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Art: A New History
In Art: A New History, Paul Johnson turns his great gifts as a world historian to a subject that has enthralled him all his life: the history of art. This narrative account, from the earliest cave paintings up to the present day, has new things to say about almost every period of art. Taking account of changing scholarship and shifting opinions, he draws our attention to a number of neglected artists and styles, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, Russia and the Americas.
Paul Johnson puts the creative originality of the individual at the heart of his story. He pays particular attention to key periods: the emergence of the artistic personality in the Renaissance, the new realism of the early seventeenth century, the discovery of landscape painting as a separate art form, and the rise of ideological art. He notes the division of 'fashion art' and fine art at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how it has now widened.
Though challenging and controversial, Paul Johnson is not primarily a revisionist. He is a passionate lover of beauty who finds creativity in many places. With 300 colour illustrations, this book is vivid, evocative and immensely readable, whether the author is describing the beauty of Egyptian low-relief carving or the medieval cathedrals of Europe, the watercolours of Thomas Girtin or the utility of Roman bridges ('the best bridges in history'), the genius of Andrew Wyeth or the tranquility of the Great Mosque at Damascus, the paintings of Ilya Repin or a carpet-page from the Lindisfarne Gospels. The warmth and enthusiasm of Paul Johnson's descriptions will send readers hurrying off to see these wonders for themselves.
Paul Johnson puts the creative originality of the individual at the heart of his story. He pays particular attention to key periods: the emergence of the artistic personality in the Renaissance, the new realism of the early seventeenth century, the discovery of landscape painting as a separate art form, and the rise of ideological art. He notes the division of 'fashion art' and fine art at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how it has now widened.
Though challenging and controversial, Paul Johnson is not primarily a revisionist. He is a passionate lover of beauty who finds creativity in many places. With 300 colour illustrations, this book is vivid, evocative and immensely readable, whether the author is describing the beauty of Egyptian low-relief carving or the medieval cathedrals of Europe, the watercolours of Thomas Girtin or the utility of Roman bridges ('the best bridges in history'), the genius of Andrew Wyeth or the tranquility of the Great Mosque at Damascus, the paintings of Ilya Repin or a carpet-page from the Lindisfarne Gospels. The warmth and enthusiasm of Paul Johnson's descriptions will send readers hurrying off to see these wonders for themselves.
777 pages, Hardcover
First published August 14, 2003
38 people are currently reading
738 people want to read
About the author
Paul Johnson
134 books835 followersPaul Johnson works as a historian, journalist and author. He was educated at Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire and Magdalen College, Oxford, and first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for, and later editing, the New Statesman magazine. He has also written for leading newspapers and magazines in Britain, the US and Europe.
Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979), A History of the English People (1987), Intellectuals (1988), The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815—1830 (1991), Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999), A History of the American People (2000), A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982).
Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979), A History of the English People (1987), Intellectuals (1988), The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815—1830 (1991), Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999), A History of the American People (2000), A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
August 7, 2019
As I foresaw, I am picking this up for a leisurely reread. (Original review below.)
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I love the way that Johnson is able to make everything so clear in terms of how various civilizations' art mirrors their governing styles. He also made me really respect early man (you know, the ones who filled those caves with all that fantastic art) by explaining things I didn't know about both the art and what the artists went through for their accomplishments.
This took me a couple of years to leisurely work my way through. Now that I'm done I miss Paul Johnson's voice looking at history and art and the fascinating, creative people who are artists.
This is simply superb. Johnson has his prejudices but they are few and fairly discussed. It probably helps that I share many of Johnson's opinions but just never had the wherewithal to understand why. And now I do!
My only wish is for a companion volume that shows all the images that Johnson mentions. There simply wasn't room in this book for enough of the actual art.
I'll be putting this in my rereading stack.
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I love the way that Johnson is able to make everything so clear in terms of how various civilizations' art mirrors their governing styles. He also made me really respect early man (you know, the ones who filled those caves with all that fantastic art) by explaining things I didn't know about both the art and what the artists went through for their accomplishments.
This took me a couple of years to leisurely work my way through. Now that I'm done I miss Paul Johnson's voice looking at history and art and the fascinating, creative people who are artists.
This is simply superb. Johnson has his prejudices but they are few and fairly discussed. It probably helps that I share many of Johnson's opinions but just never had the wherewithal to understand why. And now I do!
My only wish is for a companion volume that shows all the images that Johnson mentions. There simply wasn't room in this book for enough of the actual art.
I'll be putting this in my rereading stack.
December 5, 2024
Paul Johnson has been my favorite historian for several years. Art adds to my reasons for his being a favorite.
I can't imagine the research that went into this book! Johnson starts with the cave wall paintings in Europe and ends with major bridges built in the Twenty-first century and the challenges that lie ahead for art. He covers wall paintings, architecture, sculpture, various types of paintings, book plates, pottery--more than I imagined when I started. Johnson's background in art was interesting and reassuring. He analyzes periods, trends, the reasons for changes, and major artists.
Along the way, I learned that we are losing some great art because the quality of some materials in the past was not great, because of weathering and humidity, and, of course, wars, vandalism, and thefts. (It made me want to charge the young idiots who destroy artworks because of their ideological agendas with prison time or public beatings.)
Johnson's writing is very clear and direct, but I found having a dictionary on hand very helpful. I cheered when I saw that he used BC and AD instead of CE and BCE, but that's my own pet peeve.
The book includes many photographs and an index. A glossary would have been helpful, but the book was already long though not unduly so. I found it helpful to have my phone handy to look up some of the artwork he mentions but does not include photos of. Ten to twenty pages a day were all I could manage before it overwhelmed me.
I do not have much knowledge of art beyond what I encountered in some history classes, but I learned quite a lot from this book. This is a book which would make a good history for an advanced art history class in a home school or for self-education of an adult. My favorite chapters were on ideological art, American landscapes, and Asian art. My favorite artists are Albert Bierstadt, Hopper, the beloved Norman Rockwell, and Frederick Remington (who was not included). Johnson did not downplay Rockwell's greatness as an artist because he was an illustrator but wrote about why he was important.
