About Modern Art [Paperback]

David Sylvester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

David Sylvester here muses on key artists of the twentieth century and their nineteenth-century forebears. In the process, he offers profound insights into their practice of art. Focusing on the spectator's instinctive emotional and physical response to paintings by such artists as Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning, Newman, and Warhol, Sylvester brings an inspiring sense of the relevance and importance of art to life. Added to this updated edition are essays on Pollock, Twombly, and Serra, among others.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sylvester's approach is ruminative and his prose is peppered with wise epigrams and insights." -- Martin Gayford, Sunday Telegraph

"Sylvester's prose has a sensuous, almost physical dimension to it. -- Richard Dorment, Spectator

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Not for sale in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Canada

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 2 Sub edition (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300092024
• ISBN-13: 978-0300092028
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,586,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opinion as Education, June 29, 2010

By 

Robert Geilfuss (Milwaukee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Modern Art (Paperback)

David Sylvester was one of the finest critics of modern art. He writes as insightfully as Roger Fry and Clement Greenberg, but with none of their dogmatism. Sylvester turned down Cambridge to go live a Bohemian life in Paris after WWII, where he befriended Giacometti among others. Although he is perhaps best known for his close relationships with and brilliant writing about postwar, "existentialist" artists like Giacometti and Francis Bacon, his range is considerable: this volume has essays on artists as different as Cezanne and Roy Lichtenstein, Brancusi and Cy Twombly. Although he never falls into the trap of art for art's sake, and always probes for the full experiential content of art, his taste resembles the high modernist canon propagated by the Museum of Modern Art. The only prewar Expressionist he admires is Chaim Soutine--in other words, German Expressionism is not to his liking. Nor is Surrealism. Nonetheless, this book is a beautifully written education in modern art, all the better for its biting opinion. What good is a rudderless eclecticism, which insults all art by refusing to realize that opposed qualities, opposed values even, are embedded in the work of different schools?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art criticism as an art form., September 25, 2007

By 

Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: About Modern Art (Paperback)

This is a beautifully written book that I would recommend to any art lover. It is a collection of texts published in various media (radio, TV, magazines, exhibition catalogues)and covering most of the great masters of the 20th century. Sylvester only writes about the artists he likes and does it in an elegant and profound way.

If you have ever felt puzzled standing face to face with a "Woman" painted by De Kooning, if you have never been moved by a Rothko abstraction, if you do not understand why some people think that Picasso changed the way we see our world, if you think that your 3-year-old son can paint a Twombly, read this book; it will open your eyes on one of the great pleasures of life: the understanding of high art.