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I actually own this book so I'm ready for February!
Good for you, Sara! I still need to get it. Soon, I hope.
Anyone started yet? I am going out tonight, right now to get the book. I'm sorry I'm a bit behind. But please feel free to share any impressions or thoughts that you have so far...I am going to nominate Sara to start us off! Has anyone begun this yet? I will be back shortly.
I am still looking for a copy of the book. I'd love to join soon. :D
I went to Barnes & Noble last night and had to order it, they said it would be a week.
Does anyone have the book yet? Does anyone want to start the discussion? I will post something when my book comes in. It should be any day now. Please...your thoughts? Even if they are negative, neutral, positive, observations, questions, anything!
Have you started reading yet, Sara? Any comments?
I've only read the Preface so far :( Been a crazy week so far.. but I'll get more reading in later this week.
My book will be available Monday Feb 15th so I can start contributing. Does anyone else beside Sara have the book? Or like to post a comment? Is anyone else reading?
I just need to know if we need to change the book.
Please let me know. Post it here or send me a message.
I have my copy and have started reading.
My copy arrived two days ago but I'm in the middle of a French Noir..... and must finish that first! I'll be with you all soon.
I got my book! I got my book! I'm planning on beginning the read today. Hopefully we can get a discussion going. Everyone join! Paul, do you have anything to say so far?
Dvora, no problem. I had to finish the book I was into, also. But I only had about 22 pages left. So I'm ready to go!
Sara? Anything you would like to add?
Ker Metanoia, did you ever find the book?
I've finished my detective novel and am into our read. So far, I like how he mixes up history with a little bit of fiction -- not so much to take you off track, but enough to put more of a human element into the facts.
That does sound good. I do want to learn more about modern art, but it could be a little dry with only history. By mixing a little fiction in there, it makes it more interesting. Thank you for that insight, Dvora.
I just ordered the book from Amazon. I should have it in by Wednesday then I can start reading it. I'm pretty excited about this book. I've taken a Modern Art History class at college before but I'm excited to learn more about modern art. I'll start posting my thoughts about this book later this week.
So far, I really like this book. I found it interesting his explanation of how Degas differed from the other impressionists. He did not work rapidly, he preferred the studio to plein air, and while the others were focused on ever-changing light, his focus was on the illusion of movement. He also was an outstanding draftsman, which the others were not.I knew that about this time, art dealers began to become more important making the all-important salon less so for the sale of art works, but Gompertz explains this in more detail. Paul Durand-Ruel was key to the continued work of the impressionists and instrumental to the evolving role of art dealers and galleries. I read a lot about art history and artists, but I've never seen such a short and clear explanation of this change in the business of art.
Compertz gives a short biography of Vincent van Gogh and then tells about his work. I thought it unfortunate that within that very brief bio, he insisted on the myth that Vincent shot himself when Steven Naifeh and Gregory White's biography of Vincent made a very convincing argument for the fact that he was shot by someone else and that biography was published a year before this book that we are reading.
Sometimes when you find one glaring or troubling error, it sows a seed of doubt about the rest of the work. But I'm finding enough of interest that makes good sense so that I am not worried.
Thank you, Dvora! Thanks for starting us out and for your review so far. I still haven't started. I picked it up last night then got a phone call that was very disturbing and I couldn't concentrate. I really want to digest this book and learn more about Modern art. So thank you for even more piquing my interest.
And Risa, I look forward to your insights when you get and start reading. Mine will be posted soon.
Equivalent VIII
Carl Andre
1966
This is found in the introduction, but for those who are reading with us, and even those who just look at the above pictures, what is your opinion? Is this "art" according to you? The Tate Gallery in London deemed it so, but got a lot of guff from newspapers and such. Please share your opinions!
Reading further into the introduction, I realize why I really need to read this book. Because I concede that I don't really 'get' modern art. But the author explains "the best place to start when it comes to appreciating and enjoying modern and contemporary art is not to decide whether it's any good or not (which I tend to do) but to understand how it evolved..."..."all you really need to know is the basic rules and regulations for the once baffling to start making some sense"
That works for me. I like learning about how and why art evolved how it has. But as far as I'm concerned, those blocks you've posted are not art, nor are they particularly interesting. Maybe I'll change my opinion by the time I finish this book.