I highly recommend this book and this author.
I can't imagine the research that went into this book! Johnson starts with the cave wall paintings in Europe and ends with major bridges built in the Twenty-first century and the challenges that lie ahead for art. He covers wall paintings, architecture, sculpture, various types of paintings, book plates, pottery--more than I imagined when I started. Johnson's background in art was interesting and reassuring. He analyzes periods, trends, the reasons for changes, and major artists.
Along the way, I learned that we are losing some great art because the quality of some materials in the past was not great, because of weathering and humidity, and, of course, wars, vandalism, and thefts. (It made me want to charge the young idiots who destroy artworks because of their ideological agendas with prison time or public beatings.)
Johnson's writing is very clear and direct, but I found having a dictionary on hand very helpful. I cheered when I saw that he used BC and AD instead of CE and BCE, but that's my own pet peeve.
The book includes many photographs and an index. A glossary would have been helpful, but the book was already long though not unduly so. I found it helpful to have my phone handy to look up some of the artwork he mentions but does not include photos of. Ten to twenty pages a day were all I could manage before it overwhelmed me.
I do not have much knowledge of art beyond what I encountered in some history classes, but I learned quite a lot from this book. This is a book which would make a good history for an advanced art history class in a home school or for self-education of an adult. My favorite chapters were on ideological art, American landscapes, and Asian art. My favorite artists are Albert Bierstadt, Hopper, the beloved Norman Rockwell, and Frederick Remington (who was not included). Johnson did not downplay Rockwell's greatness as an artist because he was an illustrator but wrote about why he was important.
I highly recommend this book and this author.
November 21, 2012
This an exhaustive study of an almost limitless subject. At approximately 450,000 words, Paul Johnson's Art: A New History is more than 80 percent the length of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.
This is a thoroughly honest book of opinion, and the opinions are often grim. A prospective reader, before committing himself to the 30 or more hours of reading this book will require, ought to peruse the introduction, in which Johnson, right at the tippity top, presents a resume that includes artist and art teacher for a father, who painted churches and discouraged his son's apprenticeship as a painter because the century was certain to be ruined by frauds like Picasso. There are departures from this theme - thousands in fact over hundreds of pages - but this book knows where it is headed and gets there: The last century, marked by the birth of Impressionism and codified by the arrival of Cubism, took fine art and turned it into fashion art, and in so doing, gave itself, mostly, to the frauds. After hammering at this theme for about 129 3/4 of the last 130 pages, Johnson reserves his final paragraph for a note of optimism, though it hungrily wants the sincerity of its 400 predecessor paragraphs.
Johnson is an excellent writer possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of European art. He is a Brit, and so, unsurprisingly, a large number of the best works by the best artists can be found in London. There is nothing wrong with this approach, of course, but one does find himself turning the pages of many of Johnson's most effusive treatments wondering when the authority of the National Gallery will be brought to the witness stand.
But again, the writing is excellent:
In Rome, you achieved an effect by piling on the marble and porphyry, by doubling the size, by raising the gold and silver content, by gilding and embedding jewels in it, by importing immense quantities of rare plants, exotic trees and animals. ... There was an ineffable whiff of the nouveaux riches about the top echelons of Roman society which time's patina could never quite cover. (p. 97)
Though one is forced to question slightly Johnson's reasons for working so hard at a definition of excellence over 650 pages, when he comes to the final 100 and finds the definition used like dynamite on the legacy of most every 20th century movement that took "ism" as a suffix, Johnson's efforts at defining excellence, and its origins, are fantastic nonetheless:
If one had to define the success of Italian art during these times in one sentence it would be: a cultural climax occurs when a superb workshop tradition of craftsman is led by a ruling elite of discernment, taste and imagination. (p. 208)
and
Vermeer is now more generally, and unreservedly, admired than any other painter. (p. 379)
and
The genius of Le Nôtre, then, like that of all the greatest artists, was in creating apparent, or even real, order, and within it, effecting deliberate disorder to stimulate emotions and give pleasure. (p. 401)
and
The truth is, art is all, or mostly, a matter of self-confidence, which comes from the acquisition of reliable skills, and a major artist always possesses it. It allows him to follow his daemon, to the degree he wishes, consistent always of course with making a living, and a self-confident artist can usually do that. (p. 415)
and
. . . that salient characteristic of great art: if you owned one of them you would wish to look at it every single day of your life, as soon as you got up in the morning. (p. 555)
Then Johnson goes after his own century, beginning with its forefathers, Monet and Van Gogh and even Munch:
Like Van Gogh's work, The Scream has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by popular vote, since many people feel like it and can see themselves, granted the skill, actually painting it. (p. 617)
Finally, Johnson comes to his unifying theory of fine art vs. fashion art:
Cubism can fairly be classified as the first major instance of fashion art, as opposed to fine art. By traditional standards of measurement, going back over thousands of years in the Western tradition, fine art is a combination of novelty and skill. ... The distinction between fine art and fashion art is not absolute. All that can be said is that fine art becomes fashion art when the ratio of novelty and skill is changed drastically in favor of novelty. ... It is another characteristic of fashion art that it inevitably produces more fashion art since, when the novelty wears off and the low degree of skill becomes apparent, there is a demand for fresh novelties, and a new phase of art is produced to satisfy it. (p. 661)
With rare exceptions, then, do not look at painting or sculpture created in the last 120 years, Johnson counsels, but rather at contemporary buildings and bridges, gardens and museum structures. He is right to dismiss much of Picasso, all of Warhol - "not so much an artist, for his chief talent was for publicity" - and, in a rather amusing way, Pollack ("much thought went into this inspired linoleum"), but he perhaps, and quite uncharacteristically, does not give two of his own British contemporaries, Hockney and Freud, nearly the credit they deserve.
