چشم پاینده: جستارهایی درباره‌ی هنر

by Julian Barnes, آبتین رادمنش ( Translator)

خواندن کتاب «چشم پاینده» به قدر خواندن دیگر متن‌هایش برای مخاطبان بارنز لذت‌بخش است و برای عاشقان نقاشی، لذتی بسی بیشتر خواهد داشت. جستارهای این کتاب که تاریخ، تجربه‌ی زیسته‌ی نویسنده و رویاپردازی را توامان دارند، همانند سفری شگرف به تاریخ نقاشی‌ست اما در فرمی منحصربه‌فرد که می‌توان به نام جولین بارنز نام‌گذاری‌اش کرد. اگر خواندن تاریخ هنر ارنست گمبریج، هم‌وطن شهیر بارنز برای شما همواره خاطره‌انگیز و ثمربخش بوده، جستارهای بارنز در چشم پاینده هم به همین سیاق خواهد بود، با این تفاوت که بارنز تاریخ نمی‌نویسد و بسیار بیشتر از از تاریخ‌نویسی و شرح وقایع و جزئیات، خواننده‌اش را به درون جمعیتی از نقاشان و نقاشی‌هایشان می‌برد و حظ و شناختی شگفت را فراهم می‌آورد

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Essays, Art History, History, British Literature, Criticism

444 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh (having married Pat Kavanagh). In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.
In 2004 he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I worked out that this is my eighteenth Barnes book. I’ve always found his nonfiction in particular to be truly eye-opening, as this title suggests: whatever his topic – whether it’s something that usually interests me or not – he exemplifies a careful way of seeing that picks up on things that most would miss. He eschews the obvious and goes to the heart of the thing.

These pieces range in date from 1989 to 2013 and were all previously published elsewhere. Seven essays were for Modern Painters, while others were for the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, or the Times Literary Supplement. Often they coincide with a new exhibition of a painter’s work. His chosen subjects are European painters, usually French, who are somewhere on the continuum between Realism and Modernism. Some were familiar to me (Courbet, Manet, Cézanne, Degas) while others were completely new, and welcome, discoveries (Vuillard and Vallotton). A couple were just names for which I had no real associations, like Magritte and Lucian Freud. Each article is illustrated with two or more color reproductions.

Barnes is alive to the contrasts and contradictions involved in all art, but particularly Modernism:

“French art in the nineteenth century was, in broadest terms, a struggle between colour and line.”

“It is a strangeness of Fantin’s considerable talent that his human portraits have the eerie, funereal look of still-lives; while his still-lives, the flower paintings by which he made his money (and also his name in this country), display all the vigour and life and colour of which he was inherently aware.”

“You don’t paint souls, you paint bodies, and the soul shines through.”

“Flaubert advised artists to be regular and ordinary in their lives, so that they might be violent and original in their work.”

“He [Redon] is also unusual in that he had his dark period first rather than last: he escaped the shadows, rather than feeling them close in with the years.”

“How far does an artist’s individuality develop as the result of pursuing and refining the strengths of his or her talent, and how much from avoiding the weaknesses?”

“A great painting compels the spectator into verbal response, despite our awareness that any such articulations will be mere echoes of what others have already put more cogently and more knowledgeably.”

One of my favorite essays was on death masks and body casts, a nineteenth-century sensation, and how the technique has cropped back up in recent art. I also enjoyed the peeks into Barnes’s own life: while teaching for a semester at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the mid-1990s, he was once invited to dinner at John Waters’s house; he was a personal friend of Howard Hodgkin (a zoomed-in portion of whose Alpine Snow is this book’s cover image).

It took me a long time to read this: only ever one essay, or part of one, at a time, often with many days in between. But in the end I found it very much worthwhile. It’s given me a better vocabulary for thinking about art.

More great lines:

“It doesn’t really matter whether an artist has a dull or an interesting life, except for promotional purposes.”

“Most Pop Art is art in a loose, trivial or jesting way. It is about hanging around art, trying on its clothes, telling us not to be overimpressed by it.”

“Art changes over time; what is art changes too. Objects intended for devotional, ritualistic or recreational use are recategorised by latecomers from another civilisation who no longer respond to these original purposes.”

“Most art is, of course, bad art; a large percentage of art nowadays is personal; and bad personal art is the worst of all.”

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

BOTW

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05zhhhy

Description: Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays , chiefly about French artists, for a variety of journals and magazines. Gathering them for this book, he realised that he had unwittingly been retracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.

From Paul Cezanne to Lucian Freud, the novelist and critic Julian Barnes considers the thrill of art. 'Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation.'

In this selection from Julian Barnes' recently published collection of essays on art, he gives us a dazzling and thoughtful assessment of the life and work of a range of artists who set the stage for Modern Art. His words of explanation are always witty, humane and full of insight.

Read by Julian Barnes

1/5: The Laughing Cavalier did not impress the young Julian Barnes

2/5 Does an apple move?: Modern art begins with Paul Cezanne



3/5 Braque, the heart of painting



4/5 Oldenburg: good soft fun



5/5 Freud, the episodicist

[Numidica · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation."

He was right.

While I really like Julian Barnes, I'm sorry, his essays about art just don't do it for me. In one case, that of Lucian Freud, the essay made me actively dislike the artist and his work. I was surprised how much I was bored by this book, considering how much I like Julian Barnes, but it must be noted that I read it while concurrently reading a collection of Vonnegut's speeches, and if there is anyone who can deflate the balloon which is high art, it is my good friend Kurt. So that didn't help my attempt to enjoy Barnes' explanations of various artists' work. By the way, I love, really love the Musee d'Orsay and the Musee Rodin (the Louvre not so much) so I am by no means an art hater, but many of the artists and works featured in this book left me flat.

