book is perfect. There are some chapters that are less interesting or compelling than others. But overall, this is a gem and a complete surprise. The book is about art and the comfort it can give, not just to the viewer, but to the artists making it. Yet this description is not enough - it also explains art that most do not consider beautiful, or consider in any way: it explains where the artist is coming from, why the creator has chosen this subject to devote all of her...more
This is a terrific book on all aspects of different types of art. It is provocative especially in the beginning. He discusses "what is beauty." I wrote a whole three pages after thinking about this question he posed. I would never have thought about some of the types of art he brings into the forground. We tend to think of paintings hung on the wall, or sculpture in a garden. He discusses collections and why people collect...just because they have a passion/obsession for an object he concludes....more
i like it when books i'm reading seem to mirror life. I read this coincident to a roadtrip in the southwest. "The Art of Having a Lofty Perspective" -- chapter three, essay on the fluctuating opinion in art's history on whether or not nature is beautiful -- came fantastically timed after a rainy, miserable, questionably worth-it scenic mountain hike in Zion. "The Art of the Pilgrimage" spanned the few days driving between Marfa, TX and Walter de Maria's Lightning Field.
It's well written (author...more
It's well written (author...more
Some mildly interesting essays on the place of art in life and the life of particular artists; most of these were artists I'd already heard of or seen works by, so the essays weren't particularly edifying. If you make art or have any appreciation of it, these essays will probably seem a bit simplistic to you as well. I can't think of an appropriate audience for this book other than perhaps those people who see artists as weird outsiders or snobs, and who see art as a waste of time (and I don't p...more
I loved the first essay in this SO much that it made all the other ones pale in comparison. For that reason, it's hard for me to figure out how much I liked this book overall.
I guess I would say that judging it as a *book* I thought that some of the essays could have been organized a tiny bit better and that I wish the writer gave us just a tad bit more of himself. There's something a little bit removed about his tone, somehow, even in scenes where he's actually there IN the scene speaking abou...more
I guess I would say that judging it as a *book* I thought that some of the essays could have been organized a tiny bit better and that I wish the writer gave us just a tad bit more of himself. There's something a little bit removed about his tone, somehow, even in scenes where he's actually there IN the scene speaking abou...more
Kimmelman discusses everything from French post-impressionism to Medieval German altarpiece to earth art to gumball machines, and how it is possible to find beauty everywhere you look. He believes art will teach you how to open your eyes and look more closely at your personal environment. It is one of the most refreshing reads by a very positive author who believes in the power of art and how your personal interpretation adds to a work.
After the excellent introduction, I found the chapters overwritten and boring. Each contained at least one interesting observation or kernel of an argument about the intersection of life and art -- but often, only one good point. It would've made a fine long article, the sort of piece The New Yorker or Harper's might do brilliantly. But I'm not sure it's worth more than a skim.
An entertaining and enlightening perspective on art and the act of creating, from Pierre Bonnard to Bob Ross. Especially useful for those still perplexed about the merits of movements such as installation art and other modernism that are commonly dismissed by the majority.
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Kimmelman is one of the most likable, curious, open-minded art-writers we have. Instead of a pretentious reviewer, he's a discusser, and discusses some great topics: Bob Ross and amateurism, a guy who has collected thousands of light bulbs, how what we find beautiful is often a conditioned response, Albert C. Barnes (a guy who made a fortune on antiseptic, spend the fortune on famous and unfamous art, and left it all to a school when he died), the value of originals in a time of mass reproductio...more
Boy oh boy, did I heart this book. Written by the chief art critic for the New York Times, it is less an examination of art than an examination of how to live artistically. The chapters cover a variety of topics, including the lives of particular artists and the latent art that suffuses compulsive collecting (my favorite!).
Mainly, I loved it because it is more inspirational that any self-declared inspirational text. Seeing how others view art as life and life as art made me want to run out and t...more
Mainly, I loved it because it is more inspirational that any self-declared inspirational text. Seeing how others view art as life and life as art made me want to run out and t...more
I like this book a lot. It poses the question of "what is art, anyway?" in ways I hadn't thought of before. Compelling, though it won't keep you up all night reading "just one more chapter."
When asked "What do you do for a living?", I tend to answer "I live." As pompous as this sounds, I derived this answer here from Kimmleman's mind altering book.
To be be creative, or to live a life of art - one does not need to pursue it as a career or even participate in creative endeavors. Rather, life itself is an art form.
"We can learn, that a life lived with art in mind might itself be a kind of art." - Kimmelman
"The Beatiful Is a Promise of Happiness" - Stendhal
Basic Reasons to Make Art:
1)...more
To be be creative, or to live a life of art - one does not need to pursue it as a career or even participate in creative endeavors. Rather, life itself is an art form.
"We can learn, that a life lived with art in mind might itself be a kind of art." - Kimmelman
"The Beatiful Is a Promise of Happiness" - Stendhal
Basic Reasons to Make Art:
1)...more
Not as deliriously great as the rave reviews on the back cover promised, but still quite enjoyable if you have a layman's interest in art theory.
I am reading this for book club - it's fascinating. The author looks at art by asking the question, "What ISN'T art?" and exploring the worlds of art history, artists, collectors, etc. I've read the 1st 4 chapters.
I finished this book and we discussed it in book club. We had a very good discussion about it and I learned a lot. I particularly liked the chapter on Bonnard and his life and painting.
I finished this book and we discussed it in book club. We had a very good discussion about it and I learned a lot. I particularly liked the chapter on Bonnard and his life and painting.
This is a fabulously engaging read, and is more of a stream-of-consciousness easy-reading novel than a collection of art essays. The author is interested in not only established High Art works, but is also interested in everything from the eccentric light bulb collector to the Victorian era arctic expedition photographer. He unravels and contextualizes artists' motivations by telling their stories simply, with ease and humor.
Should I be ashamed I liked this book so much? Applied art history.
Inspirational read for people in the creative industries.
Great book on what art is truly about.
It will be published in Korea soon.
I read a recent review of this book, which deemed it a classic, and thought it would be interesting. I found the first chapter kind of tedious, and decided to give up on it. Before writing this review, though, i looked at other readers reviews of it - and most of the reviews were very positive. Oh well - there are just too many other books to experience, so I will leave with the distinct impression that i really didn't give it a chance and it probably is a great book. Just not my cup of tea.
Review pending...
It's not exactly a wildly entertaining and riveting book, but as an art nerd I was really interested in some of the author's essays. Being essays on an array of topics, they weren't all my cup of tea, but a lot of them were great. If you are interested in art, and specifically modern/contemporary art, then its work picking this up. You have to commit to the first essay, but once you get into Kimmelman and his point of view, then most of the other essays are a lot more fun to read.
Kinda fantastic: unexpected juxtapositions, with incisive takes on figures from Matthew Barney to Bob Ross.
No less an authority than C. Montgomery Burns once said "I may not know art, but I know what I hate. And I don't hate this." I don't know the first thing about art, but I'm sort of fascinated by it and I love reading great, accessible art criticism. This collection of essays by the New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman is unbeatable, and the opening piece about Pierre Bonnard is godlike.
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