The Painting of Modern Life

Author: T.J. Clark
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525520511
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 636

Book Description
From T.J. Clark comes this provocative study of the origins of modern art in the painting of Parisian life by Edouard Manet and his followers. The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was a brand-new city, recently adorned with boulevards, cafés, parks, Great Exhibitions, and suburban pleasure grounds—the birthplace of the habits of commerce and leisure that we ourselves know as "modern life." A new kind of culture quickly developed in this remade metropolis, sights and spectacles avidly appropriated by a new kind of "consumer": clerks and shopgirls, neither working class nor bourgeois, inventing their own social position in a system profoundly altered by their very existence. Emancipated and rootless, these men and women flocked to the bars and nightclubs of Paris, went boating on the Seine at Argenteuil, strolled the island of La Grande-Jatte—enacting a charade of community that was to be captured and scrutinized by Manet, Degas, and Seurat. It is Clark's cogently argued (and profusely illustrated) thesis that modern art emerged from these painters' attempts to represent this new city and its inhabitants. Concentrating on three of Manet's greatest works and Seurat's masterpiece, Clark traces the appearance and development of the artists' favorite themes and subjects, and the technical innovations that they employed to depict a way of life which, under its liberated, pleasure-seeking surface, was often awkward and anxious. Through their paintings, Manet and the Impressionists ask us, and force us to ask ourselves: Is the freedom offered by modernity a myth? Is modern life heroic or monotonous, glittering or tawdry, spectacular or dull? The Painting of Modern Life illuminates for us the ways, both forceful and subtle, in which Manet and his followers raised these questions and doubts, which are as valid for our time as for the age they portrayed.

The Painter of Modern Life

Author: Charles Pierre Baudelaire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 81

Book Description
Poet, esthete and hedonist, Baudelaire was also one of the most revolutionary art critics of his time. Here he delves into beauty, fashion, dandyism, the purpose of art, and the role of the artist, and he describes the painter who, in his opinion, more fully expresses the drama of modern life.

Alice Neel

Author: Jeremy Lewison
Publisher: Mercatorfonds
ISBN: 9780300220070
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
This groundbreaking book re-evaluates the work of Alice Neel, one of the most renowned American portrait painters of the 20th century This insightful catalogue examines anew the full range of Alice Neel s (1900-1984)celebrated paintings of people, still life, and cityscapes. Featuring around seventy paintings spanning the entire length of her career, this handsome book accompanies a major retrospective of her work, and reveals her underlying interest in the history of photography, German painting of the 1920s, and other artists, such as Van Gogh and Cezanne, all of which provided an important precedent for the veracity and raw emotional intensity of her figurative works.Neel is renowned for her visual acuity and psychological depth, and her portraits and nude paintings of friends, family, strangers, and prominent cultural figures alike convey an incredibly consistent intimacy regardless of the relationship to her subject. The accompanying essays trace the trajectory of Neel s artistic language as it evolved alongside contemporaneous trends in the New York City art world and examine the manner in which her own work figured into the social and cultural contexts of her time. Created over a sixty-year period, Neel s oeuvre offers a remarkably expressive document of the specific milieus she navigated through and ultimately transcends the marker of time altogether."

The Painter of Modern Life

Author: George Moore
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843680802
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Two essays remembering Degas by the most acute observers of the avant-garde art of their time, Walter Sickert and George Moore. Introduced by Professor Anna Gruezner Robins, a leading expert on Degas and his British admirers

The Writer of Modern Life

Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674022874
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Book Description
"In this book Benjamin reveals Baudelaire as a social poet of the very first rank. More than a series of studies of Baudelaire, these essays show the extent to which Benjamin identifies with the poet and enable him to explore his own notion of heroism."--BOOK JACKET.

Baudelaire and Photography

Author: Timothy Raser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351574396
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Book Description
While Baudelaire's 'Le Peintre de la vie moderne' is often cited as the first expression of our theory of modernism, his choice of Constantin Guys as that painter has caused consternation from the moment of the essay's publication in 1863. Worse still, in his 'Salon de 1859', Baudelaire had also chosen to condemn photography in terms that echo to this day. Why did the excellent critic choose a mere reporter and illustrator as the painter of modern life? How could he have overlooked photography as the painting of modern life? In this study of modernity and photography in Baudelaire's writing, Timothy Raser, who has written on the art criticism of Baudelaire, Proust, Claudel and Sartre, shows how these two aberrations of critical judgment are related, and how they underlie current discussions of both photography and modernism. Timothy Raser is Professor of French at the University of Georgia (USA).

Modern Life

Author: Edward Hopper
Publisher: Hirmer Verlag GmbH
ISBN: 9783777434018
Category : Art, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This exhibition sets the art of Edward Hopper in the context of the diverse and controversial movements dominating American art during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Artist's Way

Author: Julia Cameron
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101156880
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
"With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.

Wyeth

Author: Laura J. Hoptman
Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art
ISBN: 0870708317
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 49

Book Description
In 1948 Andrew Wyeth produced what would become one of the most iconic paintings in American art: a desolate landscape featuring a woman lying in a field, that he called "Christina's World." The woman in the painting, Christina Olson, lived in Cushing, Maine, where Wyeth and his wife kept a summer house. She suffered from polio, and was paralyzed from the waist down; Wyeth was moved to portray her when he saw her one day crawling through the field towards her house. "Christina's World" was to become one of the most well-loved and most scorned works of the twentieth century, igniting heated arguments about parochialism, sentimentality, kitsch and elitism that have continued to dog the art world and Wyeth's own reputation, even after the artist's death in 2009. An essay by MoMA curator Laura Hoptman revisits the genesis of the painting, discussing Wyeth's curious focus, over the course of his career, on a deliberately delimited range of subjects and exploring the mystery that continues to surround the enigmatic painting.

The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter

Author: Steven Nadler
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165750
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
How a famous painting opens a window into the life, times, and philosophy of René Descartes In the Louvre museum hangs a portrait that is considered the iconic image of René Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher. And the painter of the work? The Dutch master Frans Hals—or so it was long believed, until the work was downgraded to a copy of an original. But where is the authentic version, and who painted it? Is the man in the painting—and in its original—really Descartes? A unique combination of philosophy, biography, and art history, The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter investigates the remarkable individuals and circumstances behind a small portrait. Through this image—and the intersecting lives of a brilliant philosopher, a Catholic priest, and a gifted painter—Steven Nadler opens a fascinating portal into Descartes's life and times, skillfully presenting an accessible introduction to Descartes's philosophical and scientific ideas, and an illuminating tour of the volatile political and religious environment of the Dutch Golden Age. As Nadler shows, Descartes's innovative ideas about the world, about human nature and knowledge, and about philosophy itself, stirred great controversy. Philosophical and theological critics vigorously opposed his views, and civil and ecclesiastic authorities condemned his writings. Nevertheless, Descartes's thought came to dominate the philosophical world of the period, and can rightly be called the philosophy of the seventeenth century. Shedding light on a well-known image, The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter offers an engaging exploration of a celebrated philosopher's world and work.