To elaborate (as a friend has asked that I do), what I mean is that I did not think Barnes' descriptions of the art and artists added much to the enjoyment of the paintings. In the case of the Shipwreck of the Medusa, it added historical context, but that's sort of all. With the more modern painters, it added little or nothing to the enjoyment of the art, in my opinion. And I'm saying all this as a Barnes fan - I've enjoyed three of his books, and I plan to read The Man in the Red Coat next.

As for "what do museums have to do with it?" (a question I received), my point is that I can happily spend hours looking at and being moved by the art in those museums, and in some cases my emotional / physical response to the art makes me want to read about a painter or painting. But the art that Barnes chose to talk about, which I'm sure moved him when he encountered it, mostly left me cold, especially the abstract art. I love Sargent and Homer, by the way; I suppose I'm more of a Belle Epoque person with respect to art. I'm looking right now at a book on my bookcase called Winslow Homer in the Tropics, by the way. Bought it for a pittance second hand, and I love his watercolors of the Bahamas.

I'm sure experts can write interesting things about art, and I might possibly be interested in technique, etc, but not the kind of stuff Barnes had to say, because ultimately, he's writing about paintings he likes, and I do not share his tastes.

So, to paraphrase Elvis Costello paraphrasing Flaubert, "Writing about painting is like dancing about architecture". Unless the author happens to be writing about art that one is already interested in, and then it's fine.

[Netta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blurb of this book, unfortunately, is very misleading as it ensures us that we are about to read a collection of essays on art and “the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism” which is not quite true. Originally these essays were published in several sources, – a piece on Géricault can be found in Barnes’s novel A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, other essays had been previously published in Guardian, London Review of Books, New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and Modern Painters – and they are in no way the essays of art historian or art critic. These are the collection of art lover’s clever musings on artists, paintings and art movements which resonates with him.

If you haven’t read anything else by Julian Barnes, you would probably find his essays on Manet, Vallotton, Cézanne, Delacroix, Courbet and others quite a pretentious, if not snobbish, thing as for each painter he creates an amazingly detailed, exquisitely novelesque background which can be easily confused with Barnes’s attempt to impress his readers by showing off his knowledge. I daresay this interpretation would have been one-sided. Julian Barnes writes about painters and their work as every avid art lover should – carefully collecting some milestones of painters’ lives, their thoughts expressed in diaries or letters, curator’s and art historians’s perception. Having visited some major exhibitions of his heroes, Barnes shares with us his impressions and information he gained talking to the curators. From time to time he pauses for brief witty interludes devoted to how we look at a work of art and how we assess it, how we treat an exhibition or a painter. Among these interludes an avid reader of Barnes can find a few pure gems – some hints on why this or that painter resonated with Barnes, say, why Bonnard, who kept painting his Marthe in an attempt to document her existence, might be of interest to Barnes, who keeps dedicating his books to Pat, his wife who died of a brain tumour in 2008. Sometimes it seems so personal that it almost becomes intimidating, as if you’ve found someone’s diary and simply cannot put it down despite yourself.

Being a huge fun of Julian Barnes and having read almost everything he wrote (I read most of his works in pre-Goodreads times so they aren’t rated here), I am, of course, biased. I love the way he describes paintings, as if he continues thinking about them, trying to sneak inside the creator’s mind; I adore how effortlessly eloquent and graceful Barnes’s prose is and how a low humming of his own tune is always present in each and every piece of writing he creates. I highly recommend reading this book after you read a few of his novels. Chances are, in this case you’ll enjoy this little collection of essays even more.

[Domenico Fina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pubblicato nel 2015. Si tratta di 17 saggi scritti tra il 1989 e il 2013 riguardanti pittori prevalentemente francesi dell'Ottocento e primo Novecento. Nel parlare di pittura e di pittori che ha ammirato Julian Barnes implicitamente si esprime sull'arte, sul processo creativo e su come prendere le distanze dalla critica stessa, atteggiamento che manifesta anche in altri testi come "Il pappagallo di Flaubert".
Cezanne, Bonnard, Delacroix, Manet, Magritte, Vuillard; fino a spingersi ai giorni nostri con Lucian Freud, Claes Oldenburg, Howard Hodgkin.

A proposito del pittore che mi suscita più ammirazione, Edouard Vuillard, Barnes scrive:

Un volta si espresse così rispetto al processo artistico: "Ci si arriva in un lampo, oppure con la vecchiaia."

Allego la foto di un quadro di Vuillard (Due ragazze che camminano, 1891)

https://www.meisterdrucke.it/stampe-d...

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julian Barnes yolculuğumda yine bir denemeler durağına vardım: "Gözünü Açık Tutmak", yazarın ağırlıklı olarak resim sanatına dair denemelerini içeriyor. Evimde de bazı eserlerinin baskıları bulunan Cezzane ve Degas gibi bazı çok sevdiğim ressamlara dair olan denemelerden özellikle keyif aldım.

Barnes, hem bu büyük ressamların kimi eserleri üzerine kafa yoruyor, hem de onların hayat hikayelerini didikliyor ve bir yandan da bu biyografilerin ne kadar doğru / yanlı aktarıldığı ile, bu bilgilerin ressamın eserini başka türlü yorumlamamıza sebep olup olmayacağını didikliyor.

