The Art Book: New Edition

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See more Introduction to Italian Sculpture, Volume III: Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture Also a theoretician and teacher, he was adamant that art should be completely separate from life, and life from art, saying "art is art as art and everything else is everything else, art as art is nothing but art".

Boltanski, reserve of dead Swiss (your reservation has been cancelled. Is that even legal by the way, using photographs of dead people from local newspapers for the unauthorized purpose of an art installation? I'd normally laugh at the artwork's description but considering the topic, the blurb angered me instead "in previous works, Boltanski had used photographs of Jewish children. Here, by using images of the Swiss, a race associated with neutrality rather than a specific and terrible fate, Boltanski lays greater emphasis on the universality of mortality"). Baumeister, mortaruru with red overhead (Willi by name, Baumeister by nature, or vice versa, just too easy, so no retitling. You'd think someone with such a fantastic three in one name would be extra self-conscious to do serious work). Another amusing/sad detail, you can tell from each entry's blurb how good/bad the art is going to be. If the blurb is actually describing the painting or has some psychological/social context, chances are something imaginative or skillful follows and that something is from the nineteenth century or earlier. If the blurb is talking about symbols, concepts, ideas and the philosophy of the artist, chances are something ridiculous follows and that something is from the twentieth century (with exceptions of course, the century has had its share of impressive artists).

Reading the book, it's difficult to ignore a theme which comes up repeatedly, so many artists seem to be even more manifesto loving, social driven creatures than some stereotypes suggest. So many times, the artist is described to follow philosophy/school A, then switches to philosophy/school B, or idolizes artist/mentor C, then switches to artist/mentor D, or creates a clique E, then switches to collective F, and so it goes. I don't think you get to see that so much in other art forms (for example, with writers or even musicians), where usually, the serious artists dislike (or at least claim to dislike) the notion of genres, tribes or ideology. Anyway, art is different, it requires technical skill (well, see subsequent paragraphs on that), and comes from a tradition of manual workmanship, perhaps it makes sense that when the apprenticeship system weakened amidst the social changes of the modern age, substitute forms would take its place.

But ironically, the editors and the artists themselves unashamedly express the same points in a language/philosophy that's more ridiculous than any writer's satire. I copy here some of the earnest fawning quotes/blurbs from the book. A sublime bit of toilet reading for me. At two or three paintings per trip to the washroom, the enjoyment will last for the better part of a year! How nifty is that? What makes the book loose seriousness is the tendency of the editors to select laughable modern or conceptual art. I don't blame them, if the art world considers some artists as masters, then who am I to judge. OK, I judge. Especially since the rest of the review is more of a rant, for personal indulgence/reference, including funny/pretentious quotes from the book at the end. See more The Music of Painting: Music, Modernism and the Visual Arts from the Romantics to John Cage The perfect prescription for someone who thinks Kupka might have something to do with the continuing cup-cake craze.The editors have truly built a City of Ladies in this brilliant and much-needed book." —NY Journal of Books

The selection of artists has a decidedly Western and Christian bias. There are a few Japanese and South-American artists here and there, but the overwhelming majority are from mainland Europe and English speaking countries. Also the depicted scenes (at least until the beginning of the 20th century) are from either Roman or Christian mythology or Western European aristocratic and everyday life. After a while, seeing the same scenes over and over again, even if depicted by different artists, becomes quite monotonous and boring. Calder, lobster trap and fishtail (interesting to see the use of the word mobile in art in a pre cellphone era. "Calder was the inventor of the mobile in 1932". What is more of an abomination, comparing the older or recent creation, I can't decide). I've always wanted to learn more about art and art history, and this was a good sampling. It takes 500 different artists and shows one work from each of them. It was a nice introduction to artists I hadn't heard of before, and it gave a brief synopsis of the work and the artist. This really should have been called The Western Art Book. There is only one Asian artist represented, and Latin America is limited to a few Cubans and Mexicans. Everyone else is completely absent.What a delight! A selection of 500 works of art, paintings and sculptures alike, from 500 different artists with no reference to nationality, school of thought, medium, date or topic. The works are presented alphabetically by artist and each work is accompanied by explanatory information on it and its creator. THE ART BOOK is “an unparalleled visual source book and a celebration of our rich and multi-faceted culture.” For those fans particularly taken by any given work of art who might like to find an opportunity to see it in the flesh, each work and, of course, each artist, is cross-referenced with an international directory of galleries and museums to visit. This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so. Robert Rauschenberg. [The telegram sent by the aforementioned artist when requested to paint a portrait, which since then is considered to be the "painting"]. I guess I'm being narrow-minded at best or philistine at worse, anyway these are old criticisms that others have expressed better. I vaguely remember many eloquent, fun lines from Tom Wolfe's "painted world" on the topic. Although in the spirit of negativity in this review, I also remember extremely repetitious blah blah, and what should have been a brief, fun, ranty article, not a "proper" book. Yet, let's find something good to quote from it from Wikiquote (and as it turns out, even the quote on its own is repetitive). Remember how this book was seen throughout the whole Friends series? First at Central Perk, then at Monica's. Now it's on my shelf, thanks to Patty :) Buren, two levels (I sentence this column to ten years in prison, for contempt of the court of aesthetics and public opinion).