The Grove Book of Art Writing: Brilliant Words on Art from Pliny the Elder to Damien Hirst

by Martin Gayford (Editor), Karen Wright (Editor)

Discussing the visual arts successfully in words is often held to be an impossible task. In fact it is merely difficult. And since the days of the ancient Greeks, many writers of all kinds have taken up the challenge -- not only art critics but novelists, poets, gossips, artists, and essayists. In The Grove Book of Art Writing, Martin Gayford and Karen Wright have collected the best and most lively attempts to pin it down, in a single-volume cornucopia of writing on art. From Vasari and Freud on why Mona Lisa smiles, to Adolf Hitler on the degeneracy of modernism, to Picasso on how to measure the depiction of the female body, art historians, art critics, artists, as well as the aforementioned weigh in on what makes art so wonderful, frustrating, what makes it art. From the deadly serious to the deeply witty, from the sublime to the ridiculous, The Grove Book of Art Writing is an eloquent compendium of insight into the diverse ways the visual arts can be seen and thought about.

Genres: Art, Art History

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Martin Gayford is an art critic and art historian. He studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London. Over three decades, he has written prolifically about art and music in a series of major biographies, as well as contributing regularly to newspapers, magazines and exhibition catalogues. In parallel with his career as an art historian, he was art critic of The Spectator magazine and The Sunday Telegraph newspaper before becoming Chief Art Critic for the international television network, Bloomberg News. He has been a regular contributor to the British journal of art criticism, Modern Painters.

His books include a study of Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles (Little Brown, 2006), which was published in Britain and the USA to critical acclaim, and has been translated, to date, into five languages; Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter (Penguin, 2009), a study of John Constable’s romance with Maria Bicknell and their lives between 1809 and 1816; and A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney (Thames and Hudson, 2011).

Reviews

[Dhyana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love this subject but six hundred and forty pages ? Why not two comfortable books instead of a giant unmanageable unreadable ton of paper?
It’s disappointing.

[Christine Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a diverse and enjoyable anthology of art writing. They are all vivid. Nothing dry here. Louise Nevelson had sculptures in her bath tub. Leigh Bowery and Lucian Freud made each other nervous. These are just some of the anecdotes that surround art making and I love them.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excerpts from various sources concerning the lives and works of artists.

[Ann Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

i only read parts of this; focusing on sections with artists that i like. in general i liked those sections. tried but couldn't read the rest because i found it a bit boring and stuffy.