Büyük Marcel Proust - Sainte-Beuve kapışmasının mevzusu yani aslında. Bir sanatçıyı önce eserleri üzerinden mi tanımalıyız, yoksa hayat öyküsünü bilmeden eserlerini anlayamaz mıyız? Ben ilkinden yanayım, Marcel Proust da öyle, bence Julian Barnes da büyük ölçüde öyle; ya da ikisinin arasında bir yerde duruyor gibi belki?

Neyse, özellikle resime ve resim okumalarına ilginiz varsa bayılırsınız bu kitaba, müthiş ufuk açıcı. Bilmediğim pek çok ressam keşfettim, Barnes anlattıkça Google'dan mevzubahis tabloları açtım baktım, onun gördüğü gibi görmeye çalıştım, bir sürü bilmediğim ressamı tanıdım. (Fantin-Latour, Vallotton, Lucius Freud vd.) Ancak konuya özel bir ilginiz yoksa ağır ve sıkıcı gelebilir eser, yer yer ben de zorlandım.

Ufuk açıcılık meselesini de örnekleyeyim: bir denemesinde episodicisim (olay anlatıcılık) ve narrativisim (anlatıcılık) arasında şahane bir ayrım yapıyor. "Ahlakçı değil, varoluşsal bir ayrımdır bu" diyor, olay anlatıcıların daha parçalı bir benliğe sahip olduklarını ancak anlatıcıların daha kalıcı bir benlik fikri üzerinden özgür iradeyi kendi benliklerini ve bağlantısallıklarını yaratan bir araç olarak gördüklerini söylüyor. Şimdi bundan sonra benim kafam bir sürü yazarı bu çerçevede kategorize eder, bence nefis.

Neyse evet, uzatmıyorum, zor kitap, güzel kitap, meraklısına tavsiyedir. Son ve leziz bir alıntıyla bitiriyorum: "Sanat yapıtlarına saldıranlar, bir anlamda haksız değillerdir. Kayıtsızlık duyduğunuz ya da sizi tehdit etmeyen bir şeye hücum etmezsiniz; ikona kırıcılar, imgeleri pek nadiren duygusuzluktan ötürü parçalarlar."

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seventeen artists. Seventeen essays in which a well-known writer and art-lover shares his impressions, observations and illuminating insights on art and how it encodes the biography and the personality of the artist.
What does it mean 'Keeping an eye open'? Is it important to know the biography of the artist in order to understand and be able to appreciate a work of art? Or is it enough to trust one's own eyes and feelings? Does a work of art live its own, independent life? How does it speak to us? The author tries to answer these questions.

"Art doesn't just capture and convey the excitement, the thrill of life. Sometimes, it does even more: it is that thrill"

The book is illustrated, but not enough having in mind all the paintings mentioned. On the other hand, this fact encourages research and causes some amazing discoveries.

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

J. Barnes’in resim başta olmak üzere sanat kavramı üzerine yazdığı denemelerden oluşuyor bu kitabı, 19. yüzyıl ve 20. yüzyılın başlarını düşünürsek ressam, yazar, müzisyen, heykeltraş gibi sanatçıların çoğunun ezici şekilde erkek olduğunu görürüz. Bu durumun getirdiği egemen toplumsal ikiyüzlülükleri açık bir şekilde ortaya koymaktadır J. Barnes. Bu küçültücü durumları bazen belgesel kayıtlarla bazen dedikodu tarzı anlatımlarla gözler önüne seriyor. Gözümüzde büyüttüğümüz sanatçıları bu yönleriyle tanıtmayı, sanatlarına zarar getirmeksizin anlatıyor.

Seçtiği sanatçıların genelde az bilinen eserleri üzerinden ayrıntılı incelemeler yapıyor, onların yönelim ve gelişmelerini bu eserler üzerinden değerlendiriyor. Keskin ve ironik kalemini kıvrakça kullanıyor. Sanatçıların neredeyse tamamına yakınını hayranlık duyduğu Fransızlar arasından seçmiş. Yeni ressamlar öğrenmiş oldum, Fantin-Latour, Vuillard gibi.

Julian Barnes bile bana kübizm ve sürrealizm gibi modern resim akımlarını, Braque, Magritte gibi modernizmin babalarını sevdiremedi. Resim sanatı ve ressamlar ile ilgilenenler için oldukça ilginç bir deneme kitabı.

[Milly Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me fui de paseo con Julian Barnes.
Entramos de la mano a un museo y no nos soltamos todo el trayecto.
Me conmovió con secretos, historias, cultura y mucho arte.
La pasamos increíble.
Lo amo.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

 
Lives of the Artists, and Much More

Those who have read the stories of Julian Barnes will know how often he builds them around real figures in the arts: The Lemon Table contains stories about Turgenev and Sibelius; Sarah Bernhart and the photographer Nadar play major roles in Levels of Life ; Flaubert gets a whole novel to himself (almost) in Flaubert's Parrot ; and a meticulous analysis of Géricault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa" forms the centerpiece of his A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. That essay is reprinted here, slightly expanded. It forms the beginning of a sequence of pieces on French-speaking artists of the 19th and 20th centuries—Géricault, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Fantin-Latour, Cézanne, Degas, Redon, Bonnard, Vuillard, Valloton, Braque, and Magritte—followed by a few moderns: Claes Oldenburg, Lucian Freud, and Howard Hodgkin. I am finding it utterly addictive.