American readers will be relieved to know, however, Paul Johnson thinks the 19th century landscape paintings (erroneously) bunched together in the "Hudson River School" are the finest works of the last 150 years of paint, and it's hard to look at any work by Albert Bierstadt and disagree.
This book deserves enormous credit for the size of its undertaking, an undertaking serious enough for its author to do something probably never done before: Post, in the introduction, his home mailing address, to which he asks any recommended corrections be sent.
This is a thoroughly honest book of opinion, and the opinions are often grim. A prospective reader, before committing himself to the 30 or more hours of reading this book will require, ought to peruse the introduction, in which Johnson, right at the tippity top, presents a resume that includes artist and art teacher for a father, who painted churches and discouraged his son's apprenticeship as a painter because the century was certain to be ruined by frauds like Picasso. There are departures from this theme - thousands in fact over hundreds of pages - but this book knows where it is headed and gets there: The last century, marked by the birth of Impressionism and codified by the arrival of Cubism, took fine art and turned it into fashion art, and in so doing, gave itself, mostly, to the frauds. After hammering at this theme for about 129 3/4 of the last 130 pages, Johnson reserves his final paragraph for a note of optimism, though it hungrily wants the sincerity of its 400 predecessor paragraphs.
Johnson is an excellent writer possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of European art. He is a Brit, and so, unsurprisingly, a large number of the best works by the best artists can be found in London. There is nothing wrong with this approach, of course, but one does find himself turning the pages of many of Johnson's most effusive treatments wondering when the authority of the National Gallery will be brought to the witness stand.
But again, the writing is excellent:
In Rome, you achieved an effect by piling on the marble and porphyry, by doubling the size, by raising the gold and silver content, by gilding and embedding jewels in it, by importing immense quantities of rare plants, exotic trees and animals. ... There was an ineffable whiff of the nouveaux riches about the top echelons of Roman society which time's patina could never quite cover. (p. 97)
Though one is forced to question slightly Johnson's reasons for working so hard at a definition of excellence over 650 pages, when he comes to the final 100 and finds the definition used like dynamite on the legacy of most every 20th century movement that took "ism" as a suffix, Johnson's efforts at defining excellence, and its origins, are fantastic nonetheless:
If one had to define the success of Italian art during these times in one sentence it would be: a cultural climax occurs when a superb workshop tradition of craftsman is led by a ruling elite of discernment, taste and imagination. (p. 208)
and
Vermeer is now more generally, and unreservedly, admired than any other painter. (p. 379)
and
The genius of Le Nôtre, then, like that of all the greatest artists, was in creating apparent, or even real, order, and within it, effecting deliberate disorder to stimulate emotions and give pleasure. (p. 401)
and
The truth is, art is all, or mostly, a matter of self-confidence, which comes from the acquisition of reliable skills, and a major artist always possesses it. It allows him to follow his daemon, to the degree he wishes, consistent always of course with making a living, and a self-confident artist can usually do that. (p. 415)
and
. . . that salient characteristic of great art: if you owned one of them you would wish to look at it every single day of your life, as soon as you got up in the morning. (p. 555)
Then Johnson goes after his own century, beginning with its forefathers, Monet and Van Gogh and even Munch:
Like Van Gogh's work, The Scream has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by popular vote, since many people feel like it and can see themselves, granted the skill, actually painting it. (p. 617)
Finally, Johnson comes to his unifying theory of fine art vs. fashion art:
Cubism can fairly be classified as the first major instance of fashion art, as opposed to fine art. By traditional standards of measurement, going back over thousands of years in the Western tradition, fine art is a combination of novelty and skill. ... The distinction between fine art and fashion art is not absolute. All that can be said is that fine art becomes fashion art when the ratio of novelty and skill is changed drastically in favor of novelty. ... It is another characteristic of fashion art that it inevitably produces more fashion art since, when the novelty wears off and the low degree of skill becomes apparent, there is a demand for fresh novelties, and a new phase of art is produced to satisfy it. (p. 661)
With rare exceptions, then, do not look at painting or sculpture created in the last 120 years, Johnson counsels, but rather at contemporary buildings and bridges, gardens and museum structures. He is right to dismiss much of Picasso, all of Warhol - "not so much an artist, for his chief talent was for publicity" - and, in a rather amusing way, Pollack ("much thought went into this inspired linoleum"), but he perhaps, and quite uncharacteristically, does not give two of his own British contemporaries, Hockney and Freud, nearly the credit they deserve.
American readers will be relieved to know, however, Paul Johnson thinks the 19th century landscape paintings (erroneously) bunched together in the "Hudson River School" are the finest works of the last 150 years of paint, and it's hard to look at any work by Albert Bierstadt and disagree.
This book deserves enormous credit for the size of its undertaking, an undertaking serious enough for its author to do something probably never done before: Post, in the introduction, his home mailing address, to which he asks any recommended corrections be sent.
May 26, 2020
To me this is the Bible of all art books. One of the very best from the genius Paul Johnson.
August 6, 2025
last year my core struggle with my to-be-read shelf were three books I discovered from an old photograph had been on said shelf for over 20 years, three pretty lengthy non-fiction books about the chinese communist revolution in village life, the creation of the seaside as a leisure destination in europe, and philosophy about the nature of the mind and whether a computer could develop consciousness. this year the main struggle is three thick history books, one on how the english became americans, one on human history, and this one, a 750 page art history. this is the first of the three that I’ve finished. this will be a long review bc this is a long book.
it struck me, once I’d already started reading it, that I wasn’t really familiar with an OLD art history. I took a class on modernist art in college, manet etc. in the late 1800s, but I’ve never read a general art history before, so I don’t really know what makes this new – maybe he was focusing on individual artists more than schools of art.
