Marks of Opulence: The Why, When and Where of Western Art 1000-1914 by Colin Platt

by Colin Platt

The man who has money will always rule the man who has art... for starving men are weak. Colin Platt's book explores the connection between the great artistic patrons and the artists they commissioned from the Catholic Church in the 11th century to the birth of modernism. It looks at how the great and the rich have used art to bolster political power, ego and at the dependence of princes on great art and writing to shape and claim a historical legacy. The book also examines how changes in socio-economic conditions filter through to artistic endeavour, and why - at any particular time - art flourished in specific geographical locations. There have been patrons of genius in every Abbot Desiderius in the 11th, St Bernard in the 12th, Louis IX in the 13th. Tiny, seafaring Portugal has had three. The flourishing of European art is closely linked to periods of economic growth and to in the 18th century, London took over as the commercial capital of the West. When Reynolds, Romney, Gainsborough, Stubbs and West were joined shortly afterwards by William Blake, John Constable and J.M.W. Turner, even the French had to acknowledge the excellence of British art - indisputably

Genres: Art, History, Art History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange book. It's not really a history of art. It's not really an economic history. It's a strange combination. Platt looks only at the large picture--artistic and economic and political trends but you don't really get up close. Strangely, the many illustrations in the book are not connected in any way--he doesn't refer you to images while discussing art and I got too lost to figure out if images he mentions are shown in the book (they are broken up into sections). You get a lot more about architectural developments than any other art especially since this definitely 'followed the money.' I still don't know what to think about this. It wasn't a bad book but I'm confused as to its purpose.

[David Sogge · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can tolerate murky prose, lengthy re-hashings of largely irrelevant European history, extensive lists of names and elite dynasties (often unexplained) and recherché terms (‘sedilia’, ‘reredos’, ‘obedientiaries’, ‘convolvulus’) ...

And if you're content to learn little or nothing about how works of art were commissioned, produced on the basis of schooling and apprenticeships, paid by patrons, brought to market via brokers, auction houses and galleries, plundered or falsified, made price- and praise-worthy by ‘influencers’ of the day and acquired for public display in museums …

If that's what you can put up with, this is a book for you.

It wasn’t for me.