About Modern Art

by David Sylvester

David Sylvester here muses on key artists of the twentieth century and their nineteenth-century forebears. In the process, he offers profound insights into their practice of art. Focusing on the spectator's instinctive emotional and physical response to paintings by such artists as Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning, Newman, and Warhol, Sylvester brings an inspiring sense of the relevance and importance of art to life. Added to this updated edition are essays on Pollock, Twombly, and Serra, among others.

Genres: Art, Criticism

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Anthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, (21 September 1924; London – 19 June 2001; London) was a British art critic and curator. During a long career David Sylvester was influential in promoting modern art in Britain, in particular the work of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

Born into a well connected north-London Jewish family, Sylvester had trouble as a student at University College School and was thrown out of the family home. He wrote for the paper Tribune and went to Paris in 1947 where he met Alberto Giacometti one of the strongest influences on him. Though writing for a range of publications as a critic including The Observer and New Statesman the main thrust of his writing that direct response to the artwork was most important remained constant. Sylvester is credited with coining the term kitchen sink originally to describe a strand of post-war British painting typified by John Bratby. Sylvester used the phrase negatively but it was widely applied to other art forms including literature and theatre. During the 1950s Sylvester worked with Henry Moore, Freud and Bacon but also supported Richard Hamilton and the other 'Young Turks' of British pop art. This led him to become a prominent media figure in the 1960s. During the 1960s and 70s Sylvester occupied a number of roles at the Arts Council of Great Britain serving on advisory panels and on the main panel. In 1969 he curated a Renoir exhibition at the Hayward Gallery for which he was assisted by a young Nicholas Serota.

Reviews

[Darran Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read a classic collection of modern art criticism and this is it. I wondered why I had heard of so few art critics compared to the number of well known and respected literary critics there are. I think reading this gives me an indication why. David Sylvester was one of the most respected and acclaimed art critics of the 20th Century and though I enjoyed this book I found it much less engaging and illuminating than the best literary criticism. The impression I got from reading this is that art is much more difficult to write about critically than literature is, and that there is a much less well developed body of criticism extant. I suppose this is partly because it is much more appropriate to respond to words with words and because literary criticism is something you learn to do when you study English Literature, but art criticism is not something you learn to do when you study Art or Art History. Still, despite my response being relatively lukewarm I did enjoy this book and, more importantly, it has given me the desire to go and look at the art he writes about so passionately again.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sylvester writes intelligently and plainly about often complex ideas of artists and their paintings. His take is subjective, but he has the distinction, experience, knowledge and passion to pull this off. For those of you who read a lot of art criticism/history, you will know this is a rare talent! He's in the same class as Robert Hughes for me. Maybe not as entertaining, but his critical eye is just as sharp. Essential reading if you're interested in any of the artists he covers in this book.

[David Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Sylvester was a writer I was interested in rereading, due to my assumption of his approach to art criticism (ie a sycophant, traditionalist, journalist, etc) was still the same as my initial opinion. I wouldn’t say that I was surprised after reading this anthology of his work, but I did find some interesting passages.



Slyvester’s work can at times be uninteresting, with descriptions of works that may inform and delight art historians but little else, especially as this book comes without images so it can be tedious to read descriptions of works that aren’t displayed, and if one actually did look them up, would they need this type of description? As there are too many essays that waffle on about Slyvester’s opinion on particular works and how they remind him of other works and other artists, never really thinking that his mode of expression is that of words, Slyvester being a critic, and not that of referring to other images of which we cannot see or juxtapose (as that can be left to the artists themselves).



I did find the middle section rather good though, the essays on Goya, Pop Art, Newman, Magritte and dare I say Gilbert & George are very insightful and brought some new ideas of thought for my next viewing of these artists, which I will be very thankful to Slyvester for. But, Slyvester’s texts when bad are non descript, when good not much better than a decent conversation over dinner (ie a good opening gambit of thought that is padded out with wishey-washey aimless analogy, description and essay clichés), but on occasion they do enlighten and that is well worth the read.



However, the main problem with Slyvester is that his bread and butter was journalism and it does show as it carries too many journalistic hang ups, as reading this you can get away with skim reading sections, there are annoying cliché endings to wrap up the argument of the piece (if there is in fact one), it is full of opinion as criticism and direction, it isn’t particularly deep and when it attempts to be so it gets very vague and doesn’t really go into any detail, pretty standard art journalism, then.



‘About Modern Art’ is probably a very good read for those with an interest in art or those with a bit of clout in culture. But for over 400 pages it doesn’t really give enough.

[Hajer M. Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

We should teach this to our Art students. It's amazing

[g]

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