What I really liked so far is his discussion of Cezanne. I recently read a biography of Cezanne. Even though I've taken several art history courses, and read biographies of many artists, I never realized until I read the one about Cezanne how important he was and how much other artists valued him.I think between his discussion of how Ruel Durant changed the business of art and his discussion of Cezanne, the price of the book has been more than paid back.
Dvora wrote: "So far, I really like this book. I found it interesting his explanation of how Degas differed from the other impressionists. He did not work rapidly, he preferred the studio to plein air, and while..."Paul Durand-Ruel was key to the continued work of the impressionists and instrumental to the evolving role of art dealers and galleries.
I think I haven't gotten as far into the book as has Dvora, but I want to add that Charles Baudelaire, the Fench poet, writer and art critic had a lot to do with actually bringing about the Impressionist movement. He initiated it with his essay called The Painter of Modern Life .
Gompertz explains "It was Baudelaire who stood by Delacroix and described his painting as poetry while others dismissed the Romantic artist as a heretic. It was Baudelaire who supported Courbet at his lowest moments; and it was Baudelaire who demanded that art of the present should not be about the past, but about modern life. Many of the ideas he set out in The Painter of Modern Life went on to be embodied in the founding principles of Impressionism...says Baudelaire in his essay 'Observer, philosopher, flaneur--call him what you will...the crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.' He challenged artists to find in modern life 'the eternal from the transitory.' That, he thought, was the essential purpose of art--to capture the universal in the everyday, which was particular to their here and now: the present"
When I read that, it seemed to encompass the whole ideal of the Impressionists. Degas, being more observant of the 'illusion of movement' rather than changing light, Monet actually focusing on the changing light, and Renoir getting right out there with the public and painting life as it is in the moment, the present reality, just to name a few.
On page 80 (I have a hardcover copy) Gompertz lets David Hockney explain the difference between photos and figurative painting. They are not the same, he says. Each painter brings all forms of his own history to his work and sees a scene a little bit differently than another painter. He says that "If ten people were to stand on a hill and take a photograph of the same view, using the same camera, the results would be near identical.I don't see that as a valid argument. Everyone now has a camera. You see the same shots of the same places hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of times. But the photographs that stand out as art, as genius, are different. Probably because the photographer was not one of those ten on top of the hill. He looked around for something more interesting, something special, something hidden, something with meaning. Whatever. There are great photographs out there and neither you nor I took them. Photographers also see what they find interesting and ignore what they don't. But their method isn't the same as a painter.
On page 92 I was disappointed to see that Gompertz left out Catalan (Spanish) art nouveau. He mentions France (Art Nouveau), Germany (Jugendstil), Austria (Vienna Secessionist). And Spain? Catalonia had an active decorative art movement called Modernism. There were painters, and more famously, there was the architect Antoni Gaudi whose Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell most people have heard of, even if Gompertz hasn't.
Dvora wrote: "On page 80 (I have a hardcover copy) Gompertz lets David Hockney explain the difference between photos and figurative painting. They are not the same, he says. Each painter brings all forms of his ..."Thank you, Dvora. I completely agree with you on your argument that photographers do see different things in different ways, even if they are just taking a picture of them. My aunt has a very sophisticated camera but isn't a professional photographer at all.
I took her to the Bonneville Salt Flats here in Utah. It is a bunch of salt that looks like snow, or a lake but one can walk on it and observe the surrounding mountains, etc. She saw what I didn't see. She took pictures of individualized crystals that make up the salt. She took pictures of the cracks in the salts, how it divides, etc. I would have never noticed that. And I believe her photos are beautiful and a different perspective than mine.
In other words, thank you for your personal explanation.
(BTW, sorry this is off the subject, Dvora I responded to your comment on my review. And thank you again.)
