Customer Reviews

The Shock of the New

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I bought and read the first edition of this book after seeing the 1979 PBS series Hughes hosted, and I heartily recommend both book (which I still have) and the TV show if you can find it anywhere. Hughes' special brilliance is his ability to show the revolution in art at the turn of the 20th century as reacting to the revolution in technology and living standards and the rapid changes in every part of society -- the "shock" of this race to "newnesss" that really starting picking up speed a hundred years ago. Also unique and priceless is Hughes' puckish sense of humor and willingness to express an opinion - even a negative opinion - about art and architectural movements.

This is art history for the intelligent nonartist -- you will greatly enjoy it!

Robert Hughes manages to do what no other contemporary critics can, see painting as a painter does, rather than as a writer--writing about painting. As someone who makes my living as a painter, I'm always frustrated by the clueless interpretations of art historians and especially critics. Often, they simply don't get it! They're looking for philosophic meaning in every nuance of a painting, when any honest painter would tell you, sometimes "It's just because it looked good like that!" I would highly recommend Mr. Hughes's book. It is a very sensible, insightful, and readable text. As a painter, I was very impressed by his observations and how he managed to communicate some idea of how painters actually create their work. (Critics would have you believe they start with a manifesto/theory/or other B.S. It's usually a lot less mysterious than that and Hughes does a great job of demystifying it. Also, it's a great book to show someone the purpose and value of art since 1900. Great Book!

This is a famous art text and justly so. If you are wondering "just what is this modern art stuff?", this book will help you. If you are thinking "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" this book will surprise you with its magnificent colour plates and images. Robert Hughes can write reviews for the art glitterati, but he can also write for the average person with an interest in Modern Art, and very well he does it too!

Writers of fiction could go to school on Robert Hughes. In this book you run across description after description, phrase after phrase that prove the power of language while conveying the power of art, so many 'spot on' explications that one is left feeling nearly overwhelmed. Fittingly, language is at the center of one of his primary theses: That art invents the language that the world will then put into daily use. Shelley wrote that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world; Hughes might say that artists are their counterparts in the Supreme Court. Hughes is a stern, hard-boiled man, whose readings are based on clearest common sense. Even while he's transported by the beauty of a Frankenthaler, he has one eye open to make sure he's not being conned. He brooks no insincerity or unnecessary pomposity. His happens to be the only sensibility with the power to bring art to the masses, which is why it's appropriate Hughes is on television reaching out to the masses again in 1997. Dogmatism throughout will probably rub some artists the wrong way, but for the novice like me, it clears aside rhetoric and creates access. I came to modern art wondering why every museum displayed the same boring things; now I know why, and why it doesn't have to be so. This is the leaping-off point for which I've always been waiting.

This book was assigned as a supplement to our main textbook (although we refer to it more often than our more stodgily written "main" text) in my contemporary art history class. I highly recommend it for novices to contemporary art history or even those more learned. It is concise--not too wordy. It neither scares you away nor bores you with super-intellectual jargon and babble. Plus, Mr. Hughes gives brief historical and cultural background information when describing certain movements. This is critical in understanding where/how the art originates.

This is based on the script for a BBC program. To be a good TV program, it should have a clear and plain storyline which could fit into limited timetable. You can identify such a feature in the form of book, though substantially enlarged. The author did his best to make a clear impression of what was modernism in the visual art on reader (and audience). The author begin the book with what modernist artists perceived as ¡®the new¡¯ in their time. They thought they lived in thoroughly distinct time from the tradition. The new age demanded the new art. Modernism is the logical upshot of their zeitgeist. To understand it, we should pay attention to the interaction between artists and the time.
In this regard, Hughes organized the book not in time order or changing styles but with keywords which summarize the zeitgeist of modernists like machine, power, pleasure, utopia, freedom, popular culture, or future, to endow the reader with the tangible vision to see into the deep question of modernism.

The art of the last century viewed through the eyes of one of its best critics. This book is lavishly illustrated, very easy to read, an invaluable introduction to modern and contemporary art (that is, until the early 1990's). Hughes is one of those few critics who know how to admit they can sometimes be wrong (see his mea culpa on Philip Guston's late works), but who is almost always right.
The book itself is divided into chapters which do not necessarily follow a chronology but rather distinguish different themes such as "the mechanical paradise" (Cézanne,cubism, futurism), "the faces of power" (expressionism, Dada, art under Communism or Fascism), or "the landscape of pleasure" (Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Louis, Noland), etc...up to "the future that was" with insights on contemporary art and the art market.
A book that has already become a classic, almost like Gombrich's "the Story of Art".

Following an afternoon at our Modern Art Museum, I picked up Robert Hughes' _Shock of the New_. Based off his 8 part BBC series of the same name, Hughes chronicles the history of modern art from the Impressionists to the Op and Pop art movements of the late 1960s. A former art critic for the New York Times, Hughes has an encyclopedic knowledge of modern art. His explaination of the influence of science, technology and events on art was lucid and brilliant, and gave me a much deeper and profound understanding of both broader artistic movements, but also individual artists and pieces. I was particularly pleased at being introduced to new artists: Bonnard, Boccioni, Kirchner, Stella and Hamilton.