johnson is one of those men who knows a hell of a lot, he’s seen a hell of a lot of art, he’s a painter himself, he’s written a bunch of history books, he’s been all over the world looking at art. an extremely knowledgeable person. if you’re familiar with those type of men, they can be so smart and know so much that they haven’t really examined their own biases and prejudices, haven’t really taken in that as much as they know, they know it as a (white, in this case) man and they don’t have the experiences and perspectives of other types of people. particularly in the beginning of the book, he pissed me off a lot. I think he settled down after a while and I probably got used to him as well. the book starts off with cave painting and ends in the 21st century, and he says he had to cut it down because it was too long, and so there is no bibliography, and no source notes, which means right away you’re at his mercy when he asserts something, he says what he says and there are no notes to back him up.
examples of johnson being obnoxious and worse:
describing an ancient greek bronze statue of either zeus or poseidon, a photo of which appears in the book (that’s another thing about reading this, I was constantly having to look up art works he talks about – and architectural terminology, esp. pertaining to cathedrals – because of course he can’t illustrate every single thing he talks about. and whether he particularly calls things what he wants or things just have super varied names, the name he gives in the book is fairly often not what the artwork is found under.) johnson says “masculine power and arrogance have never been epitomized so sublimely – the work irradiates the dull museum room in which is stands and is surrounded, as a rule, by a transfixed circle of heavy-breathing young women”. as the internet loves to say “in the history of things that never happened, this never happened the most”. come ON. this statue is no david, and even with david I don’t think circles of 20something women form panting circles around it. bs. and shut up.
there is a story about alexander of macedon and a painter apelles. alexander has apelles paint a nude of his favorite concubine, a slave girl named pankaspe (campaspe elsewhere online), and apelles “fell in love with her”, so alexander gives her to him as a gift. johnson goes on to write “apelles used the lascivious pankaspe as his model for…” I’m sorry, the what pankaspe? this is an enslaved woman, passed from hand to hand. she doesn’t even have the wherewithal to consent to sex, and you’re calling her lascivious? on what grounds? that was offensive to me.
even worse: “outstanding examples include one with an elegant rape scene (the rape of mlacuch by herkle) in the british museum”. no. just no. there is no “elegant rape scene”. (with other research online it sounds like herkle, apparently a big time serial rapist, was depicted abducting her on the work in question, he has her slung over his shoulder and is carrying her off, so not *actually* in the act of raping her, but johnson didn’t even say “elegant abduction scene”. this is just so tone deaf to at least half the world’s population. there is no reason to glamorize rape in a book in 2005, no matter what a greek artist did in the 5th century.
some things you just cringe at. here, he is describing the normans: “they are interesting examples of how wild barbarians, originally apes of disorder, became ordering agents themselves, using the arts as their instrument.” I mean, thank god this was just about the normans, but I don’t think we need to call any humans “apes of disorder” – or “wild barbarians”, really.
he’s fatphobic. talking about caravaggio’s daughter, artemesia, also a painter, he says “artemesia’s weakness was that she was overweight. her [self-portrait] is cleverly angled to conceal the fact. but she was obsessively tempted, when posing heroines, to present them as herself. even the two in the beheading scene are on the heavy side, and in the quite separate canvas of the two ladies with holofernes’ severed head…judith’s heavy chin and fleshiness are the first things a viewer notices.” no, paul, it’s the first thing you noticed, because you’re fatphobic. I promise you I noticed the severed head first. or “he had a passion for painting women with enormous bottoms, rendered with astonishing skill but grotesque to behold.” (gustav courbet if you want to look up the “enormous bottoms”.)
his main assertion about art is that it exists to impose order on the chaos of nature. for a start, I don’t know that I agree with that. he just says it like, of course, we all know this. he doesn’t go deep into it. talking about an architect of a cathedral, suger, who made some innovations that “elevat[ed] its utilitarian details of stone and stress-carrying into a profound system of order, which also became a system of beauty. the eye travels methodically over all the internal surfaces of the church, conscious of a homogeneity and regularity which comforts the senses and appeals strongly to our ordering intellects. this is art at its most profound.” is it? I don’t feel he’s done enough to convince me. I think he just loooooooves order more than I do.
sometimes I feel like he just misreads expressions on people’s faces in paintings – or he has a very different read than I do, at least, but he always frames his view as fact. in a painting by rogier van der weyden, the beheading of john the baptist, he describes Salome as holding the dish to receive the severed head “disdainfully, as though she were not accustomed to handling platters of any description.” to me, she looks more ashamed than disdainful. she has her head turned away from john the baptist’s head and she’s looking down.
since there are no notes, he says whatever he wants, like “the rhyton, for instance, usually in the shape of an animal’s head, was a ritual drinking vessel used for all-male feasts. sipping or gulping from such a capacious receptacle, which could not easily be put down, turned alexander the great into an alcoholic, and then killed him.” ummm, ok, I really would have liked a footnote for that. alexander the great didn’t have any servants or buddies, he couldn’t say, here, hold my beer? he wasn’t an alcoholic who wanted a big cup he couldn’t put down, the cup turned him into one?
“reni was an only child, always a sad fate for an artist, especially a male one.” huh?? why do you say that? no explanation. he holds these truths (his opinions) to be self-evident.
christianity, he says, due to all the churches employing so many artists over the centuries “can thus be called the greatest single historic fact in the whole history of human art.” elsewhere, he does praise mosques, so he’s not just a complete bigot, but this book is of course very european focused. he does some middle eastern, a little about asia, a bit about african masks, pre-columbian south and central america, but there is always the western bias that makes me wish this had been worded differently than “the greatest single historic fact”. just say it had a huge influence, particularly on the western world. but this is a man who does not shy away from a superlative, no matter how many questions it raises. there are many, many:
“no artist ever drew or painted with more affection” (durer)
“his smiling girl, with her exceptionally delicate skin and shining blond hair, is a masterpiece of sensitivity, the best head-and-shoulders of a child done in the entire seventeenth century.” this is about jan lievens, the painting is not reproduced, and when I looked it up, yuk. she looks like a little girl with an old man’s face. and I have to wonder, did he sit there with every head and shoulders portrait of a child from the 17th century, comparing? how many are there?