I am still behind Dvora in my reading, but I would like to add to her comments regarding Degas. In my opinion, his work is the most interesting of the Impressionists because of his focus on movement instead of light. It describes his impressive study of the Japanese woodcut prints, especially that of Utagawa Hiroshige.
Station of Otsu 1848-1849
This Japanese work describes the subsequent way Degas painted his works. "Hiroshige has taken a bird's-eye view of the action...the voyeuristic effect of the aerial position is accentuated by the structure of the image, which he has arranged along a diagonal line, running from the bottom left-hand corner of the picture to top right, creating a sense of motion that takes the eye beyond the frame to a single, imaginary vanishing point. To add yet more dynamism to the picture, Hiroshige has aggressively cropped the action that is taking place in the foreground...The result is an image that makes you, the viewer, feel strangely present--complicit even"
We then see a picture of Degas' The Dance Class 1874
Notice how "Degas has arranged his composition in a diagonal band running from the bottom left-hand corner to the top right. He has also chosen a raised viewpoint, an asymmetrical design, exaggerated foreshortening and severe cropping at the out edges of the picture....It is a visual trick, of course, but a very effective one. It animates what would otherwise appear to be a static scene. Degas's intention was to communicate to us that what we are seeing is a fleeting moment that he has frozen in time"
I kept having to look from one picture to the other to see the similarities and notice the way the movement was really created. It's true, the Trompe-l'œil is very effective.
Here is another painting that shows the Japanese influence in the work of Degas.
Carriage at the Races 1872
Because of his difference in the creation of his works from the other Impressionists of his time, Degas actually considered himself a realist painter and didn't like being called an Impressionist though as Gompertz describes "There was much in his approach that chimed with the art being produced by his colleagues. His motifs were modern, metropolitan, everyday and bourgeois. He used a colorful palette, he simplified his subjects, he painted with loose brushwork; he too wanted to make pictures that communicated the fleeting impression of a moment"
For those of the group who are reading along or just reading the posts of our reading, what do you think of Degas and his techniques as opposed or in comparison to the other Impressionists?
Heather wrote: "Equivalent VIIICarl Andre
1966
This is found in the introduction, but for those who are reading with us, and even those who just look at the above pictures, what is your opinion? Is this "art"..."
I've said it before, say it now and will forever say it again. Andre is a fraud. Yes, he's a poseur, a phony, his work is crap and he should be banished from the art world. There, I told you what I think. His work was what art students learned to draw in their first week of their first semester of their first year. I will never understand the art world's insistence on painting over the nekked emperor. This is the kind of crap that makes non visual people or those mostly uneducated in art to scratch their heads and wonder what next will those damn fools come up with, and they are entirely correct in that estimation.
Had Andre not been a famous artist he would be sitting in a federal prison today for murder. His action alone should have gotten him blacklisted by the art world, but no, he has his phony boosters claim a false significance to his work. Bah humbug.
Dvora wrote: "That works for me. I like learning about how and why art evolved how it has. But as far as I'm concerned, those blocks you've posted are not art, nor are they particularly interesting. Maybe I'll c..."Don't bother changing your opinion. The work by Andre IS CRAP
oh my gosh, Geoffrey! I had never even heard of him, let alone his story. He killed his own wife the same year they were married? Wow, and then acquitted. That is insane! I just looked it up on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_AndreThey show this picture of a sidewalk called 43 Roaring forty
I would rather have more elaborate sidewalks in my own garden.
Yes, it was his Cuban born wife, Ana Mendieta. He chased her around the studio in a fit of jealousy and anger because her artistic career was in the ascendancy and his was losing its stellar quality. They ended up on the fire escape where she fell to her death. At the very least, death by depraved indifference.He was arrested and tried for second degree murder but there were no witnesses. He had scratches on his body and one person heard her scream, "NO,NO,NO.
I recall him getting a lucrative public installation commission from a New Hampshire town and he ended up transporting 78 unhewn stones from a local quarry to the town's central park.
It does seem that much (most? all?) of contemporary art is the Hans Christian Andersen story of the Kings New Clothes being acted out. By lots of people.