As a novelist, Barnes has an eye for the telling personal detail: Delacroix in a daze walking home to a house he had moved out of two years earlier; Courbet drinking himself into obesity and death; Cézanne losing his temper with a fidgety sitter. He compares Courbet to Fantin-Latour in terms of their portrayals of the community of artists, and Degas to Bonnard in terms of their attitudes to women; his entry into the proto-Surrealist work of Redon is the question of whether it matters if an artist is married. Littérateur that he is, Barnes also has an ear for what other writers have said about these artists: Maxime Du Camp describing Delacroix sorting skeins of wool; Baudelaire telling Manet "you are only the first in the degeneration of your art"; Huysmans' brilliant description of a Cézanne still life as "skewed fruit in besotted pottery."

But Barnes' approach is by no means entirely biographical. The Géricault essay, for instance, begins with a detailed description of the wreck of the Medusa and the ordeal of the survivors on the raft. He makes excellent points by considering all the episodes in the story that Géricault did not paint. But it is when he considers what he did paint, that extraordinary group of half-naked figures reaching towards the distant ship, that his writing really takes off. He does something similar again in his second essay on Manet, considering the artist's three versions of "The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian" and its role as a political statement, but nonetheless tying it down to precise analysis of details such as the firing squad's hands and feet:

They are feet settling themselves in for useful work, like when a golfer shuffles for balance in a bunker. You can almost imagine the NCO's pre-execution pep-talk about the importance of getting comfortable, relaxing the feet, then the knees and the hips, pretending you're just out for a day's partridge or woodcock....

"Fully illustrated in colour throughout" says the jacket flap. This is not true. The color illustrations (two or three per essay) are indeed of excellent quality and printed on thick creamy paper. But they tend to be details rather than the full picture, and often of works peripheral to the artist's more famous oeuvre. I understand the logic of that: Barnes gives you the things that are hard to find, knowing that you can turn to the internet for the rest. I found myself reading with iPad by my side, not only reminding myself of the masterpieces, but also seeking out things that I had never even heard of until Barnes mentioned them. For example Akseli Gallen-Kallela's "Symposium" (1894), "a Munchishly hallucinatory group portrait set at the Kämp Hotel in Helsinki after much drink has been taken." Interesting in that one of stupefied figures is the composer Jean Sibelius, but also because one side of the picture is taken up by "a pair of deep-red raptor's wings. The Mystery of Art has just called in on them, but is now flying away." Barnes' art criticism, like his stories, is full of unexpected trouvailles like that. But the heart of all his essays is his invocation of masterpiece after masterpiece, in words so full of visual detail that you almost do not need the physical reproductions. Almost, but not quite: for only when you look at the pictures do you realize just how right Barnes is, time after time.

+ + + + + +

I originally wrote the above review (and contemplated a five-star Amazon rating) when I was halfway through, after the essay on Bonnard. I was not surprised by its quality; Barnes is deeply immersed in the French nineteenth century. Reading on, though, I have to admit that my interest dropped off. Although still full of good observations, the later essays did not always achieve that miraculous balance between art, personality, and history. The essay on Vuillard seemed to miss the man; the one on Vallotton failed to convince about the genius; the piece on Oldenburg gave no good reason why it had been written at all; and the article on Lucian Freud succeeded only in conveying the impression of a very unpleasant individual. But even at the end, there were joys. His piece entitled "So does it become Art?" is Barnes at his best, taking an out-of-the-way subject—plaster casts of dead bodies in 19th-century France and in our own time—and deriving some very pertinent questions about the nature of art. And in the last essay of all, "Words for H.H.", Barnes does more for his old friend Howard Hodgkin than for any other artist in the book, by admitting to the limitations of words and sketching a dance of friendship instead, and by linking him to his great love of over a century before, the novelist Gustave Flaubert. So to the last line in the book: "So that's enough words." No more are needed.

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4/5



Am auzit foarte multe discuții despre scriitorul britanic Julian Barnes, devenind curioasă de toate laudele pe care le primește. Având ocazia să citesc și să cercetez Cu ochii larg deschiși, nu am dat înapoi, Eseuri despre artă amintindu-mi de momentele când citeam despre artă și istoria artiștilor prin clasele primare și în generală .

La o primă vedere, mi-am dat seama că Barnes nu scrie pentru oricine, iar creațiile sale sunt detaliate, complexe și bine cercetate. Cele 17 capitole din lectura de față m-au dus printr-o scurtă istorie a unor artiști renumiți printre care îi pot aminti pe Gericault, Delacroix, Cezanne, Degas, Courbet.



Scrisă cu eleganță și având un stil aparte, cartea este o combinație interesantă dintre artă, istorie și analiză. Mi-a luat destul de mult timp ca să o duc la bun sfârșit (recunosc, nu este o carte pe care aș citi-o prea des), ea având un caracter informativ, care te pune pe gânduri atunci când începi să simți studiul lui Julian Barnes.

Au fost diverse pasaje și chiar pagini întregi ce m-au făcut să mă gândesc mai bine la viețile artiștilor, la ceea ce au dorit ei să exprime sau să mascheze în creațiile lor, lucruri care de multe ori sunt invizibile pentru ochiul lipsit de experiență.



Cât timp alocăm pentru a cerceta în amănunt un tablou? De cele mai multe ori, nu îndeajuns de mult timp, așa că este aproape imposibil să deducem ce a dorit un artist să exprime în sutele lui de tablouri.