“goya’s dona Isabel cobos de porcel, resplendent in her enormous black mantilla, is sensual, stunning, and overwhelming – one of the greatest images of womanly beauty ever conceived”. agree to disagree. he goes on like this, hyping a painting up, I look it up online and 9 times out of 10 it’s a letdown. I know art is subjective but he really pours on the effusiveness.
streeton’s purple noon’s transparent might: “it is a wonderfully accomplished work with a grand compositional sweep, superbly brushed in detail, and delicate colour, which, nonetheless, makes you feel the terrifying heat radiating from the canvas – the finest landscape ever produced in the southern hemisphere.” so I guess someone’s compared all landscapes produced in the southern hemisphere. this was another letdown, I totally didn’t feel the terrifying heat.
“the best normandy coast scene done in the nineteenth century” (you start to feel like he just wants to give everyone a prize so he invents all these categories). “perhaps the most enchanting countryside view painted in the decade” (1870s, I hated it). “bonington excelled at seascape; his dismasted brig is the best thing of its kind ever done by an englishman.”
he writes well, I’ll give him that. I guess the superlatives keep it from being boring. there were also sentences like this that I loved, “the victoria and albert museum has his sample-book, which shows how ravishing were his wallpapers.” I rarely found myself tuned out, although I wasn’t reading a ton at a stretch, usually just a chapter or two a day and not every day. the very interesting bits to me were things like how when the protestant reformation emerged and wanted a very stripped down austere church, the catholic church reacted by doubling down on their decoration, which of course reverberated through the art scene. or how in the second half of the eighteenth century, technological developments in paper manufacture, pencil making, and hard cakes of watercolor gave rise to the british school of watercolor, often done en plein air. he really drew my attention to how much art has been lost – most of it! - not just to time, but to willful destruction, war, looting – not just colonially, either, although certainly that. how much art that was made for a particular context has been stripped out of that context into a museum and lost much in the translation.
johnson, as much as I don’t want to hang out with him, I can tell is a person who is devoted to art. I’ve never met someone like this in person, although I have met men who were into music in this way, who want to go on and on about it to you. “each of the last seven works mentioned here has in common that salient characteristic of great art: if you owned one of them, you would wish to look at it every single day of your life, as soon as you got up in the morning.” ok, maybe that’s just you though.
in the end, I don’t know how much I’ll retain from reading this. my favorite schools of art are the pre-raphaelites and the hudson river school, and nothing in here changed my mind. I saw some art I really liked. the earlier chapters went slowly, then once we got post-WWII, things really sped up – georgia o’keeffe got two paragraphs – he certainly praised her, but she is my favorite artist and that short a mention was a little disappointing. frida kahlo and diego rivera, not a word. photography? that must have been cut for space. I think he sort of wants to wait to see what history makes of things - as sure he is of his own opinions, he wants to cast them after the test of time has put in its vote. in general he was not very enthused about popular artists like van gogh or munch, for him they weren’t that talented. he was not big on picasso (agree) and didn’t have much good or effusive to say about monet or the impressionists in general. of course there will be differences of taste – I like more realism than he does, he seems to like to be able to see yes, this is a painting, those aren’t really trees, they’re just blobs of paint, but blobs of paint that have evoked trees. I like someone who paints out the tree.
it struck me, once I’d already started reading it, that I wasn’t really familiar with an OLD art history. I took a class on modernist art in college, manet etc. in the late 1800s, but I’ve never read a general art history before, so I don’t really know what makes this new – maybe he was focusing on individual artists more than schools of art.
johnson is one of those men who knows a hell of a lot, he’s seen a hell of a lot of art, he’s a painter himself, he’s written a bunch of history books, he’s been all over the world looking at art. an extremely knowledgeable person. if you’re familiar with those type of men, they can be so smart and know so much that they haven’t really examined their own biases and prejudices, haven’t really taken in that as much as they know, they know it as a (white, in this case) man and they don’t have the experiences and perspectives of other types of people. particularly in the beginning of the book, he pissed me off a lot. I think he settled down after a while and I probably got used to him as well. the book starts off with cave painting and ends in the 21st century, and he says he had to cut it down because it was too long, and so there is no bibliography, and no source notes, which means right away you’re at his mercy when he asserts something, he says what he says and there are no notes to back him up.
examples of johnson being obnoxious and worse:
describing an ancient greek bronze statue of either zeus or poseidon, a photo of which appears in the book (that’s another thing about reading this, I was constantly having to look up art works he talks about – and architectural terminology, esp. pertaining to cathedrals – because of course he can’t illustrate every single thing he talks about. and whether he particularly calls things what he wants or things just have super varied names, the name he gives in the book is fairly often not what the artwork is found under.) johnson says “masculine power and arrogance have never been epitomized so sublimely – the work irradiates the dull museum room in which is stands and is surrounded, as a rule, by a transfixed circle of heavy-breathing young women”. as the internet loves to say “in the history of things that never happened, this never happened the most”. come ON. this statue is no david, and even with david I don’t think circles of 20something women form panting circles around it. bs. and shut up.
there is a story about alexander of macedon and a painter apelles. alexander has apelles paint a nude of his favorite concubine, a slave girl named pankaspe (campaspe elsewhere online), and apelles “fell in love with her”, so alexander gives her to him as a gift. johnson goes on to write “apelles used the lascivious pankaspe as his model for…” I’m sorry, the what pankaspe? this is an enslaved woman, passed from hand to hand. she doesn’t even have the wherewithal to consent to sex, and you’re calling her lascivious? on what grounds? that was offensive to me.
even worse: “outstanding examples include one with an elegant rape scene (the rape of mlacuch by herkle) in the british museum”. no. just no. there is no “elegant rape scene”. (with other research online it sounds like herkle, apparently a big time serial rapist, was depicted abducting her on the work in question, he has her slung over his shoulder and is carrying her off, so not *actually* in the act of raping her, but johnson didn’t even say “elegant abduction scene”. this is just so tone deaf to at least half the world’s population. there is no reason to glamorize rape in a book in 2005, no matter what a greek artist did in the 5th century.
