Why Is That Art?: Aesthetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art

by Terry Barrett

Why is that art? Why is it in an art museum? Who says it's art? Why is it good?

Why Is That Art? , Third Edition, introduces students to theories of art through the presentation of contemporary works that include abstract and representational painting, animated film, monumental sculpture, performance art, photographs, relational art, and video installations. Ideal for courses in aesthetics, art theory, art criticism, and the philosophy of art, this unique book provides students with a newfound appreciation for contemporary art, scholarship, and reasoned argumentation.

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Art History, Nonfiction, Textbooks

304 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2007

About the author

Terry Berret is a Professor of Art Education, with a joint appointment in the Department of Art, at the Ohio State University, where he is the recipient of a distinguished teaching award for courses in criticism and aesthetics within education. The author of numerous works on art criticism, he is an art critic in education for the Ohio Arts Council, consults museum education departments, juries exhibitions, and conducts workshops on studio critiques and writing.

Reviews

[Mariah]

also just finished this for art philosophy!

[Vampire Who Baked · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book was meant to be a guide to art theory, what struck me most was how nepotistic and closed the art world itself is, especially to women and minorities. In particular, it's interesting how much of the non-concrete, intensely personal art (expressing almost solely the artists' psyche) is made by people who are either wealthy or connected (usually both). Too much in art criticism is circle-jerky, with critics agreeing with and promoting people like themselves-- this is especially true for abstract expressionist art where artists talk about "painting their emotions", and the sole reason that sells is that critics (predominantly straight, white, western, anglophone, male) agree with them.

The sections on realism and postmodernism are fairly well done, both written from a postmodern perspective. Expressionism, however, was vague and not enough culturally contextualised-- much like the style itself-- and was almost entirely a set of "what" ("this painting represents the artists' feelings about a particular memory") and not nearly enough "why" (which parts of the painting? and how are the feelings being expressed through them?)

Overall, it's a nice and short introduction to art and art theory, specifically on realism, expressionism, formalism and postmodern pluralism. Each chapter had a nice structure, focusing on artists who best exemplify the "movement"/paradigm-- with comments both by critics as well as the artists themselves on their own work. The objective of the book is descriptive rather than normative-- "what do formalists really care about? how do you assess art from a formalist perspective?"--and in that, the book is, for the most part, fairly successful.

That said, I would have probably preferred to read a different book that actually critiques different art movements from a postmodern perspective (for example, a discussion on non-western conceptions of art is entirely absent, barring a couple of lines in the intro chapter-- almost none of the paradigms described would make sense in a non-western perspective). As of now, the material in the book only serves to reinforce the idea that the "art world" is a disjointed clique, disconnected from the rest of the world, and only surviving because it is a way for wealthy privileged people to act pretentious and feel good about themselves.

P.S.: The book needs heavy editing-- the prose gets super repetitive in almost every chapter.

[Jordan A. A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this book for my Aesthetics and Criticism course, while I liked it for being a good introduction to critical theory, I am hoping to find something that reads better in 16 weeks for the students. There were a lot of supplemental essays I added to the course in the areas that the text was lacking which overwhelmed the expectations of two credits. I would recommend it to other instructors. In the future , I want to specifically focus on Postmodernism and I will use the text's information to create lectures on all the other theories.

[Lhab84 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book very useful when beginning my art ed. studies. I would recommend it to anyone interested in post-modern art, or who is at least open to learning more about it, and trying to attain some type of comfort level towards it.

[KJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for class. It was interesting but somewhat difficult to read. Pages full of text with small print definitely added to this issue. I did learn some things but i have to admit that I'm glad it is over.

[Jenny Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Believe it or not, this textboook has been assigned to me two separate times - once during undergrad and once now during grad school. I wasn't terribly fond of it either time. The books basically splits art into four not particularly distinct categories: realism, expressionism, formalism, and post-modernism.

Each category is a chapter with a description of the theory, the theorists it is associated with, a few artists whose art could possibly fit into that category, and a final summary. To me the strongest part was where the author presented works of artists, and the weakest was each section where he listed and described theorists. That bit was dead dull.

It was somewhat limited (I assume) by copyright law. A lot of the artworks mentioned were not pictured in the book, and many of those which did make it into the book were black and white. Seeing the artworks without color was often a shame because we lost a huge component of the work.

To be fair, this book was about contemporary art which makes it of limited interest to me. I am not a big fan of modern art, and this text did not change that.

[Abbie Butcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

A brief, but good, overview of each style of art and the popular artists that are associated with it. Gives explanations about being an unbiased and excellent judge of artistic works and the way to write the perfect art critique.

[Teddi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned quite a lot, felt stupid for not knowing it already, honestly. Definitely agree that we need to stop asking "is this art" and start pursing "is this art good?"

[Juli · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a bit tedious and tough to get through. Classic textbook style writing and content allow for glossed-over eyes and mind-wandering reading.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful primer to get a sense of major themes and developments.

[Dave Hood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good intro into theory and interpretation of contemporary art. Will help you appreciate the plethora of mediums in contemporary art.

[Haley Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a very thorough way of going through different "eras" of art, and explaining each era very clearly. It challenge ways of thinking, and shared new ways of thinking about art.

[Hp_home]

Ethics

[Seda Tezcan]

Why is that book?