My opinion exactly, Dvora. To the risk of sounding like the Don, a lot of people are k-ss--g other peoples ar--s
I appreciated the observation on page 100 about Matisse, "...his ability to make a simple mark on canvas that makes an immediate and memorable connection with the viewer elevates him from the good painter to the great artist. The balancing effect of his contrasting shapes, and the coherence of his compositions have been matched have been matched by very few artists in the history of painting."I appreciate this because I think it's true, but it's something I hadn't realized when I looked at his (or anyone else's) paintings. That is to say, it is instructive to me about how to look at paintings. And that is the sort of thing I was hoping for from this book.
On the other hand, I am now into the chapter on Futurism and am finding that there is nothing here that interests me. I think I may have arrived at the period in modern art where any connection between the art and me has been lost. I will plod on a little longer, but if my interested is not piqued, I may not arrive at the end of this book.
Thank you for your insight, Dvora. Interesting what you said about Cezanne, I never thought of that, either. I'm still behind you but can't wait to get to that part.And thank you for your honesty about not really wanting to read the more recent Modern art. I will have to see for myself what you are referring to. I do want to try to understand those paintings that make no sense to me. I hope I don't find it boring. I would be disappointed if you quit reading because I am enjoying your comments, but I understand that you would want to move on to another book that would be of more interest to you.
In fact, I messed up and will now correct the post. He was talking about Matisse, not Cezanne (who was great for other reasons).
Dvora wrote: "In fact, I messed up and will now correct the post. He was talking about Matisse, not Cezanne (who was great for other reasons)."ahh, ok. Thank you, Dvora. I really like Matisse and am looking forward to getting to that section.
On the cover of the book, in between the lines of the title, it reads, "An essential primer not only for art lovers but for art loathers too", a quote from the Daily Express.I could say that's me. I do love art, but I don't like much that is recent. Gompertz tells us that "Both Johns and Rauschenberg felt that the Abstract Expressionists had lost touch with reality. They had become too wrapped up in themselves and had abandoned real subjects in favour of grand pronouncements of their own feelings." (pg. 294)
And that's what I don't like about most modern art. I don't want to be subjected to the artist's feelings and ego.
Finished. And about time. As far as I'm concerned, it started out much better than it ended. That goes for this book and for art movements of the last 50 years.There's no reason to go through it all blow by blow. I think a review should simple give the reader's opinion, and one or two examples should suffice. Here's one: Tracey Emin. Among other of her works, Gompertz talks about My Bed (pg. 382) and describes it as "just that: Tracey Emin's bed, unmade, and dishevelled with stained sheets. It was surrounded on the floor by the detritus of her life: empty bottles of booze, cigarette-ends and dirty underwear."
He goes on to say that "Tracey Emin's unmade bed 'made' her. She became notorious, a love-to-hate character for the media, which she manipulated expertly, becoming very rich and very famous along the way."
Thankfully, I never heard of her until now. On the back cover of my copy it says, in glowing affirmation of this book, that it "explains why Tracey Emin's unmade bed is a work of art, and why yours is not." I beg to differ. Mine is better because (1) I made my bed each morning, and (2) my dirty underwear is hidden away.
In a very poor argument, Gompertz says that "a lot of people knock Tracey Emin, say she is a fraud. History will judge the quality of her art, but she is not a fraud. She has a first class degree from Maidstone College of Art and an MA from the Royal College of Art. Her work can be found in the collections of the world's most illustrious modern art museums (MoMA, Pompidou, Tate); etc.
How sad to resort to making your point by begging the question. The Impressionists had to hold their own exhibition because the establishment didn't like their work. Vincent van Gogh only managed to sell one painting in his lifetime. The art establishment can be wrong either way. The argument for Emin, with her art degrees and acceptance by the Tate doesn't prove a thing. What Gompertz has convinced me of is that art has become a commodity and the art establishment the center of a big business.
Reading will start on Monday Feb 1, 2016 but anyone can begin posting now. Welcome to the group read for 2016! I hope we have some good discussion.