some things you just cringe at. here, he is describing the normans: “they are interesting examples of how wild barbarians, originally apes of disorder, became ordering agents themselves, using the arts as their instrument.” I mean, thank god this was just about the normans, but I don’t think we need to call any humans “apes of disorder” – or “wild barbarians”, really.
he’s fatphobic. talking about caravaggio’s daughter, artemesia, also a painter, he says “artemesia’s weakness was that she was overweight. her [self-portrait] is cleverly angled to conceal the fact. but she was obsessively tempted, when posing heroines, to present them as herself. even the two in the beheading scene are on the heavy side, and in the quite separate canvas of the two ladies with holofernes’ severed head…judith’s heavy chin and fleshiness are the first things a viewer notices.” no, paul, it’s the first thing you noticed, because you’re fatphobic. I promise you I noticed the severed head first. or “he had a passion for painting women with enormous bottoms, rendered with astonishing skill but grotesque to behold.” (gustav courbet if you want to look up the “enormous bottoms”.)
his main assertion about art is that it exists to impose order on the chaos of nature. for a start, I don’t know that I agree with that. he just says it like, of course, we all know this. he doesn’t go deep into it. talking about an architect of a cathedral, suger, who made some innovations that “elevat[ed] its utilitarian details of stone and stress-carrying into a profound system of order, which also became a system of beauty. the eye travels methodically over all the internal surfaces of the church, conscious of a homogeneity and regularity which comforts the senses and appeals strongly to our ordering intellects. this is art at its most profound.” is it? I don’t feel he’s done enough to convince me. I think he just loooooooves order more than I do.
sometimes I feel like he just misreads expressions on people’s faces in paintings – or he has a very different read than I do, at least, but he always frames his view as fact. in a painting by rogier van der weyden, the beheading of john the baptist, he describes Salome as holding the dish to receive the severed head “disdainfully, as though she were not accustomed to handling platters of any description.” to me, she looks more ashamed than disdainful. she has her head turned away from john the baptist’s head and she’s looking down.
since there are no notes, he says whatever he wants, like “the rhyton, for instance, usually in the shape of an animal’s head, was a ritual drinking vessel used for all-male feasts. sipping or gulping from such a capacious receptacle, which could not easily be put down, turned alexander the great into an alcoholic, and then killed him.” ummm, ok, I really would have liked a footnote for that. alexander the great didn’t have any servants or buddies, he couldn’t say, here, hold my beer? he wasn’t an alcoholic who wanted a big cup he couldn’t put down, the cup turned him into one?
“reni was an only child, always a sad fate for an artist, especially a male one.” huh?? why do you say that? no explanation. he holds these truths (his opinions) to be self-evident.
christianity, he says, due to all the churches employing so many artists over the centuries “can thus be called the greatest single historic fact in the whole history of human art.” elsewhere, he does praise mosques, so he’s not just a complete bigot, but this book is of course very european focused. he does some middle eastern, a little about asia, a bit about african masks, pre-columbian south and central america, but there is always the western bias that makes me wish this had been worded differently than “the greatest single historic fact”. just say it had a huge influence, particularly on the western world. but this is a man who does not shy away from a superlative, no matter how many questions it raises. there are many, many:
“no artist ever drew or painted with more affection” (durer)
“his smiling girl, with her exceptionally delicate skin and shining blond hair, is a masterpiece of sensitivity, the best head-and-shoulders of a child done in the entire seventeenth century.” this is about jan lievens, the painting is not reproduced, and when I looked it up, yuk. she looks like a little girl with an old man’s face. and I have to wonder, did he sit there with every head and shoulders portrait of a child from the 17th century, comparing? how many are there?
“goya’s dona Isabel cobos de porcel, resplendent in her enormous black mantilla, is sensual, stunning, and overwhelming – one of the greatest images of womanly beauty ever conceived”. agree to disagree. he goes on like this, hyping a painting up, I look it up online and 9 times out of 10 it’s a letdown. I know art is subjective but he really pours on the effusiveness.
streeton’s purple noon’s transparent might: “it is a wonderfully accomplished work with a grand compositional sweep, superbly brushed in detail, and delicate colour, which, nonetheless, makes you feel the terrifying heat radiating from the canvas – the finest landscape ever produced in the southern hemisphere.” so I guess someone’s compared all landscapes produced in the southern hemisphere. this was another letdown, I totally didn’t feel the terrifying heat.
“the best normandy coast scene done in the nineteenth century” (you start to feel like he just wants to give everyone a prize so he invents all these categories). “perhaps the most enchanting countryside view painted in the decade” (1870s, I hated it). “bonington excelled at seascape; his dismasted brig is the best thing of its kind ever done by an englishman.”
he writes well, I’ll give him that. I guess the superlatives keep it from being boring. there were also sentences like this that I loved, “the victoria and albert museum has his sample-book, which shows how ravishing were his wallpapers.” I rarely found myself tuned out, although I wasn’t reading a ton at a stretch, usually just a chapter or two a day and not every day. the very interesting bits to me were things like how when the protestant reformation emerged and wanted a very stripped down austere church, the catholic church reacted by doubling down on their decoration, which of course reverberated through the art scene. or how in the second half of the eighteenth century, technological developments in paper manufacture, pencil making, and hard cakes of watercolor gave rise to the british school of watercolor, often done en plein air. he really drew my attention to how much art has been lost – most of it! - not just to time, but to willful destruction, war, looting – not just colonially, either, although certainly that. how much art that was made for a particular context has been stripped out of that context into a museum and lost much in the translation.
johnson, as much as I don’t want to hang out with him, I can tell is a person who is devoted to art. I’ve never met someone like this in person, although I have met men who were into music in this way, who want to go on and on about it to you. “each of the last seven works mentioned here has in common that salient characteristic of great art: if you owned one of them, you would wish to look at it every single day of your life, as soon as you got up in the morning.” ok, maybe that’s just you though.
