1000 Sculptures de Génie

by Joseph Manca, Patrick Bade, Sarah Costello

De l’Antiquité jusqu’au xxe siècle, cette collection de sculptures offre une vision véritablement originale de l’art occidental. Sont représentées ici les oeuvres les plus sensuelles, les plus harmonieuses, jusqu’aux plus provocantes et minimalistes. La sculpture modèle le monde ainsi que notre concept de la beauté, créant sans cesse des silhouettes intemporelles. Ces chefs-d’oeuvre sont le miroir d’une époque, d’un artiste et de son public. À travers cette galerie de sculptures, nous visitons non seulement l’histoire de l’art, mais également l’Histoire. Avec de nombreuses références, des commentaires d’oeuvres et des biographies, l’ouvrage 1000 Sculptures de Génie permet au lecteur de redécouvrir le patrimoine occidental et constitue un guide idéal pour les étudiants et les amateurs d’art.

Genres: Art

2076 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference book!

[Jo Berry ☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit disappointed with this book. It claims to be a ‘truly original vision of Western art’, but it’s exactly what you think of when you think of sculpture in Western art. The book focuses heavily on works depicting Greek & Roman mythology and Christianity.

Nearly all the examples are drawn from major museum collections and there’s not much variety. The book is in chronological order, so the start of the book is example after example of Greek/Roman statues, then we get to medieval Europe and have example after example of Christian art. It’s not until we reach the 19th century we really start to see a variety of themes and subjects. We then move into modern art and I was pretty underwhelmed with some of the pieces chosen. And at no point do the authors explain why they think any particular piece is worthy of being called a ‘sculpture of genius’. Overall, this is standard stuff and the first two thirds of the book felt very repetitive.

And I don’t understand why. I have hundreds of images saved in my own picture files of amazing sculptures from western art. I could have assembled a more interesting and diverse collection.

From a publishing point of view the book is also frustrating, because many of the sculptures are designed to be viewed from two, three or more angles, but we only get one photo of each artwork. Many of the pieces don’t even have any commentary from the authors to accompany the work, just the basics of the title, artist, medium and location of the sculpture. Where there is a comment, there are often typos and repeated words. The artist Claes Oldenburg is described as ‘Sweedish’ - even a basic spellchecker should have spotted that.

I consider this a very unexciting reference book, which might be useful in a school library, but I wouldn’t recommend it to art lovers.

[Nahia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiene lo que echaba de menos en el de pinturas (las pequeñas explicaciones de cada obra) peero es que soy más de pinturas que de esculturas.

[Reem Elsherbini · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is just amazing as it shows the masterworks that shapes the world and our conept of beauty
it's that kind of book that u keep getting back to :)
i liked the Baroque part ...specially the works by Gian Bernini

[Calvin]

These kinds of lists are always interesting in part because how surprised you are that a couple in your "top 20" didnt make the "experts" top 1000.