Customer Reviews

Mainstreams of Modern Art

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I found this in my father's collection of college books, and it was my first introduction to the world of art, modern or otherwise, at the age of 14. I didn't understand a lot of what Canaday was saying being so young, but some of it must have stuck with me. Later in college, where I majored in physiology and botany, I took several art history courses in Baroque and Modern Art, and got the highest grade in the class, higher than the art history majors.

Now I can read the book with a much greater understanding and appreciation, thirty years later. Canaday's strengths are in showing how the modern age grew out of Neo-Classical painting such as Ingres, the pre-Impressionists such as the Barbizon painters, and the Impressionists themselves, and in showing how modern developments are similar, or different from, their precursors. Many art historians tend to see each period as a rejection and even a revolution from the old, such as in the great Arnold Hauser's massive work on Mannerism, but Canaday avoids such dramatic but extreme positions.

He is aso a talented presenter of modern art itself, a period which is, I think, a lot of fun to write about what with it's fast pace and all the dynamism and schools that grew up in such a short period of time, not to mention people like Salvador Dali, and Surrealism in general. (I prefer the more contemplative and metaphysical Magritte to Dali, but what the heck, they're both great, no doubt about that). Canaday, covers the modern period from Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet, and others up through the end of World War II, if I remember right.

I should mention, however, that although I like Canaday and agree with his assessment of modern art to some extent (he thought of much of modern art was a fraud and accused prominent artists of duping the public), his views were not popular with artists and the intellectual avante-garde. My view is that while I like and appreciate modern art, I prefer the old masters, who I think were just better artists and painters. Modern artists' rejection of the classical standards may have produced a lot of fun and even interesting stuff, but in my opinion the quality of the work pales in comparison to much of what went before. So in that sense I agree with Canaday, although not completely in that I don't see Modern Art as a complete waste and a fraud.

Canaday also wrote at least a couple mystery novels under a pseudonym which I don't recall anymore, but I never read these so I don't know how good they were.

My book was the earlier 1959 edition of this work, and it still remains one of my favorite books on art. I don't know what happened to Canaday in the years since, but I hope he is alive and well and still penning his interesting, well written, and cogent insights about modern art.

Mainstreams of Modern Art takes a comprehensive look at art beginning with the Neo Classical period and ending with the Moderist Era. The book has extensive color plates that examplify the concepts it is trying to convey. This is a perfect book to be used in the setting of a classroom, and would recommend it to all.

Why why why would anyone publish an art history book with black and white pictures? I can understand black and white pictures capturing art from the renaissance or pieces destroyed in the world war...but I cannot lookout a Turner in black and white, really.

I ordered this book, and it came within 3 days. The book was in really good shape!