Mi s-a părut o lectură destul de greoaie, asupra căreia trebuie să petreci mai mult timp pentru a putea aprecia cu adevărat munca autorului. În clipa de față nu îl pot considera pe Julian Barnes un autor preferat, însă îl apreciez pentru minuțiozitatea de care a dat dovadă atunci când a scris Cu ochii larg deschiși. Ar trebui să putem deschide toți ochii mai bine pentru a vedea mai des că între viețile artiștilor și creațile lor este o legătură strânsă pe care de multe ori o omitem.

Dacă sunteți un împătimit al istoriei artei și doriți să aflați mai multe amănunte despre artiști cunoscuți, puteți lectura Eseuri despre artă cu o cană de ceai sau cafea alături, ori de câte ori doriți să faceți o călătorie în timp și să vă puneți creierul un pic la muncă. :) Aveți alături și niște ilustrații faine, care vă pot apropia mai mult de munca artiștilor, așa că nu vă puteți plictisi.



Citate:

"Cât timp petrecem cu un tablou reușit? Zece secunde? Treizeci? Două minute pline? Și-atunci, cât petrecem cu fiecare tablou reușit din expoziția cu aproximativ trei sute de exponate care a devenit norma unui artist important? Două minute per exponat ar duce la un total de zece ore (fără pauză de prânz, ceai sau toaletă)." (p.99)

[Hosna · Rating 4 out of 5]

بارنز خوب، ترجمه خیلی بد. کی به نقاشی نیلوفرهای مونه نقاشی سوسن آبی می‌گوید؟ تنها یک مترجم ناشی خودبزرگ‌بین.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

насправді, сторінок більше 50 ніж вказано тут.
чудове зібрання есеїв про мистецтво, надихають розповіді про людей, дуже

[Wiom biom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of essays on art written by a literary figure, a non-artist. The allure of this anthology, in my opinion, lies in the fact that an otherwise 'elite' subject matter is written about by an amateur in art, a master in prose. Without pretending to be a technical/academic study of the 17 artists ranging from Delacroix to Oldenburg, Barnes novelistically and eloquently elucidates the 'artistic' features of their artworks, their artistic development, the way their works are situated in a wider historical context -- all in a highly accessible manner. What Barnes also successfully avoided is to place the man before the artist, or, in other words, to write a biography; indeed, in a few of his essays, he argues for the non-centrality of an artist's life (at times, speculative work) to their work. Barnes' essays are never entirely the same, but they all share perfect portions of art, life, philosophy, literature. They are, as some reviewers have put it, 'engaging, eloquent, elegant, entertaining, erudite' pieces written by an excellent critic. While he is clearly fascinated by the art and has quite a few opinions to share, that critical distance is still maintained.

Another thing that stood out to me: Barnes weaves art and literature together so seamlessly that you can see both forms of art complementing one another. On the same page, there could be references to Flaubert and Foucault, then to Matisse and Ingres. It is this masterly navigation between these two closely related worlds that truly characterises Barnes' essays; considering the final essay (on Howard Hodgkin, an artist friend of Barnes), Keeping An Eye Open could be imagined as a collection of love letters to and from writers and artists.

"Painters are envied because their art combines the means of expression and the expression itself in the same act and place... Writers rarely consider if there might be reverse-envy as well: that a painter whose picture is given a five-second glance by some window-shopping gallery-goer might well envy the sheer time a reader is willing to spend with a writer. Redon declared literature 'the greatest art'."

Do give this collection a chance -- you'll walk away feeling inspired and artistically nourished.

[Ciahnan Darrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barnes is one of the rare writers whose mastery of his craft and erudition are equalled, if not surpassed, by the insight contained within his prose. He watches, annotates, ponders, sits at his desk, and with his laptop raises a world that transports you, quietly, totally, and without distraction. To watch his characters is to learn from them, not good or bad, but a manner of being in the world.

Though he doesn't explicitly discuss his writing process herein, there's no point in Keeping An Eye in which he isn't showing his readers how his mind works, and elaborating upon the habits of attention demanded of those who would tell stories that matter, stories that render the familiar strange, and in doing so, reclaim the quotidian as a mine of great yield.

It has been said that there is no art apart from love, and if this the case, then Barnes, in baring himself in his encounters with the paintings he engages, is teaching his reader to love, which is to say, to live in such a way that renders art possible.

[Iryna Chernyshova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Заходить якось Барнз до Музея Орсе/Національної галереї/MoMA/ і бачить…

Мушу визнати що ця збірка сподобалася значно більше «Людини в червоному халаті» - не було хибного приводу для написання, а просто зібрано в якомусь порядку розповіді про митців. Про Ольденбурга взагалі лихо написано.

Чарівність такого роду мистецтвознавчих оповідей в тому що я неодмінно забуваю що там як тільки закінчую книгу. Звичайно щось в голові лишається, але небагато). Але вони дають продихнути між складними книгами і досить непогано.

