Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery
by Jeanette Winterson
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 587)
Read in January, 2008
From a completely personal standpoint, I loved this book, and spent a great deal of time underlining and scribbling notes all along the margins. In fact, "Art Objects," almost made me want to go back to school. From a more general standpoint, the reason why I would recommend this book to anyone is because of the essay on, "Imagination and Reality," in which Winterson states: "The education system is not designed to turn out thoughtful individualists, it is there to get ...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who is interested in what a writer/artists has to say about art/imagination/reality
This book of essays talks about art, writing, other writers, Stein, Eliot, Shakespeare, Dickens, Adrienne Rich, Woolf, Graves and many others. It is a interesting account of one woman's view of art and the artist, language, and creation. In answer to a friend who's hope for me is that I have/develop a firmer grasp on reality here is a quote from the book that puts into words what I couldn't at the time of the conversation:
"The earth is not flat and neither is reality. Reality is cont...more
"The earth is not flat and neither is reality. Reality is cont...more
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Read in January, 2005
This is a stunning collection of essays on literature and art that is accessible to all--whether scholar, lay reader, or writer. Winterson's approach to literature is at the same time very traditional (especially in her appreciation for language and detail) and post-modern (particularly in not allowing herself to be pigeon-holed). Winterson is someone who still clearly searches for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in art and in the world. Moreover, this collection has my favorite sentence o...more
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Read in January, 1998
recommends it for:
artists and thinking people everywhere
Winterson articulates why art is essential and relevant in such a way that puts passion over pretension. It objects to the safe and the known. It shows us another way. It is essential to the forward movement of humanity. [Note to pretentious dudes holding forth on Art in San Francisco sushi joints: Please read this book before you go around having philosophical discussions about Art in public places, so that by understanding many before you have written on these subjects more thoughtfully an...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
Pau and Jai
I was totally taken aback by these statements in the first section of the book: " ...falling in love challenges the reality to whihc we lay claim, part of the pleasure of love and part of its terror, is the world upside down. We want and we don't want, the cutting edge, the upset, the new views. Mostly we work hard at taming our emotional environment just as we work at taming our aesthetic environment. We already have tamed our physical environment. An are we happy with all these tameness? ...more
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Read in July, 2008
I admit it--I'm never going to finish this one. I wanted to like it, I really did, but it wasn't very interesting. I fell asleep reading it many times. Winterson was trying to be so profound, but really it was like listening to the ramblings of a self-involved art critic that had never seen a piece of art until the day before. I'm no art expert either, but I'm not going to take it upon myself to write a book about what I don't know. Harsh? Maybe so. I love Winterson's fiction, and this book was ...more
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i'm chewing through this book more slowly than jeanette's other works. i am a visual artist, so her first essay on not knowing how to sit with a painting for an hour was so foreign to me i just couldn't relate. but if she was dedicared enough to spend time with paintings to possibly better understand my ability to sit in the Georgia O'Keefe room for an entire afternoon, i'm going to spend time with these essays to better understand one of my favorite authors.
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"We are an odd people: We make it as difficult as possible for our artists to work honestly while they are alive; either we refuse them money or we ruin them with money; either we flatter them with unhelpful praise or wound them with unhelpful blame, and when they are too old, or too dead, or too beyond dispute to hinder any more, we canonise them, so that what was wild is tamed, what was objecting, becomes Authority" (12).
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Read in May, 2006
recommends it for:
Would-be writers
I love Jeanette Winterson's fiction, but I have a hopeless passion for this non-fiction book about the place of art in the world and in our society, the function of artists, and what makes art great. As I read it, I marked passage after passage as memorable, beautifully written, and true. This book placed Winterson in my own personal pantheon of Inspirational Saints of Writing.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
Great essays with exquisite clarity and insight. It was a pleasure reading about these fresh ideas on art and writing from such an aesthetically invested perspective. Winterson is a heavyweight champ of literacy! She writes on painting, and on writing, with a meticulous mojo that keeps opening me up to useful information.
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Could have dealt without hearing about her rare book collections...but the rest of it has stunning insights into Modernism (in particular, Woolf) and how the social justice potential of progrssive Modernism was trucated, both cultural and politically, by World War II. An amazing book.
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I'd say Winterson should stick to the novels. She's old school naive in her criticism & I felt annoyed with her the entire time I read this.
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I learned about Virginia Woolf, the Bloomsbury Group, etc and it started me being interested in art history - culminating in doing an OU degree in Humanities with Art History which I LOVE. I read it nearly 20 years ago and am re-reading.
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Ganked this book from an old teacher that forgot to ask for it back! I recently discovered how utterly brilliant Jeanette Winterson is via Sexing the Cherry, and I can't wait to go back and take a second look at Art Objects.
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I decided to re-read this book. When I first read Art Objects, it was 11 years ago when I was 19. I don't think I was that mature (intellectually) at the time to fully appreciate it. Thus far, I kind of like it.....
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
anti-cynics
Hugely enjoyable. Jeanette Winterson is now a personal hero. Anyone who is not afraid to throw their fist in the air and cheer out loud for what art can create and destroy needs to read this collection of essays.
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Read in January, 1998
I remember seeing this book in a store when I was 18, my last summer before college. That moment is how I discovered JW. It was a few months longer before I actually read her though.
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Read in January, 1999
Though I don't remember particularly enjoying this book while I was reading it, over the years it has been essential to my knowledge of how to look at, feel, and be with art.
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone who likes art or jeanette winterson
This was great to read while I was away, though a little heavy going at times - it's a collection of essays on art, how we see it and how we judge it.
I really enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed it.
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Jeanette Winterson is eloquent, smart, and funny. She is culturally, intellectually and emotionally insightful. All hotness aside, she is brilliant. (And she is very hot.)
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.96 (439 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.89 (424 ratings) number of reviews: 28
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quote
"Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue."
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