in the end, I don’t know how much I’ll retain from reading this. my favorite schools of art are the pre-raphaelites and the hudson river school, and nothing in here changed my mind. I saw some art I really liked. the earlier chapters went slowly, then once we got post-WWII, things really sped up – georgia o’keeffe got two paragraphs – he certainly praised her, but she is my favorite artist and that short a mention was a little disappointing. frida kahlo and diego rivera, not a word. photography? that must have been cut for space. I think he sort of wants to wait to see what history makes of things - as sure he is of his own opinions, he wants to cast them after the test of time has put in its vote. in general he was not very enthused about popular artists like van gogh or munch, for him they weren’t that talented. he was not big on picasso (agree) and didn’t have much good or effusive to say about monet or the impressionists in general. of course there will be differences of taste – I like more realism than he does, he seems to like to be able to see yes, this is a painting, those aren’t really trees, they’re just blobs of paint, but blobs of paint that have evoked trees. I like someone who paints out the tree.
April 5, 2010
The always-original Paul Johnson is a wonderful tour guide through art history (and world history) as long as you remember that his opinions are not always the accepted opinions. Which is actually what I like about him. This book is immense but it flies by. There were sections I thought about skipping; but as soon as I read a sentence or two, I was hooked. He makes things that seem like they'd be dull fantastically interesting. I learned a lot; and of course it's a quick survey. But anyone I wanted to find out more about, or any works that I wanted to see images of that weren't included in the book, I flagged with yellow sticky notes. Now I plan to go online and to the library and learn more about people/works for whom and for which he has piqued my interest. I dont know a lot about art; this work was a great appetizer for me, and made me hungry to learn more.
February 7, 2012
As with all of Johnson's histories this history of art is comprehensive and leaves very few stones unturned in looking at the art world from every angle that matters. How did and does art interact with, influence and reflect the influences of each and every twist and turn of history? Why is some art enduring and other fads that burn so brightly for a time come to ashes just as quickly? What marks an art world driven by the inner passion of the artist to create, or the patron to fund vs. one supplied by government funding and the need to empty a budget in order to have it refilled?
The plates are beautiful and well chosen, and the older hardbound edition is a 'must have' for anyone with an enduring passion for art for art's sake.
The plates are beautiful and well chosen, and the older hardbound edition is a 'must have' for anyone with an enduring passion for art for art's sake.
December 13, 2007
I am an Art History buff and have read endless books on the history of painting, sculpture and architecture.
This book had a fresh take on many of the tried and true opinions that have been voiced by Vasari way back when. Although the author is rather aged, judging from his portrait in the back, he seems to have a very young , flexible mind and was courageous enough to voice opinions that go against the general trend...(although he did jump on the Caravaggio bandwagon a bit too earnestly!)
I very much like how he drew trends together and then shattered some of our pat preconceptions. Way to go Paul!
This book had a fresh take on many of the tried and true opinions that have been voiced by Vasari way back when. Although the author is rather aged, judging from his portrait in the back, he seems to have a very young , flexible mind and was courageous enough to voice opinions that go against the general trend...(although he did jump on the Caravaggio bandwagon a bit too earnestly!)
I very much like how he drew trends together and then shattered some of our pat preconceptions. Way to go Paul!
February 19, 2009
Solid art history book with out all the academic jargon. Good for cocktail hour knowledge, but not for serious reference.
November 6, 2016
Interesting. I'm glad I was dedicated enough to read the whole thing. He seems to have a negative attitude towards a lot of 20th century art.
November 4, 2014
pompous, long-winded, eurocentric writing; lots of opinions stated as fact with no bibliography/footnotes/etc.
October 14, 2024
Paul Johnson's Art: A New History is a comprehensive look at mostly western art, although African and Asian art are not neglected. Johnson's is thorough, covering painting, sculpture and architecture, the arts & crafts movement, fashion design and even gardening. If there is a painter, sculptor, landscape designer or architect any note, he or she is discussed in this book.
Although there are many photographs in Art: A New History, there are many more works of art mentioned that that could not be pictured. At 700-plus pages, more illustrations would make the book bigger and heavier than it already is. The reader should have his tablet or computer handy so that he can look up the pieces mentioned. If he skips this step, he will be reading about hundreds of works of art without seeing what they look like. Between Wikipedia and Google, the reader should be able to see almost all of the art Johnson mentions.
Johnson's interest in art is personal, and he goes his own way, not beholden to generally accepted critical opinion. As he does in his books on history, he does his own research and reaches his own conclusions, some of which are surprising and not part of the mainstream. He is not fond of the works of Picasso (whom he met and had serious reservations about), and he has mixed feelings about 20th century art. He is often critical of the artists he admires, and doesn't hesitate to point out their shortcomings. As an example, Johnson criticizes the renowned painter Rembrandt because "He could not make a woman look conventionally beautiful...," and then gives examples.
As a historian, Johnson explains the trends in the development of art, and tries as best as he can to explain how the different eras developed. He also discusses odds and ends that add interest and enhance our knowledge as to how the art was produced.
Art: A New History doesn't miss much. You will be introduced to every important trend, movement, artist and artwork, presented by an engaging and knowledgable writer and historian. If this is something which interests you, Art: A New History is a worthwhile read.
Although there are many photographs in Art: A New History, there are many more works of art mentioned that that could not be pictured. At 700-plus pages, more illustrations would make the book bigger and heavier than it already is. The reader should have his tablet or computer handy so that he can look up the pieces mentioned. If he skips this step, he will be reading about hundreds of works of art without seeing what they look like. Between Wikipedia and Google, the reader should be able to see almost all of the art Johnson mentions.
