What is Painting? Representation and Modern Art

by Julian Bell

"What is art? Is that art?" At the end of the twentieth century, these questions continue to provoke and to bedevil discussion. The uncertainty that prompts them can be productive for artists, who may thrive on such a state of tension. Yet uncertainty can also shade into the suspiciousness with which many people approach the work of those artists. Reasonable questions deserve articulate answers, and Julian Bell provides them in this lucid, straightforward, and often challenging book. In the process he offers an incisive guide to artistic thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the complexities of contemporary theory. Among the many fields of activity covered by the word "art," Bell, himself a painter, focuses on "flat things"--the paintings that modern theories seek to explain. The questions he addresses include: What is painting? Does anything unite these objects we call paintings? What happened to the idea of representation in "modern art"? What has caused the vast changes in painting over the last two centuries? What does the ancient practice of painting amount to in today's world at the turn of the twenty-first century? Bell writes with a wide-ranging curiosity about what other painters have produced in the last two hundred years, giving fresh accounts of the most influential works and introducing many painters who may lie outside fashionable canons. What Is Painting? is a book for everyone interested in making sense of modern art and of the cultural debates it provokes.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Philosophy, British Literature

258 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1986

Reviews

[Rimantė · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's complicated

[Lazarus P Badpenny Esq · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough and accessible overview of the main currents of thought informing art history for the last two and a half millennia. As a painter, Bell offers one or two uniques insights from the practioner's point of view along with a few interesting selections to illustrate his admittedly well-trodden ideas. I thought Bell was also particularly good on the philosophical difficulties of pictorally reproducing a world we may not even be sure exists and on assessing the true impact of photography.

At a little over 250 pages and written with an admirable avoidance of too much theorist jargonese this is probably as good a place to start as any for someone wishing to gain an understanding of art history and although this can only be a cursory glance at the subject it may well whet the visual appetite for further study.

[Michael Chance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring stuff. If you're a painter in a rut, read this and be reinvigorated.

[Andrew Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The contradiction within oil painting is that it, like no other medium can capture the nature of the world we see. The interplay of colour, light and shadow enables it to represent objects with a solidity and tactile sense that still has the power to shock and move us. And yet, painters have long since - and in something of a passion since the late 19th century - wondered, what then is specific to the medium? Is oil painting simply a way to represent something else, or is there a form of painting authentic to the medium itself?

This tension has led to some of the greatest works of art of the 20th century (I remain a firm admirer of cubism), and to vast 'modern' galleries that people wander through listlessly. It is this tension which Bell examines, and seeks to explode. What Bell captures, is that shorn of the ability to represent other things, paintings lose the ability to communicate. An inner circle around the artist may recognise the genius of the stroke and splash, but to most of us, there is no message from most modern art. Even what we think we grasp, we can never know for sure if we have. Hence the alienation that many modern galleries inspire.

That doesn't make the turn away from pure representation (which itself is an illusion, as all representation is partial and interpretative as Bell argues) a mistake, but it does help explain why painting has lost something of its hold on the world. One might be tempted to say that photographs and video make the idea or value of painted representation meaningless, but this is to misread the history, for the turn had far more to do with broader social ideas than simple technological capacity. Indeed, one of the great take aways from this book is how much art, or 'Art' is influenced, often unconsciously, by the philosophy of an era. Keynes remarked that many a 'practical' person is often the 'slave to some defunct economist'. So too it seems must we add the painters. Indeed, scribbling in the side of this book, I couldn't help wonder how many 'modern' painters seem trapped in the insight of Bishop Berkley. We can not know the world in itself, only our sensations of it. And there they seem to remain, forever trying to let the world know what their sensations of the world are.

Bell's views are not a simple minded attack on the abstract turn. He shifts between poses of historian, teacher and critic. Not always successfully, but generally clearly and in an engaging fashion. He's trying to answer a big question 'what is painting', and it's a question he has a passionate response to. I love realistic landscape painting, so Bell's arguments make great sense to me. But I think it speaks to the significance of the medium as well that it can be used in so many different ways, that people react to so strongly. There's just something about oil painting.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gets much better in the second half. I'm not sure whether it took my a while to get used to Bell's writing or whether the first half was really just slow, but either way, I'm glad I kept reading to the end. Probably the best explanation of the major trends within modern/contemporary art that I've come across. Nice selection of reproductions as well.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

mi sta bruciando il cervello. Se hai studiato per 10 anni storia dell'arte e vuoi scavarti la fossa ulteriormente questo è il libro per te!!! scherzo a tratti è interessante ma da leggere con calma e non tipo flesh per un esame (come ho fatto io). Ci sono cose un po' a mio parere scontate e cose che sarebbe stato interessante ampliare

[Sarah Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

.

[May · Rating 3 out of 5]

what is printmaking, then? Still, this book takes a helpful approach to images in general.