Art Appreciation

A hand-signed porcelain urinal. An abstract drip painting. A silent 700 hour performance.00Art has changed since the days of Giotto, Michelangelo, and even Picasso--and many of us are perplexed. Do modern and contemporary artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Marina Abramovic represent civilization's highest achievements? Or is something else afoot? In The Art of Looking, art critic Lance Esplund demonstrates that works of modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they seem to be. He reveals the threads that weave the art of the past with that of the present, and shows us how to separate the genuine article from mere rags--not to mention the emperor's new clothes.

Helps anyone fall in love with art, whether for the first time or all over again.

Behind the closed door of the contemporary artist’s studio is a hidden world of images―those artworks from the distant or near past that have animated, troubled, consoled, or inspired the artists of today. This book reveals that hidden world, presenting an intimate guide to the imaginations of today’s leading practitioners through the works they love best. Artworks ranging from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries are featured, often supplemented by reproductions of work by the selecting artists. Intimate and evocative, the stories speak of the challenges, provocations, revelations, and delights that can be found when one artist looks closely at the work of another. 

The art of the past can seem very far away, obscured both by time and by knotty academic theory. Foregrounding the experience of the contemporary viewer, Look Again shows how this need not be the case. Ossian Ward's simple, ten-step programme acts as an aid to looking, breaking down the often obscure strategies of the Old Masters into intuitive categories - from Art as Honesty to Art as Vision. 0Look Again's novel approach is influenced by John Berger's Ways of Seeing, but is here updated for the art world of the 21st century. Key to this book is an emphasis on ways of experiencing Old Masters - more than just looking. Just as contemporary art should be judged by how it moves us, cajoles us and envelops us, so too can the great paintings of the world be seen as immersive, captivating, even participatory experiences. Ward does not deny the specific complexities and barriers associated with looking at art from other eras. Instead he offers readers a new formula to help illuminate this kind of art. His method not only provides the viewer with the tools to interpret a work of art, but also assumes that we hold some of this knowledge within ourselves already. In other words, everyone can share the enriching experience of Old Master paintings.

Demystifies western art—and demonstrates that it's accessible to adults and children alike.

The chief art critic for The New York Times tours the world's museums with such preeminent painters, photographers, and sculptors as Roy Lichtenstein, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Elizabeth Murray, who speak informally about their favorite works of art. 

In this broad cultural survey, art historian and critic James Hall brilliantly maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus to the prolific self-image-making of contemporary artists. His intelligent and vivid account shows how artists' depictions of themselves have been part of a continuing tradition that reaches back for centuries. Along the way he reveals the importance of the medieval 'mirror craze'; the explosion of the genre during the Renaissance; the confessional self-portraits of Titian and Michelangelo; the role of biography for serial self-portraitists such as Courbet and van Gogh; themes of sex and genius in works by Munch, Bonnard and Modersohn-Becker; and the latest developments of the genre in the era of globalization. The full range of self-portraits is covered here, from comic and caricature self-portraits to 'invented' or imaginary ones, as well as key collections of self-portraiture such as that of the Medici in Florence. Throughout, Hall asks why - and when - artists have chosen to make self-portraits, and looks deeply into the worlds and mindsets of the artists who have created them. Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated, the book features the work of a wide range of artists including Alberti, Caravaggio, Courbet, Dürer, Emin, Gauguin, Giotto, Goya, Kahlo, Koons, Magritte, Mantegna, Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt and Warhol. Offering a rich and lively history, The Self-Portrait is an essential read for all those interested in this most enduringly popular and humane of art forms.