Johnson's interest in art is personal, and he goes his own way, not beholden to generally accepted critical opinion. As he does in his books on history, he does his own research and reaches his own conclusions, some of which are surprising and not part of the mainstream. He is not fond of the works of Picasso (whom he met and had serious reservations about), and he has mixed feelings about 20th century art. He is often critical of the artists he admires, and doesn't hesitate to point out their shortcomings. As an example, Johnson criticizes the renowned painter Rembrandt because "He could not make a woman look conventionally beautiful...," and then gives examples.
As a historian, Johnson explains the trends in the development of art, and tries as best as he can to explain how the different eras developed. He also discusses odds and ends that add interest and enhance our knowledge as to how the art was produced.
Art: A New History doesn't miss much. You will be introduced to every important trend, movement, artist and artwork, presented by an engaging and knowledgable writer and historian. If this is something which interests you, Art: A New History is a worthwhile read.
December 31, 2018
Ta Da! I finished it after on again, off again for years, but it wasn't because the book is not well written and interesting. It definitely is both. Paul Johnson is a very knowledgeable observer and has firm opinions about what he sees. This makes for a fun read. I especially recommend reading it with a computer at hand to call up pictures of the art as he discusses it. I will review the appropriate sections before travel so I can look for the work he talks so candidly about.
October 5, 2022
Enjoyable and useful. Johnson's always been one to color outside the lines, and in this history he kicks the art historian taxonomies up and down the street. I appreciate the way he declares his perspectives and then proceeds to take positions and offer opinions. He does not equivocate, and the book is meaty and alive as a result. You don't need to have much existing knowledge of art, either, though a computer on hand to look up the many referenced works would be a good idea.
December 24, 2017
Excellent overview of art history, in preparation for a trip to Europe.
July 21, 2019
Refreshing, conservative, well written.
October 12, 2012
The frist two-thirds of this comprehensive hisotry of art (widely defined to incude architecture, sculpture, as well as fine art)is wonderful. It puts the art in conetext, majes you rethink what went into it, and pulls you along. The final third reads like a list of artwork that he likes, without enough illustrations to follow well. (It is well-illustrated, but his lists become too long for the amount of illustrations.) In ther very last chapters he becomes very British-centric, listing English artists who he feels are being overlooked. He also doesn't think much of, and gives short shrift to, 19th century Impressionism. But still, overall, a solid read, and a great introduction and guide to the huge history of Art.
May 15, 2014
Johnson offers up a monumental art history with a refreshing perspective: that art should be about beauty. He's wonderfully dismissive of the twisted experiments of the 20th century that led to so many mindless dead ends. But his treatment of art does suffer from the usual causes: he can only approach artists at a very high level, focusing on one or two of their contributions, and must leave us hungry to see the plates that cannot be included. And this is essentially a tour of western art despite fascinating forays into Africa and Asia.
March 12, 2015
Rather than telling you what is Impressionism, Romanticism and how it start, like what is being taught in secondary school Art class, this book illustrates the notion of "gifted artists engendered a trend, rather than following a trend". Numerous prodigies like da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bernini, Caravaggio, Monet combined their skills learnt from past and creativity, created unprecedented masterpieces, which attracted other artists to imitate and expand. Only at a much later stage historians would coin that new style with mumbo jumbo. This is how the history of art unfolds.
January 12, 2016
Johnson is better known as the brilliant historian of such books like "Modern Age" and "The Intellectuals." His books are far-reaching and erudite in nature but with a most approachable style. Johnson is himself a painter and his book is 800 pages of the history of art. Johnson does not suffer fools gladly, and he especially does not suffer artiste fools gladly. While the book is a delight to read and astonishing in its scope and genius, this book will deflate and demoralize the coat hangers-as-art-with-metaphysical-titles crowd
October 11, 2009
I was reading this amidst a stack of Jansons and fairly outdated art resources. The book doesn't give much to the technical analysis of the drawing, which I liked; it did, however, bring a lot more contextual insight into the artists' productive motives (read: not 'inspiration,' a word I have learned to use very carefully.) It's a very reliable overview of Western art; I'd say reading it felt like eating an open-faced sandwich, seeing it in its entirety and taking in every flavour afterward.
December 17, 2010
This is the first art history book I've been able to read. Paul Johnson is not an art historian. He's an artist, a writer and from an artistic background but looks at the subject from the viewpoint of one who is passionate about art. The book explained what happened to art in the 20th century when art followed fads, isms. It is extremely readable, discusses individual artists, their backgrounds and what is good about them.
December 3, 2016
A very conservative and eclectic review of art history, of considerable interest in parts, although frequently and too often simply bizarre. It's interesting to read someone who hates Picasso thoroughly. Johnson is not an art historian but a conservative writer on a number of topics. Still there is considerable value here in a radically different approach to art history. Worth perusing, even if reading it is too much to handle.
August 29, 2011
I was hoping to read this complete book, but it is like a reference book that would take a huge commitment to finish. I did not like the beginning of the author's thoughts about art. Art did not exist before language, whatever you expect this to be. Most of the book had many popular pieces, but again, I did not like his focus. My personal thoughts!
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December 23, 2013If you are interested in art, you might like Paul Johnson’s Art: a New History, an excellent overview of art from prehistory to the present day. Despite the extensive scope of the subject matter, this is a very readable book in which the author not only puts art in its historical context, but also describes it with the love and passion of an artist.
March 24, 2010
4 out of 5 stars...As far as art history goes, this book was fun to read. At about 700 pluse pages Mr. Johnson did a good job of taking a little time with each of my favorites. It's is funny to think the whole of art history could fit in one book. Thats why we all have our tastes.
August 16, 2012
What a readable book! Paul Johnson's appreciation for art is incredible, and he explains pieces through efficient and enjoyable prose. If anyone wants to, in one book, absorb art history, it would be hard not to recommend this book.
March 1, 2008
This is long, hard reading. But its very good.
March 2, 2008
Nothing too startling, but a very good history of art worldwide.
March 15, 2008
Not your usual take on art, Johnson thinks outside the usual box. His assertion that modern art is one fad followed by another is particularly apt.
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