Modern Art, Revised and Updated (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Sam Hunter (Author), John Jacobus (Author), Daniel Wheeler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131895656 | ISBN-13: 978-0131895652 | Publication Date: August 30, 2004 | Edition: 3

Richly illustrated and clearly focused, this book surveys the genesis, development, and culmination of modern European/American painting, sculpture, architecture, and conceptual art—from Post-Impressionism through the most recent developments in the 1990s. It avoids the typical encyclopedic approach of surveys in favor of examining selected but highly representative works in greater depth and from an enlarged spectrum of critical discourse. Organized along chronological lines, topics explore the ideas, forms, events, artists, and works—with each chapter devoted to a style, movement, or decade—from Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh through Minimalism and the general reaction known as Post-Modernism. Ideal for readers with a general interest in art.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

SAM HUNTER is Emeritus Professor of art history at Princeton University, where he taught for twenty-two years. He is also a leading critic of modern and contemporary art, as well as the author of numerous publications, among them Modern French Painting, Modern American Painting and Sculpture, and monographs on Arnaldo Pomodoro, Isamu Noguchi, Marino Marini, Larry Rivers, George Segal, Alex Katz, and Tom Wesselman. An active curator, he has organized more than fifty exhibitions of contemporary art, for which he wrote museum and gallery catalogues. Prior to his appointment at Princeton, Sam Hunter served, successively, as director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, and the Jewish Museum in New York.

JOHN JACOBUS is Professor of Art and Urban Studies at Dartmouth College. Previously he taught at Princeton, the University of California (Berkeley), Smith College, and Indiana University. His publications include 20th-Century Architecture: The Middle Years, books on the architects Philip Johnson and James Stirling, a monograph on Henri Matisse, and, in collaboration with Sam Hunter, American Art of the 20th Century.

DANIEL WHEELER, a longtime editor and translator of art books, is the author of a monograph on the Swiss painter Caspar Wolfe and several landmark publications, including Chateaux of France, The Grand Canal, and Art Since Mid-Century: 1945 to the Present. He also prepared the text for the third edition of H. H. Arnason's History of Modern Art.

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Preface and Acknowledgments

Not long ago a well-established, well-educated man declared that he had known nothing of the world—the world of astute or the world of culture-until he took up the study of art history. Through this new-found avocation he not only discovered some of the most resplendent of human creations, but, through them; he also became aware as never before of the vast multiplicity of human experience—its social as well as aesthetic conventions, its politics and economics, its religions, sciences, ideologies, and ethics, its triumphs and tragic failures. Moreover, he encountered them at the highest level of discourse, for that is where art at its best finds its voice and speaks to us, stimulating the mind and spirit and giving pleasure as few other experiences can. It is pleasure on this scale that we have wanted to afford in Modern Art, a book that for more than twenty-five years has provided many thousands of college students and generally interested readers with their first well-rounded engagement with what we know as modern art. If that first experience can be made satisfying in the way described above, surely it will last forever, enhancing life at all its stages and making the world a more habitable and generous place.

Art becomes meaningful because it has the power to express important things that would in all likelihood remain unstated, or stated in less coherent or moving ways, in any other language. And this power is borne out by the fact that so many of the greatest achievements in modern art survived to triumph over the critical and popular hostility that greeted their first appearance. Clearly, great art can stand alone and speak directly to the perceptive viewer, regardless of how we or other writers may explicate it. Yet, like so many of the finest things in life, art for those who have been enriched by it constitutes an acquired taste, as worth cultivating, through an exchange of ideas, as fluency and freshness in verbal address. As the painter Willem de Kooning said a full half-century ago: "There's no way of looking at a work of art by itself: it's not self-evident—it needs a history, it needs a lot of talking about; it's part of a whole man's life."

By modern art we mean the visual arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, and, new to this edition, photography—created during the last two hundred years, primarily in Europe and the Americas. For the sake of greater effectiveness in our presentation of so vast a subject, we have avoided the encyclopedic approach often adopted for broad, chronological surveys of this sort, the better to examine selected but highly representative works in greater depth and from an enlarged spectrum of critical discourse. The rise of penetrating critique with claims to artistic status in its own right—a phenomenon especially notable during the last quarter-century—virtually demands such an approach. Thus, we have also been as much concerned with recent developments and their complex, motivating theories as with the far more familiar ones of classic modernism and now classic late modernism.

