A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works (Paperback)
Description
An exciting new critical voice explores what makes art great through an illuminating analysis of the world’s artistic masterpieces, now in paperback.
From a carved mammoth tusk (c. 40,000 BCE) to Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1505–1510) to Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), a remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto the cultural consciousness of the past forty thousand years.
Author Kelly Grovier devotes himself to illuminating these and more than fifty other seminal works in this radical new history of art. Stepping away from biography, style, and the chronology of “isms” that preoccupies most of art history, A New Way of Seeing invites interaction with art, learning from the artworks and not just about them. Grovier identifies that part of the artwork that bridges the divide between art and life and elevates its value beyond the visual to the vital. This book challenges the 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, Grovier casts fresh light on these famous works by daring to isolate a single, often overlooked detail responsible for its greatness and power to move.
About the Author
Kelly Grovier is a poet, historian, and cultural critic. He is a regular contributor on art to the Times Literary Supplement, and his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Observer, Sunday Times, and Wired. Educated at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the University of Oxford, he is the author of 100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age, Art Since 1989, and On the Line: Conversations with Sean Scully.
Praise For…
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 - The Guardian