Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
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Art- The language, the grammar, the syntax.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:42 / 07.04.03

I don't understand art. This isn't helped by the British Modern Art scene which is incestuous and all about the column inches (yay Banksy!) but I can't even begin to talk about whether I think Guernica is a good painting or not, because I don't understand Picasso's style.

So can anyone recommend decent resources to help me get to grips with the major schools of art, their politics, the main players, their styles etc?

Persephone

12:05 / 07.04.03

Well, I just finished Bright Earth by Phil(l)ip Ball, and before that I read The Story of Art by Ernest Gombrich. I'm at the very beginning of learning about art, too & now I feel like I have a little bit of a foundation to build on. But be advised that someone else in this forum has said that Gombrich is deadly boring...

Jack Fear

13:43 / 07.04.03

Laugh if you want, but Sister Wendy Beckett's The Story of Painting is a good start for the beginner. It's fairly comprehensive, clearly and engagingly written—indeed, often quotable—pitched to the layman, and splashed with an endearing eccentricity. There's a video series and companion book.

Linus Dunce

19:01 / 07.04.03

Yup, start of with something general with lots of concise text, like The Penguin Dictionary of Art(?) or whatever.

Kit-Cat Club

19:15 / 07.04.03

Gombrich is, I think, pretty good as a general introduction, but doesn't he only go up to the beginning of the twentieth century? There's a book called Modern Times, Modern Places by a chap called Peter Conrad which looks as though it should put C20 art movements into context (I;d lend you my copy but I had to sell it last summer - before I'd read the thing as well, very annoying. My advice though would be to go to an art bookshop (erm - Zwemmers? Or Shipleys. Or the Tate Modern shop, that's pretty good) and browse for a bit.

Do you have any idea what sort of thing you're interested in, Flowers? I mean - do you like modern stuff, conceptual stuff, Impressionists, Renaissance altarpieces, or do you not know until you see it (whatever it is)?

Persephone

22:19 / 07.04.03

doesn't he only go up to the beginning of the twentieth century

Yes, and I needed him to keep going... 20th c. art is what I'm really interested in --which is odd, as 20th c. literature is what I'm not really interested in.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:16 / 08.04.03

in a hurry, but just to say that Gombrich's okay, but very very old fashioned, and some of his judgements are somewhat rooted in the time he was writing.

For excellent, simply-written but informative intros to any period, don't think you can do better than the Thames and Hudson 'World of Art' series. Another advantage is that I can lend you the 20th Century Art and Art Since 1945 titles, along with a load of others if you get interested

or there's a couple of those beginners guides, dealing with Picasso and other C20 masters.

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