El Arte Moderno: Algunos

by Joris-Karl Huysmans

El arte moderno / Algunos recoge por vez primera en castellano los escritos de crítica de arte que Joris-Karl Huysmans había ido presentando en distintas publicaciones periódicas, y recogido después en sendos volúmenes editados originalmente en 1883 y 1889.
El libro permite trazar un mapa de las estéticas simbolistas y de su papel anticipatorio en la búsqueda de un modelo puramente interior como horizonte del arte moderno. La atención que Huysmans dispensa a cuestiones como el despuntar de la técnica, el monstruo, o la mujer fatal, permite además desvelar el flujo oculto del deseo en sus diversas manifestaciones en el arte, algo que pocos años después el psicoanálisis iría sacando a la luz.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1976

About the author

Charles Marie Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. AKA: J.-K. Huysmans.

He is most famous for the novel À rebours (Against Nature). His style is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, wide-ranging vocabulary, wealth of detailed and sensuous description, and biting, satirical wit.

The novels are also noteworthy for their encyclopedic documentation, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin authors in À rebours to the discussion of the symbiology of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. Huysmans' work expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led the author first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer then to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining volume of art criticism that finds Huysmans in full-on bile-spewing sarcasm mode. Someone should really do an audio book of this one with Rowan Atkinson reading it in his "Edmund Blackadder" voice for full effect.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's incredible to me to read art criticism from such a writer as J.-K. Huysmans. His writing is very clear, which I miss because contemporary art writing is so much part of the art school tradition, which has tons of social or political layers, yet everyone sounds basically the same. With Huysmans, it is just a writer in front of the artwork, and he comments on it. Very straightforward. It is also a treat to read criticism of famous works at the time of their first exhibitions. Double-wow!

[Israel Montoya Baquero · Rating 4 out of 5]

La verdad, no puedo ser parcial. Me ENCANTA Huysmans, y mas hablando de arte...aunque sea un forofo del impresionismo y no haga mas que arremeter contra mis queridos academicistas

[james · Rating 3 out of 5]

'A woman by Jordaens wiping the backside of her brat, a cavalryman by Terburg offering money to a whore, the drunken prostitute by Jan Steen in the Van der Hoop museum, sprawling on the lap of an old drunkard, are all works of great style, because as well as being exact, almost photographic reproductions of nature, they are also imprinted with a particular emphasis, determined by the personal temperament of each of these painters; by contrast, the Mignon and Faust pictures of Ary Scheffer, or the religiosities of Hippolyte Flandrin, are expressed in a dull language, without style – which is only to be expected given that neither of the two has an individual palette or his own sense of vision. / It's therefore quite useless for a painter to try to ennoble painting using the methods commonly taught in art schools; it's therefore quite useless to choose subjects that are said to be more "elevated" than others, because subjects are nothing in themselves. Everything depends on the way in which they are treated, and besides there is nothing so licentious or so sordid that it cannot be purified in the fire of art.'

//

published 1883; an extremely useful & entertainingly irreverent collection of criticism that captures the transitional nature of the '70s/80s french scene

[Julia Denne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone who enjoys reading about art should read this book. I could never expected it to be so funny and sardonic.