[Rachel Swallow · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite reading experiences of all time (despite it taking me almost a year)

[Willy Schuyesmans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geen roman van Barnes deze keer, maar een verzameling van 17 essays over kunst die hij tussen 1989 en 2013 grotendeels in opdracht heeft geschreven voor kranten en tijdschriften. Een heel bijzonder boek dat je inzicht in kunst niet weinig verheft. Hoewel biografische gegevens en anekdotes van de behandelde schilders hun plaats krijgen, is dat niet de grote verdienste van Barnes' essays. Wel zijn 'oog' dat meteen ziet welke schilderijen belangrijk zijn en waarom.
De waaier aan schrijvers die aan bod komen, is op zich ook al heel bijzonder. Alom bekende kunstenaars als Delacroix, Manet, Cézanne, Braque en Magritte, maar evengoed bij het brede publiek minder bekende - maar daarom niet minder boeiende - namen als Guéricault, Fantin-Latour of Vallonton. Interessant vond ik de onbehouwendheid en arrogantie van Courbet, de bevreemdende wereld van Redon, de 385 keer dat Bonnard zijn vrouw schilderde (was hij zo verliefd op haar of duldde zijn 'lichtgeraakte elf' geen ander model in zijn atelier?), de zo sensuele manier waarop Vuillard Misia's nek schilderde, of de vrouwenhater in Lucian Freud. Hoewel het merendeel van de schilders in de Franse 19e eeuw te situeren is, krijgen ook een Belg, een Zwitser, een Engelsman en zelfs een Zweedse Amerikaan als popart-artiest Claes Oldenburg een forum. Een mooie afsluiter is een hommage van Barnes aan zijn persoonlijke vriend Howard Hodgkin met wie hij al dertig jaar optrekt langs 's wereld musea.
Het bijzonderste hoofdstuk vond ik 'Maar wordt het kunst?' (p. 263) over de essentie van wat kunst is en wat niet. Zeer actueel bij de Vlaamse kustburgemeesters die zich bekocht voelen bij de nieuwste aflevering van Beaufort deze zomer. Zij, maar ook de organisatoren van Beaufort, zouden er baat bij hebben dit hoofdstuk een keer grondig te lezen. Ik heb er alvast uit onthouden dat wat telt bij kunst het object is en onze reactie daarop. Ik citeer Barnes: "De tests zijn simpel: boeit het het oog, prikkelt het de hersenen, zet het de geest tot reflectie aan en beroert het het hart; en verder: is er vakmanschap in te bespeuren?"

[Lana Asanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Я не очень люблю читать книги об искусстве.
Когда я училась в университете на учителя рисования, мы читали и слушали лекции о художниках много и долго, и всё это было до того занудно (сами знаете, какое у нас образование), что отбило любое желание возвращаться к этому.
Книга Джулиана Барнса мне попалась совершенно случайно (я очень падкая на красивые обложки) и я подумала: «Оо, вау! Дам-ка я себе еще один шанс с такой литературой.»
Если честно, эта книга сама похожа на произведение искусства — тяжелая, с прекрасными иллюстрациями, очень красивым оформлением обложки и толстыми страницами. Её хочется поставить на полку и любоваться, она будет прекрасным подарком. Содержание не менее ценное. Барнс начал заниматься литературой как автор детективных рассказов, но, видимо, так любил искусство, что не мог больше молчать)

Здесь он пишет не столько про картины, сколько про жизнь художников. Не то, какие они мазки ставят тут и там, а то, чем были заняты их мысли в момент написания.
Мы все смотрим на произведения искусства, как на предметы, но не очень-то задумываемся о том, что они были написаны обычными людьми. Может быть, если бы мы знали проблемы в жизни живописцев, их боли и страхи, то у нас не возникало бы так много вопросов «почему»? Почему картина такая мрачная? Почему так много обнаженной натуры? Почему такие странные цвета? Когда я писала картины, у многих людей тоже возникали похожие вопросы. Поэтому я прекрасно понимаю, зачем автор так много внимания уделяет истории жизни художника.
К слову, в некоторых художниках после прочтения я разочаровалась, а на некоторых посмотрела с совершенно другой стороны. Открыла для себя нового прекрасного живописца и больше никогда не буду смотреть на картины по-прежнему.
Единственный минус для меня — немного тяжелый слог книги. Некоторые главы читаешь с упоением, а в некоторых еле-еле получается пробиться до сути. Именно поэтому ставлю этой книге 4 балла, хотя это огромная работа настоящего ценителя живописи.

Мой телеграм-канал: https://t.me/bookmama

[Camelia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes, is a delightful read. It starts with Géricault and ends with Hodgkin. Plenty of anecdotes of artworks and artists. Many cross references between different art forms. As an amateur art lover, I spend time looking up names and paintings on Internet.

"Artistic virtue and integrity, as we know, are independent (sometimes startlingly so) from personal virtue and integrity."

Can you judge the merit of an artwork by the character of its creator? Is it worth to know the life of an artist? How much would you allow the knowledge of an artist affect your option of his art and vice versa? These are some recurring questions asked in book. I guess we all have our own answers. For me, the character of an artist would affect my opinion of his/her art. The rumour about Degas does not stop me loving his beautiful ballet dancers but Lucian Freud is ruined for me forever. Well, I have never liked his portraitures, now I've found a reason not to like them.

I also like these interesting observations made by Julian Barnes:

"Art changes over time; what is art changes too." (hence pop art)

"Art doesn’t just capture and convey the excitement, the thrill of life. Sometimes, it does even more: it is that thrill."

[Marlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that it took me an extraordinarily long time to finish this book. This wasn't because I didn't enjoy it but rather that I have no formal art history/education background. That created a wonderful challenge for me.
If you are at all interested in art I encourage you to read this collection of essays. You'll learn a lot about specific artists and their work. Barnes also poses interesting questions about the definition of art and how to view it.
His prose is elegant and often acerbically amusing : speaking of Vallotton - "he was an accomplished painter of still-lives - formidably good at red peppers." and referring to Gertrude Stein's comments about Braque as "her finest mode of clotted twaddle."
If you chose to read this collection take your time and keep your IPad/tablet close by so you can refer to cited works not reproduced in the book.
I discovered artists unknown to me and I was sometimes challenged by the author's insights and I was totally engaged in the process.

[سپید · Rating 4 out of 5]

در زندگی اون چه که هویت ما رو میسازه انتخاب‌هامونه. مهم‌ترین زمانی که در زندگی ما اتفاق می‌افته اونجاییه که دست به انتخاب می‌زنیم، جولین بارنز با هوشمندی تمام در نوشتن زندگی‌نامهٔ نقاش‌ها، به سراغ انتخاب‌هاشون رفته، اینکه آرتیست‌ها چطور در زمانهٔ خودشون ظاهر می‌شدن، چطور در برابر مسائل مختلف اعم از سیاسی و عاطفی واکنش نشون می‌دادن. نویسنده به‌جای اینکه دست بذاره روی مسائل پیش‌پاافتاده رفته بود سراغ نقاط تعیین‌کنندهٔ زندگی هر هنرمند، درست همونجایی که انتخاب کردن مسلک سیاسی به‌جای زندگی در انزوا حیات کوربه و ونگوگ رو از هم تفکیک می‌کنه.


یک ستاره و نیم بابت ترجمه کم می‌کنم. مترجم نتونسته بود لحن ژورنالسیتی بارنز رو دربیاره.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Julian Barnes. I've read nearly everything else he has written and treasure a number of his books. I love art and was so excited to read what this author had to say about it. But this just felt pretentious and airless and like an unbelievable slog to read. I never quit reading books, but I think I made it part way through the fourth essay here before it just felt like a chore to even consider reading more. Sigh. Disappointing, but given how much I have gotten from the 18(!) other books of his that I have read, I think I can forgive him writing one book that just totally left me cold.

[Дмитрий Филоненко · Rating 4 out of 5]

What this book lacks is pictures. There are some but very few if compare with the number of mentioned masterpieces. I started reading the book in an old-good paper format but then I switched to a tablet with the electronic version because I wanted to see all those paintings Barnes talks about (thanks Google, Wiki, etc). And then another thing happened. When you see all those paintings you don’t need Barnes any more! Well, Barnes admits many times himself and quotes other writers and artists that a great masterpiece doesn’t need any comments, explanations or even a name. But the book is still in my hands. So what happens is that my delight from seeing a painting then is being projected on the book which talks about it or even just mentions it. Yes, it’s not easy to read books about art!

This book is a collection of articles and essays written by Barnes for various magazines and reviews. And maybe this makes this book not even: some of essays I liked more some of them less. I’m a dilettante in the painting art so I was very thankful to Barnes for revealing some new for me names in the art: Redon, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vallotton and a few others. Also it was fascinating to follow the Barnes’ glance walking by the surface of some particular painting and making sort of remarks about it’s [glance’s] discoveries. I’m used to seeing a painting as a whole thing. But Barnes shown how details in a painting play with each other, emphasize each other or make hidden hints on what was important for an artist. It’s not the same as explanation of a masterpiece or artist’s idea. It’s sharing the experience of how to comprehend an object deeper, to see more than there is on a surface. And for me it is a shame that only a few essays in the book share these “professional spectator’s” secrets.

Some of essays are on the contrary rather boring. For example, I did not find much exciting in the story of Delacroix’ diaries and how difficult they are for reading.

Sometimes author goes too much into literature I would say. Here or there you can meet some delicate and sophisticated phrases which could adorn some fiction book with psychological explorations deep beneath the skin of a character. But in essay about artist this leads too far I think. Like for example a passage about abundance of colors in some of Bonnard’s paintings which inevitably causes the thought of its transience. Hm, inevitably?

Also I don’t like in general when dignities of a person are shown on a background of another person, not that much blessed with dignities apparently. This is how author writes about Braque opposing him to Picasso. Well, it was obviously tempting dichotomy since Braque and Picasso started together and were companions in their artistic investigations. But it was not possible not to notice a light smell of contempt, of patronizing or even revelatory grin as if an adult was smiling at a teenager doing his best to look bright in front of a bunch of girls: ’Well, well. Your efforts are so clear and funny.’ Does Picasso deserve to be such a teenager even taking into account that he was not a saint?

And I really much liked an article about the modern art. It’s better just to quote:

’Ah, but is it art? That old, tediously repeated question whenever bricks are laid, beds disarranged, or lights go on and off. The artist, defensive, responds: "It's art because I'm an artist, and therefore what I do is art." ... We should always agree with the artist, whatever we think of their work. Art isn't, can't be a temple, from which the incompetent, the charlatan, the chancer and publicity-chaser should be excluded; art is more like a refugee camp, where most are queuing for water with a plastic jerry can in their hand. What we can say, though, as we face another interminable video loop of a tiny stretch of the artist's own unremarkable life, or a collaged wall of banal photographs, is, yes, of course it's art, of course you're an artist, and your intentions are serious, I'm sure, it's just that this is very low-level stuff; try giving it more thought, originality, craft imagination - interest, in a word.
...
What counts is the surviving object and our living response to it. The tests are simple: does it interest the eye, excite the brain, move the mind to reflection, and involve the heart; further, is an apparent level of skill involved? Much currently fashionable art bothers only the eye and briefly the brain; but it fails to engage the mind or the heart. It may, to use the old dichotomy, be beautiful, but it is rarely true to any significant depth. One of the constant pleasures of art is its ability to come at us from an unexpected angle and stop us short in wonder.’

[Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un viaggio a tutto tondo sull’arte ed i suoi interpreti, in un insolito "dietro le quinte" tra retroscena e aneddoti.
Partiamo, grazie a Géricault, dal naufragio della fregata francese Meduse nel luglio del 1816, che ci offre una risposta su cosa trasformi la catastrofe in arte, e passiamo da Manet a Cezanne, da Picasso a Magritte, fino ad arrivare alla Pop Art e ai giorni nostri.

- Uno dei costanti piaceri dell'arte è la sua abilità di arrivare a noi da angoli inaspettati e fermarci di colpo, rapiti dalla meraviglia.

[SnezhArt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не книга, а экстаз для любителей хорошо написанных книг об искусстве. Банс - мастер. Мастер слова, мастер видения, мастер обсуждения.

[Hryuh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Очень понравилось, что без лишнего пиетета! Интересно читать, легкий слог и пробуждает любовь к искуссьтву так сказать, даже у таких профанов как я. В музей захотелось...

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Julian Barnes has always been a sheer pleasure for me. So when I discovered a new collection of essays on art, I ran out and bought it. Yes, reading Julian Barnes writing on art is a total pleasure.

These essays were all written for various publications such as Modern Painters, New York Times Book Reviews, the Guardian, London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement during the 1990s to 2013. All except two. A thoroughly enjoyable forward to an Irish exhibition of his good friend Howard Hodgkin and Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa" taken from his own book, "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters." It's funny, I was reading this excellent treatise on the Raft and thinking, I feel like I read this before. I did -twenty years ago. Still enlightening.

The book covers seventeen artists and most are French. Barnes practically doubles as a Francophone, so it was no surprize to see the big names of French painting here. The New York Times Book Review criticized him for ignoring contemporary painting. He does compare Ron Mueck's realism to a French doctor-sculptor Paul Richer creating similar work for students almost 100 years earlier. Also, the Americans which is only represented by Claes Oldenburg, who doesn't fare well, are also missing. However, what Barnes has written is astute, funny and worth thinking about. Besides, he is British and often the art reviews were in response to some major show held in Europe, so can one be so nitpicky?

As the title implies, "Keeping an Eye Open," Barnes looks at the artist from different angles as to what makes the art/ artist tick?  Quoting Henry James, "Painters have a great distrust of those who write about pictues." (p. 260) Obviously funny writen by a writer, and Barnes points out that James himself "wrote a great many public words about painting. Barnes is not an art critic, which is a relief, and often I was impressed by his knowledge and his "eye" on  art. He has traveled a great deal to the major galleries of the world and definitely has a vast appreciation of painting.

Sure he has favourites, such as Braque, Vuillard, Manet and Bonnard, and less favourites such as Lucian Freud. The book is illustrated with a variety of paintings that help to make his point. The Swiss painter Félix Vallotton, a Nabi painters (others were Bonnard and Vuillard) was a true gem to discover. His painting, "The Lie" (Baltimore Museum of Fine Art) is a marvelous piece and the back story made it even more enjoyable. 

So an impecable writer whose intrigue of the visual arts makes for some very fine reading. I noticed that I was slowing down as I was getting to the end of the book, sadly knowing that I wanted more.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Afgelopen zomer bezocht ik een aantal musea in Parijs. Veel van de werken en artiesten die Julian Barnes bespreekt heb ik zelf tijdens die bezoeken 'in ogenschouw' kunnen nemen. De nog vrij verse herinnering aan deze werken heeft mijn lezen van deze bundel enorm gekleurd. Ik weet niet of ik het zonder dat bezoekje aan Parijs wel allemaal zo goed begrepen en voor ogen had kunnen zien. Want wat ik het hardst miste in Barnes essays was de persoonlijke toon, de herinnering aan de beleving van de schrijver... Barnes schrijft, zoals wel meer Britse schrijvers, zeer netjes, wat te volmaakt soms. Ik had gehoopt dat hij de randjes er een beetje zou aflopen bij het schrijven van essays over zijn ervaringen met kunst. Zoals hij zo mooi deed in Hoogteverschillen... Toch heb ik van deze bundel genoten, van de verhalen achter werk en kunstenaar, van de kleine anekdotes die het kijken naar dat ene schilderij zo bruusk veranderen, en van de grootse genialiteit die achter een klein detail schuil gaat.

[Elena Sala · Rating 4 out of 5]

KEEPING AN EYE OPEN is an engaging collection of meditations on painters, their lives, painting and reactions to art. Barnes treats his artists with fondness and respect, often indulging in a bit of biographical gossip.
Usually he situates a painting in the context of its creator's career and then he situates that career within the larger scope of art history. The essays focus on (mostly) French artists and their move from Romanticism to Realism to Modernism. Barnes adopts a droll and learned tone, not scholarly at all. He has an eye for the telling detail and an understanding of the creative process which sheds an original perspective on the artists and works analysed.
Though my lovely edition contains many illustrations, I felt that even more of the paintings discussed should have been included, hence my four star rating. You will need your laptop or tablet close to you if you read this book because you will find yourself wanting to google all the images of the paintings Barnes describes so eloquently.