Art of the 20th Century (Double Jumbo) (v. 1 & 2) [Hardcover]

Karl Ruhrberg (Author), Manfred Schneckenburger (Author), Christiane Fricke (Author), Klaus Honnef (Author), Ingo F Walther (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998 | Series: Double Jumbo

An undertaking as immensely ambitious as this one deserves our attention before we even open one of its stunningly illustrated and argued twin volumes. For what Ingo Walther and his international team have done is to make sense of this most explosive of artistic centuries. Who could possibly have forecast on New Year's Eve 1899 that, one hundred years later, painting and sculpture would be only options, not prerequisite disciplines for modern artists, constantly questioning both the technical and thematic definitions of their work? The infinite laboratory of experiment that the visual arts have become over the last decades highlights not only the inherent potential for human creativity and representation, but also shows the way individuals and groups have responded to the huge social, political and technological changes of this most turbulent of times. Ranging across the full spectrum of disciplines available, including photography and new media, and thematically chaptered to highlight relationships between works and movements, this readable and encyclopaedic masterwork does just what it says on the cover. Whether you want Surrealism or Land Art, Fluxus or Bauhaus, your art book purchases can stop once you buy this. Warning: it will not fit on your coffee table!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This exhaustive look at a long century of art making and art questioning is, understandably, more broad than it is deep. A massive, boxed, two-volume set, it's divided into sections on painting, sculpture, new media (performance art, video art, earth art, etc.), and photography, with a 150-page biographical appendix of all of the 780 artists whose works are illustrated in the main sections of the book. The original German text, written by a team of writers and art historians, has been fluidly translated by John William Gabriel. The authors are very much of their own time and place: there are more works from after World War II than before it, and many more German artists--including mediocre and derivative ones--make the cut than if the book had been written by, say, an English or a French team. In fact, the English seem slightly shortchanged here. William Tucker, still a vital influence, is represented by a 1967 minimal sculpture and a four-word mention, and painter Howard Hodgkin is omitted entirely. And while American sculptor-entrepreneur Jeff Koons is given more than his due, the thoughtful and significant Rachel Whiteread is not mentioned at all. But Art of the Twentieth Century is an unquestionably useful reference guide to a period that swings dramatically from the impressionists all the way to Nam June Paik.

From Library Journal

As the next millennium approaches, we can expect innumerable surveys of the previous century's achievements in all sorts of subjects. But we can hardly imagine a better look back at the explosion of creativity in the visual arts than this sprawling, two-volume set. Rather than force a single narrative of movements and countermovements, Ruhrberg and his German colleagues concentrate on individual artists, providing just enough surprises to entertain, enlighten, and provoke readers of all levels.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 840 pages
• Publisher: Taschen; 1St Edition edition (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822885762
• ISBN-13: 978-3822885765
• Product Dimensions: 14.3 x 9.9 x 3.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #386,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20th Century Art Shines !, April 2, 2000

By 

Eva (Mexico City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art of the 20th Century (Double Jumbo) (v. 1 & 2) (Hardcover)

This art book is the most complete description, most detailed analysis, most distinguished book of its kind. It has almost every painter of the twentieth century (and some impressionists of the 19th as well) with his/her's most important works and some not so very well known that show the great variety some painters have. This book is full of color photographs of painters (book 1) and of sculptors (book 2). You've never seen Picasso, Pollock, Kline, Lissitsky, Moholy - Nagy, Dali, Vasarely, and hundreds of other so well before ! At the very end of the second book you have a short biography of EACH AND EVERYONE of the painters and sculptors in the book. This is THE MUST BOOK for every art lover in the world.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars spotty, fuzzy, handsomely printed, May 2, 2003

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drollere (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Art of the 20th Century (Double Jumbo) (v. 1 & 2) (Hardcover)

any book that attempts to cover western 20th century art deserves to be reviewed with a large dose of charity -- the task is huge and perhaps impossible. however, this two volume set (one volume in the paperback edition) seems to go out of its way to make things harder than they have to be.

as with any taschen publication, the printing standards are exceptionally high. there is a wealth of beautiful and often canonical color images of major works by many artists ... the binding is solid and the text crisply printed. as a visual browse the book is a delight. the concluding biographical "who's who" of artists is a useful resource -- the book is probably worth having for these merits alone.

unfortunately the coverage of artists and movements is alarmingly spotty. there is no coherent, clear exposition of the guiding principles or characteristics of surrealism, abstract expressionism or modernism (e.g., greenberg and fried), l'art informel, arte povera, etc.; no mention of the evolving and interdependent influences of art, art criticism, art markets, intellectual trends and social causes. everything is broken up into discussions of individual artists, which is obstructive because there is no subject index. and artists of the calibre of joan mitchell, andy goldsworthy, lucien freud or john marin (!) are omitted entirely.

worst, the text is larded with fuzzy, inane or fatuous commentary that illuminates or documents nothing and very often fails to connect ideas to the illustrated examples. of frida kahlo: "The moving paintings of this long-suffering artist are socially critical without being aggressive." (the illustrated painting is a self portrait.) of joseph beuys: "Beuys devoted his entire life and energy as an artist to propagating his own inner convictions. It would simply not have occurred to him to put his message up on a sign above his front door." well, what's your point? of valerie export: "The Austrian artist Valerie Export devoted herself in her feminist Actions to historical manifestations of female body language (ill. right)." the illustration referred to shows export wearing a box; what is not explained is that this permits men to grope her bared breasts in public. of chris burden: "Chris Burden set out on a voyage of self-discovery via his own body (ill. below left)." what does that mean? the illustration referred to shows two video captures of burden's face and two figures, one pointing a rifle at the other; what is unexplained is that burden is having himself shot in the arm, or why that is interesting. and on and on ...

it is not all that difficult to select representative or important works of art from the 20th century -- auction prices and critical reputation can guide the way. on that criterion these two volumes are well done. it's quite another thing to illuminate, explain, contextualize and connect the enormously rich history of art over the past 100 years, and that is where this overview is a serious disappointment.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent history of 20TH Century Art, October 4, 2004

By 

Daniel F. Powell (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art of the 20th Century (Paperback)

I have several art history textbooks that I had to read for school. I generally like Taschen's books because they are attractive and inexpensive. This book is pretty good, it doesn't put you to sleep when you read it like most books like this. Most books that try to cover painting, sculpture, photography and film over a 100 years or so can be very dry. I would reccommend this book over H.H. Arnason's book that I had to read at the Art Inst. of Chicago. I would recommend this book with Stokstad's Art History text. Stokstad taught a friend of mine at Kansas and I found her book to be a good reference. This book, I think, is written by a European...so, it might be good to have an American and European's view of the same subjects.