The former, of course, began with Manet and the Impressionists and continued on through Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, all of which climaxed in the international postwar surge of creativity generally known as late modernism. Ignited by high-energy Abstract Expressionism, the late-modern experience finally attained its own apogee in those twinned polarities of the "impure" and the "pure": Pop Art and Minimalism. Once Minimalism, in the late 1960s, appeared to bring the entire modernist project to a close—minimalizing the material until it became immaterial Conceptualism-the post-modern reaction set in, its love/hate challenges to everything that went before so copious and commanding that we have made them the principal focus of our work in the present edition of Modern Art. This, in turn, has encouraged us to take greater account of the growing preference for camera-based art, a preference so widely embraced, and long acknowledged in Modern Art, that we have decided, in this edition, to trace the history of photography back to its sources in the early 19th century and weave that narrative into our story of the so-called "traditional" media associated with painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Even with these improvements, our mode of address remains the same, which is to see art works as striking individual achievements realized within a broader context of history, geography, and culture. For this reason, Chapter 1 has been rewritten, now in the light of the momentous invention of photography, which would change everything in the world of visual expression, beginning right away in 1839. And the force of that development continues unabated, as we demonstrate in Chapter 24, this-time expanded to embrace a number of salient new artists and ideas that have come to the fore in the early years of the 21 st century.

Not only are there dozens of new illustrations; there are as well dozens of older works, throughout the book, that have been converted from black-and-white reproduction to color or simply remade in the interest of higher quality. Consistent with the urge to upgrade and amplify, our publishers have also redesigned the chapter openings, added a second color to the text, and introduced a portfolio of supplemental illustrations, all in color, throughout the sixteen pages of the front matter, thereby bringing visual excitement to a kind of literary no-man's-land usually given over to bare-bones data. And just as the front matter has been reconsidered, so too has the back matter, not only with an updated bibliography but also with a trio of new features: a glossary, a chronology, and a brief appendix on the avant-garde, that cultural phenomenon so fundamental to modernism.

The division of labor in this enterprise was such that our associate John Jacobus prepared the text for Chapters 6, 13, and 21, while the\first of the undersigned continued to be the principal author of Chapters 2 through 5, 7 through 12, and 14 through 20, considerably aided, in content as well as in form, by the second author signing below in the execution of Chapters 2, 5, 7 through 10, 16, 17, and 19. However, for Chapters 1 and 22 through 25, it was Daniel Wheeler alone who prepared the text. But many others, in addition to those listed on page 2, have made contributions without which the book would not have been possible or worthwhile. For the present volume, we are particularly grateful to the classroom teachers—art historians all—who critiqued the 2000 edition and made welcome recommendations for improvement: Professors David Brody, West Chester University; Elizabeth Childs, Washington University; James Housefield, Texas State University; Joseph M. Hutchinson, Texas A&M University; Carol Solomon Kiefer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Linda Dugan Partridge, Marywood University; Aaron Sheon, University of Pittsburgh; Janice Simon, University of Georgia; Tim Smith, Lindsey Wilson College; and Shelley C. Stone, California State University, Bakersfield.

Earlier, Dr. Charles Stuckey, Professor John Hunisak of Middlebury College, Professor Noelle Frackman of the State University of New York, Purchase, and Patricia Sands of the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, did critical readings of various portions of the text and offered countless valuable suggestions for their betterment. A similar service was provided by Phyllis Freeman and Julia Moore, editors at Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Dr. Ruth Kaufmann generously shared with us her vast, working knowledge of the current art scene, while Dr. Sabine Rewald of the Metropolitan Museum dipped into her personal archive of Balthus illustrations for the wonderful picture we have in Figure 525. Without the aid of Dr. Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, professor of art history at, the American University in Paris, we would never have been able to acquire quite so many images from the state museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

As for illustrations, we looked with total dependence to such major cultural institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York and all generously responsive to our many calls for help. On more than one occasion Anita Duquette, archivist at the Whitney, proved to be a true savior. Also supportive of our efforts were the Tate Gallery in London, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Then, too, there were the many commercial galleries—all cited in the captions whose archivists tolerated our endless requests, for images and information, with unfailing grace.

Meanwhile, none of these things would have been feasible without the faith and support of our publishers, in the persons of Alexis Gregory and Mark Magowan of the Vendome Press and Margaret Kaplan, Michael Loeb, and Julia Moore, formerly of Harry N. Abrams, and, at Prentice-Hall, Bud Therien, Sarah Touborg, and Charlyce Jones-Owen. Nor would the book have come into respectable being without the able assistance of Diana Benusiglio, Rosi Chirico, Anna Maria Mascheroni, Vittoria Scaramuzza, and Pietro Bellochio, all of whom worked on earlier editions printed in Milan. For this edition we are especially grateful to Isabel Venero, Sarah Davis, Julia Moore, Cynthia Henthorn, and Peter Rooney, who concerned themselves variously with editorial management, image procurement, the chronology, proofreading, and the index. To one and all we offer our warmest thanks.

