Creative Impulse: An Introduction to the Arts

by Dennis J. Sporre

This volume presents an overview of the arts in the Western tradition; within the contexts of the philosophy, religion, aesthetic theory, economics, and politics surrounding them. It is an historical introduction to the humanities yielding a basic familiarity with major styles and their implications, as well as a sense of the historical development of individual arts media. Chapters present and discuss a formal analysis of works of art in the following the Ancient World, the Aegean and Archaic Greece, Greek Classicism and Hellenism, the Roman Period, Judaism and Early Christianity, Byzantium and Islam, the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, Early Renaissance, High Renaissance, the High, Renaissance and Reformation, the Baroque Age, the Enlightenment, the Romantic Age, Realism, Impressionism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. For art history enthusiasts and those interested in a familiarity with major styles and their implications, as well as a sense of the historical development.

Genres: Art, School, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Art History

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps my expectations were too high for this book but I felt it was quite underwhelmed. Sporre definitely wants to give the reader the historical context in which art developed but he seems to emphasize it to the point where very little continuity from art movement to art movement is explored. The reader ends up feeling that art is merely a reaction to current events. While this is certainly partly true, there is clearly also an influence of one artistic movement on another, reinforcing it or as a backlash against it, and Sporre leaves this almost unexplored. Similarly, as he approaches modern art his book because more and more a list of art movements, I.e., Mechanism, Futurism, Fauvism, etc. with scarcely more than a paragraph and a single painting as a description. I’m sure Sporre intended this book to be an introduction to art history but good introductions should make you want to dig deeper and give you a taste of the relationships to be explored, I felt nothing of the sort after reading this book. The best that I can say is that Sporre made sure the reader is exposed, however briefly, to the main artistic movements throughout the ages.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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