Review: The shock of the new
Redactionele recensie - Kirkus ReviewsLike Hilton Kramer, a critic he approvingly quotes, Hughes is reactionary: he reacts continually, and with a certain pugnacious glee, when things do not quite turn out as originally advertised. One of those things is modernist art--out of whose spluttering history Hughes has made a Kenneth Clark-like series for the BBC, the origin of these illustrated essays. Owing to the visual jumpiness a TV series demands, Hughes is all over the place--literally (Van Gogh's Provence, Monet's Giverny, Cezanne's Mont Ste. Victoire) and metaphorically: backpedaling from DeKooning to Kandinsky; terming Picasso--whom he has real antipathy for--a ""walking scrotum"" and his early interest in African sculpture ""a dainty parody of the imperial model""; minutely explaining Duchamp's Large Glass as a masturbation allegory; skewering (along the lines of Peter Blake) the majority of modernist architecture as authoritarian. In general, then, Hughes' is a cultural politics of complaint, pointing to but never describing some vague state of social satisfaction and moral/artistic integrity that the art of this century ostensibly plays no part in: ""There is no intensity without rules, limits, and artifice."" So it becomes more than just a matter of curiosity to see what Hughes actually does approve of. Length of attention is indicative, a corollary of his sympathies: he speaks volubly of Dada, of Rauschenberg and Johns, of Robert Motherwell--punning, anthologizing, highly processed work all; Robert Rosenblum's far-fetched but glossy thesis linking Caspar David Friedrich to Mark Rothko along the same sublime/transcendental arc is bought whole. There's a certain polish to these eclectic nods, true, but finally little depth. A scattershot book, in sum, intermittently entertaining, but without a base or core.
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Anchi - GoodreadsGreat writing voices. The documentary series of this was just as good. Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Jan - GoodreadsOnce you get past the wordiness and lengthy, labyrinthian sentences complete with equally awkward parenthetical interjections, you can get to some juicy bits of art criticism. I read this years ago ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Erik Hiller - GoodreadsI was looking for an introduction to Western modern art and this fit the bill. Well illustrated, it helps put otherwise confusing pieces of art and movements in modern art, that we may all recognize ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Paul Hebron - GoodreadsGreat guide through modern art by Robert Hughes, with lots of nice pictures (which might sound stupid but how often can you look at a glossy, properly coloured print of a great painting?). The book ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Tim - GoodreadsModern Art was pretty much a mystery to me until I read this book for my Fine Art degree. I love the way Hughes writes, and the way he makes art seem like such a vital expression of the times the ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Trevor - GoodreadsThe first few episodes of this – I watched this, by the way, but will need to get hold of the book now – are nearly entirely a rip off of Walter Benjamin's work, particularly his Art in the Age of ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Fraser Kinnear - GoodreadsThis was an epic read for me. I saw Hughes give an interview on Charlie Rose and kept his book in mind until I ran across it at my favorite book store in LA. I've read a few art history books before ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Tesia Blackburn - GoodreadsThe best book out there about modern art. Anyone who is a painter, or wants to understand modern painting should read this book. Robert Hughes was a great art historian and the way he relates the subject make it very compelling. Highly recommended. Volledige recensie lezen
Review: The Shock of the New
Gebruikersrecensie - Nikolas - GoodreadsGreat, apart from his assertion that the last true work of political art was Picasso's Guernica. Volledige recensie lezen
