Description
What makes great art great? Why do some works pulse in the imagination generation after generation, century after century? From Botticelli's Birth of Venus to Picasso's Guernica, some paintings and sculptures have become so famous, so much a part of who we are, we no longer really look at them. We take their greatness for granted; our eyes have become near-obsolete. We need a new way of seeing.
Unsatisfied with traditional, hand-me-down interpretations of these masterpieces interested only in learning about art, and not from it, Kelly Grovier combed the surface of revered works from the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor to Frida Kahlo's self-portraits. What did he find? The key to their enduring power to move and delight us. He discovered that every truly great work is hardwired with an underappreciated detail, a flourish of strangeness, that ignites it from deep inside.
From a carved mammoth tusk (c. 40,000 bce) to Duchamp's Fountain (1917), and Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (1505-10) to Louise Bourgeois's Maman (1999), a remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto cultural consciousness over the past 40,000 years - a resilient visual vocabulary whose meaning has proved elastic and endlessly renewable from era to era.
It is to these works that Kelly Grovier devotes himself in this radical new art history. Stepping away from biography, style and the chronology of 'isms' that preoccupies most art history to focus on the artworks themselves, Grovier tells a new story in which we learn from the artworks, not just about them. Looking closely at each work, he identifies an 'eye-hook' - the part of the artwork that 'bridges the divide between art and life, giving it palpable purpose and elevating its value beyond the visual to the vital' - and encourages us to squint through this narrow aperture to perceive the work's truest meanings. This book is unique in emphasizing the durability of what is made over the ephemerality of its making and serves as a rejoinder to a growing sensibility that conceives of artists as brands and the works they create as nothing more than material commodities to hoard, hide, and flip for profit.
Lavishly illustrated with many of the most breathtaking and enduring artworks ever created, as well as many that inspired or took inspiration from them, this refreshing book will spark a debate about how it is that artworks articulate who we are and what it means to be alive in the world.
A new way of appreciating art that puts the artwork front and centre, brought to us by one of the freshest and most exciting new voices in cultural criticism
About the Author
Kelly Grovier is a feature writer for BBC Culture and the author of several acclaimed studies of art, including 100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age, Art Since 1989 and A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works, all published by Thames & Hudson. His writings have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, the Sunday Times, the Observer, the RA Magazine and Wired magazine. His history of London's Newgate Prison, The Gaol, was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'. He is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.
Reviews
'Finally, a book that asks, with a restless and sensitive eye, what it is that makes masterpieces sing across the centuries. A highly enjoyable history of art that is also a fascinating meditation on excellence' - Jonathan Jones, art critic
Book Information
ISBN 9780500239636
Author Kelly Grovier
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publisher Thames & Hudson Ltd
Weight(grams) 1690g
Unsatisfied with traditional, hand-me-down interpretations of these masterpieces interested only in learning about art, and not from it, Kelly Grovier combed the surface of revered works from the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor to Frida Kahlo's self-portraits. What did he find? The key to their enduring power to move and delight us. He discovered that every truly great work is hardwired with an underappreciated detail, a flourish of strangeness, that ignites it from deep inside.
From a carved mammoth tusk (c. 40,000 bce) to Duchamp's Fountain (1917), and Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (1505-10) to Louise Bourgeois's Maman (1999), a remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto cultural consciousness over the past 40,000 years - a resilient visual vocabulary whose meaning has proved elastic and endlessly renewable from era to era.
It is to these works that Kelly Grovier devotes himself in this radical new art history. Stepping away from biography, style and the chronology of 'isms' that preoccupies most art history to focus on the artworks themselves, Grovier tells a new story in which we learn from the artworks, not just about them. Looking closely at each work, he identifies an 'eye-hook' - the part of the artwork that 'bridges the divide between art and life, giving it palpable purpose and elevating its value beyond the visual to the vital' - and encourages us to squint through this narrow aperture to perceive the work's truest meanings. This book is unique in emphasizing the durability of what is made over the ephemerality of its making and serves as a rejoinder to a growing sensibility that conceives of artists as brands and the works they create as nothing more than material commodities to hoard, hide, and flip for profit.
Lavishly illustrated with many of the most breathtaking and enduring artworks ever created, as well as many that inspired or took inspiration from them, this refreshing book will spark a debate about how it is that artworks articulate who we are and what it means to be alive in the world.
A new way of appreciating art that puts the artwork front and centre, brought to us by one of the freshest and most exciting new voices in cultural criticism
About the Author
Kelly Grovier is a feature writer for BBC Culture and the author of several acclaimed studies of art, including 100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age, Art Since 1989 and A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works, all published by Thames & Hudson. His writings have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, the Sunday Times, the Observer, the RA Magazine and Wired magazine. His history of London's Newgate Prison, The Gaol, was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'. He is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.
Reviews
'Finally, a book that asks, with a restless and sensitive eye, what it is that makes masterpieces sing across the centuries. A highly enjoyable history of art that is also a fascinating meditation on excellence' - Jonathan Jones, art critic
Book Information
ISBN 9780500239636
Author Kelly Grovier
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publisher Thames & Hudson Ltd
Weight(grams) 1690g