As critic, Hughes can be a bit sharp-tongued. An excerpt from the chapter on modern architecture: "Brasilia ... is an expansive and ugly testimony to the fact that when men think in terms of abstract space rather than real space ... they tend to produce miles of jerry-built nowhere, infested with Volkswagens." Similar scathing remarks abound, although to his credit, his strong opinions are all supported. In fact, I was often suprised at his statements, especially when he writes, "The modernist achievement's ... dynamic is gone, our relationship to it becoming history" - in otherwords, "modernism is dead."

Admittedly we are in a "post-modernist" society, a world in which (to borrow from Hughes again), "we ourselves made .. the problem for art, then, is how to survive here." In this respect, the book is showing its age (it was first published in 1980). While I agree with Hughes that the political message of art has been destroyed and usurped by mass production, art remains avant garde, continues to push the social enevelope, and does what art should do: hold a mirror up to society's face and force us to look at ourselves, warts and all. Hyper-realism and performance art are only two of many examples of how art is evolving and surviving in the world we have made. All in all, though, an informative, insightful and enjoyable read.

Even twenty-five years after its intial publication, The Shock of the New maintains its edge: it is one of the most intelligent, well-written books on art of the 20th Century. Everyone from novice to expert can learn from reading and rereading this excellent book; it never grows dated but improves with time, especially in its critical analysis of what modern art means to our society. Few other books offer such thoughtful quality and erudite thinking about contemporary art on our world.

Robert Hughes book and companion documentary on the last hundred years or so on art and what has been produced is very observant. Sometimes I do not entirely agree with him and his view of what is ugly or attractive within art and the context he puts it in. That is no big deal. However, I greatly enjoy his social commentary on art, which I feel is usually right on the money. He is extremely opinionated art critic and a good one too. For those of you that are also very opinionated, to the point of not wanting to hear other points of view, stay away from this book and video.

He observes art, not just as something that gets produced in some whimsical Narnia-like land of closed inward looking groups, but rather, as reaction to the times and events that shape our lives and our world. Art has always been a product of the time in which it was created, it can not be made otherwise. He knows this better than anyone and nails all the hows and whys right on the head, even if, often times, the very artists themselves do not see the relation of the art they have produced as a reaction to the world in which they live and other artists around them. Hughes makes very obvious connection to things I never even considered. While today it is possible to paint or create art in any style ever dreamed up from over the course of human history, the art itself will not have the same value outside a limited number of "in" people, because the art itself is out of context. To be of today you must make art of today. The entire book and video is very forward looking and ends on speculation about the future. His assement of the future of art is a bit bleak but the book is many years old. Still he does hit on the one main point that art is commodity with monetary value beyond its own artistic value has forever changed the way art is perceived. This is key, and with this observation he lays waste to the entire use of art as currency. Because this is what has become of art in our time it has altered the goals and drive of many artists and art appreciators alike. The fact that he hits all this head on is very unique and refreshing. Even today, almost 30 years later this still holds true. Since time has passed I know there is much good art out there made by artists who do not have money on their minds as the driving force behind what they are creating. It's quite obvious today which artists have their hearts and minds in it and which just have money, fame and starry eyes. the soul of a piece is the last great divining rod.

Hughes also connects artist to artist and shows the logical associations artists make with one another and the inspired results that come of this. He also shows when an artist made a leap on his or her own and discusses isolation as well as working within a group. Nothing is left out.

Art can be and do a lot of things but Hughes sees that art, although often propped up, has rarely, if ever, produced huge sweeping social changes. Many of the utopian dreams within architecture are revealed as inhuman failures, empty vacant structures that look good on paper but do not take into account the very human nature they hoped to help.

I get a sense that Hughes loves and enjoys art greatly but he also puts it in it's place within the context of the world around it. This book is a great view into the art of our times. Although it does not cover the most contemporary up to the moment art it brings you up to speed so that you may take the next steps yourself. This is a good book for artists and art appreciators alike. I also recommend the companion video, although it is not available on Amazon.

One more thing I'd like to add is that Hughes teeters happily on the fence between critic and artist. At times I get the sense that he has his own voice to add to the world and uses the guise of the critic as a medium to contribute to art in his own special way. In the video (a medium in its own right) simple techniques are used to either imitate the artists in order to illustrate their intent, or at other times he will tell you flat out what he thinks even if it goes contradictory to an artists own recorded words. Here, often, I agree with him too. Many times artists know not why they are compelled to do something and when it is pegged as one thing or another they will deny it like a child who denies the obvious. Hughes does not shy off speaking his mind, and points out such contradictions because he is sure of himself and his observations. This works well for the viewer or reader of his critiques and observations of art. I am unsure, though, how well one would fare with him in one to one discussion. Lucky for us we will probably never meet him face to face in such a scenario, for were we to do so he would most likely steam roll right over any comment that ran contradictory to his own ideas. Perhaps.