SAM HUNTER
DANIEL WHEELER
MAY 2004

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (August 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131895656
• ISBN-13: 978-0131895652
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Modern

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a Book for Beginners, February 14, 2009

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S. Petteway - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Modern Art, Revised and Updated (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

This is the text that I am required to read for my Art History course, so I might have some bias based on the fact that I'm being forced to read it, however in general I don't take much issue with required texts. I just find this book excruciating for multiple reasons:

1) Poor Organization
Image information is not directly next to the image. I am forced to hunt through a bunch of headings to discover the proper credits. When the author references an image that is not on that particular page or chapter, he does so by number (not page number, image number which is progressive throughout the book ranging from 1-877 over 452 pages) creating an annoying and time-consuming hunting game if I don't remember or know the image referenced. In addition to poor image organization, dates are poorly organized. Years and names are thrown around left and right, with no particular order, making it hard to really know what came before what. Information could definitely be organized better. (Or they could at least improve and make more accessible their timeline)

2) Language
As many before me have written, this book is verbose for no reason. Sentences run long and are loaded with multiple clauses that themselves have multiple subjects and verbs, making it hard to follow what the author is saying. I will stare blankly at sentences, reading and rereading them multiple times before I can get the semblance of a meaning. I also find that diction/word choice is very poor--or perhaps elitist would be a better term. The text has a variety of French terminology that is integrated without being defined. Because of four years of French I understand them, but I wonder how it affects people without this advantage. Adjectives, adverbs and verbs also suffer from poor selection. They are either too vague or too strong, and loaded with opinion rather than fact--which brings me to my next point.

3) Too Subjective
For an art history textbook, I would expect to learn more about the factual events rather than how the author personally feels about each painting and artist. I would say this book divides its time between 25% factual and 75% opinion (hyperbolic perhaps). Many statements are loaded with sentiments and suppositions not grounded in fact. I read phrases such as "must have intended" and "most likely wanted" and expect some sort of support but find none. This of course leads me to doubt them. Plus they do not explain sufficiently enough for me how and why these artists revolutionized art. They establish connections between artists (i.e. "[this guy] influenced [that guy] and all modern art stems from the perfect genius of Cezanne) and I am expected to believe them just because they say it. I'm sure evidence exists somewhere, it would have been nice if they referenced it.

4) Typos
Pretty self-explanatory. A few typos are okay and expected, but there are so many in this text that it's laughable. Though these don't contribute directly to the subject, it does have the unfortunate habit of casting doubt on the authority of the text. When I'm already having issues of doubt to begin with, this does not help.

Now I do have to admit that this book does have a few good points. The pictures are beautifully reproduced and printed. Although I'm not sure how accurate they are in accordance with the original work, I feel like I have a good sense of the image. They also provide a large variety examples of various artist's works (in their different periods), which helps me to familiarize myself with their styles. I actually enjoy going through the book, looking at the pictures and trying to guess authorship. Also, I have found a new respect for the conceptualization of a few artists who we've studied. But I can only enjoy the thinking behind their works and not the works themselves because I am so sickened by the uninhibited idol worship of the authors.

Pompous is a great way to describe it, a very "we know, you don't and we're not going to tell you" view. This book is not to educate the beginner. Maybe it would work for someone more familiar with the subject matter, but it is terrible for an intro level course such as the one I'm taking.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impenetrable and verbose, bordering on pompous...but..., January 10, 2009

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R. Stander "axisofaccess.blogspot.com" (Grand Forks, ND) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Modern Art, Revised and Updated (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

Reviews of Hunter's text run the gamut from being a great text to being a horrible one. Many here comment on the authors language usage which at times can be rather impenetrable and verbose, bordering on pompous. Ironically, the text is laden with typos. Page arrangement could have been better planned. Often image title, number, and accompanying data fails to be next to or near the image referenced. These critiques aside, it is a helpful text for those who have some background in art history (and a good vocabulary). I would not recommend this text for a beginner, but would suggest it for someone who has a moderate background in the arts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars the opposite of simplicity, March 4, 2010

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T. Gunnell "librarydenizen" (Frederick,MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Modern Art, Revised and Updated (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I had to have this for an art history class. it is terrible. It seems like the authors decided to see how smart they could make themselves seem by using very difficult and profession specific language. it is quite verbose and extremely difficult to follow. I would have been lost if my professor had not had online lecture notes which were a thousand times clearer. As a result I ended up not using the book after the first week or two of class. Gardners Art Through the ages is much clearer than this book, but I'm not sure if they have a book on modern art, it would be worth checking out. If you are a grad student in art history you may like this book, otherwise, don't bother.