A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern [Paperback]

Kirk Varnedoe (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Taking on critics of all stripes, Varnedoe argues that modern art was not deterministically shaped by the grinding-wheel of social forces, new technologies or foreign influences. The flatness of Degas's pictorial space, he contends, owes less to Japanese prints or photography than to an unprecedented late-19th-century burst of experimentation with perspective. In Picasso's and Gauguin's primitivism, Varnedoe discerns a process of pulling objects out of their original contexts in order to alter our way of seeing. With reference to 286 plates (one-third in color), he shows how artists have changed the rules as he considers the devices of fragmentation (from Rodin to Pop Art) and the use of an overhead view (from Andre Kertesz's aerial photographs to Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty earthwork). Director of painting and sculpture at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Varnedoe makes a novel case for modern art as an opening up of human potential driven by individual creativity.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

This is a group of four broadly connected essays attempting to define that now-old question, What is modern art about? Varnedoe (director of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art) identifies four characteristics--juxtaposition of near and far, fragmentation and repetition, primitivism, and a viewpoint from above--which he discusses in the context of art from 1870 to 1950. His insights and readings of the facts are frequently fresh and provocative, if not always convincing. Less documentary than Robert Hughes's Shock of the New , Varnedoe's essays are occasionally mixed in tone, as though given as lectures. Nevertheless, this is a serious work on modern art; recommended.
- Jack Perry Brown, Ryerson & Burnham Libs., Art Inst . of Chicago
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810925745
• ISBN-13: 978-0810925748
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,261,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring!, December 2, 2000

By 

Edward Scott Haas (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (Paperback)

Varndoe's book is the perfect antidote to the complaints of all the reactionary modern art bashers out there who accuse the moderns of lack of talent, pretentiosness or even a nihilistic hatred of reality. *A Fine Disregard* proves the opposite case. The moderns were motivated by the highest artistic impuses, were very talented and (best of all) were free spirits not beholden to static tradition and not afraid to experiment. Yes, some of the experiments failed, but is that not the case in science as well? What is important is that the moderns were imaginative, vigourous and playful in ways that no one had been before them. Rather than acting as passive human cameras, they willfuly exaggerated the colors and shapes of their subject matter in order to express their emotions and tell us which attributes they saw as most important. An artist who saw color as most important might reduce a meadow to a swirling field of unnaturally vivid color. An artist who was fascinated with the shape of things might reduce complex objects to simple geometry for the sake of emphasis. Some modern paintings are not insipred by objects in the everyday world at all, but are an attempt to paint states of mind or reflect on color and shape as ends in themselves. And what is wrong with any of this? Nothing at all. In fact it is a great tribute to human creativity.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A loving meditation on art, October 29, 2002

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california-bookworm (California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (Hardcover)

Ten stars. This beautifully-written, handsomely-illustrated book is a must-read for all lovers of art, of any period. Not only does Varnedoe illuminate the works of specific artists, traditions and eras, he proposes fresh ways of looking at and thinking about art. Writing about Degas, he says, "This Realism doesn't describe a world, it proposes one." Modern art makes the familiar look strange so that we may come to know it more fully - from a variety of perspectives. Key to Varnedoe's argument is the contribution of the individual artist, whose innovations should not be reduced to a "cultural context" by later historians. My favorite quote in the book comes not from Varnedoe but from the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovski: "And ... so that stones may be stony, there exists what we call art." A provocative and inspiring read.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific crystal introduction to all art , not just modern, November 12, 2000

By 

film slave (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (Hardcover)

Very fine purgative for all of us confused by the corrective, pedantic style of much art criticism. Varnedoe writes clearly, directly and builds a rich, warm, complex image of modern art. The section on Degas, Hiroshige et al. is wonderful writing. His argument is delivered with a lovely sense of story. An enjoyable,yet provocative read.