Sheila Barker's Artemisia Gentileschi (2022) (part of a new series on #renaissance#women#artists) is a well presented synthesis of current #arthistory scholarship, without getting bogged down in the detail of disagreements about attribution(s). While there are more comprehensive books on Gentileschii, as a nuanced introduction to a major artist's career & achievement (leavened with biographical detail) this will be hard to beat.
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I enjoyed Jackie Wullschlager's new biography of #Monet so much I wrote this (glowing) review of it for @NWBylines, which extends the micro-review that appeared here a couple of weeks ago.
Comparing Dore Ashton's Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Legend (1981) with Jackie Wullschlager' recent biography of Monet (TWIBMR 110), while Ashton's book is efficient #arthistory, she seems unable to convey the vitality of the art to the reader (which may incite something about Bonheur's works, perhaps). But, nonetheless this is an interesting discussion of an (accidental) feminist working in the C19th (French) salon tradition.
This is where you will find all the information about the Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory, such as the Thematic Lines, ongoing Exploratory Projects and much more!
Jackie Wullschlager wonderful Monet: The Restless Vision (2023) is the best #arthistory book I've read for a long time. Her account of Monet, his relations with 3 key women (two wives & a step daughter) & how they shaped his work, balances biography with a compelling/insughtful account of the development of his work. Like all good #art books this just makes you want to see his #painting in the flesh. I cannot recommend it highly enough
Like the 5 previous volumes in Michel Pastoureau's series of books on colour, White: The History of a Colour (2022) is a mixed bag. Its full of great insights & wonderful illustrations, but (unavoidably) repeats some aspects of the previous books & never really completely coheres into a focussed argument about white as a colour. That said, there is so much of interest, that you can forgive this (inevitable?) short-coming.
If you're interested in the relation between #painting & #photography, Barbara Savedoff's short(ash) Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture (2000) is worth reading. She explores the relations between #art & the photo, including some fascinating stuff on photographic reproductions' impact on #arthistory, although the warnings about #digital photography now seem commonplace. But still its full of great insights!
Its no surprise John Barrell's The dark side of landscape (1980) is regarded as a #arthistory classic. In this discussion of Gainsborouh, Morland & Constable's depiction of the rural poor, Barrell produces a fascinating class analysis of #landscape painting in C18th/C19th. He also suggests Morland's relatively low reputation is partly the result of the sentimentalisation of is work by contemporary engravers, another interesting issue
Centuries ahead of its time, Giovanni Battista Bracelli's "Bizzarie di Varie Figure" (1624) depicts figures made from a range of objects, mostly abstract — cubes, rings, squares — but also such things as rackets, screws, and braided hair.
The problem with Martin Gayford's new book, Venice: City of Pictures (2023), is that its neither one thing nor another. It picks up many themes/issues from #arthistory but shies away from really developing these in detail, But,, equally there is too much #art & not enough more general discussion of #Venice the city for a recent visitor. Gayford seems unable to make up his mind what book he wanted to write & this falls between the stools
Adelina Modesti's handsomely presented biography of Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani (2023), continues the reappraisal of #arthistory from a feminist angle. Focussing on the works of #art & the social environment of C17th #Bologna (which offered considerable support to #female#artists), Modesti's interesting (if occasionally a little dry) book will be of great interest to anyone seeking read an art history populated by women! @bookstodon
There's a well known saying in #arthistory that every portrait is a self-portrait (also attributed to Oscar Wilde). In Ia Genberg's The Details (2023) the narrator offers four portraits (three of former lovers, one of a parent0 which in the end reveal as much about her as those she is writing about. Its a well-crafted novella that presents a slowly emerging picture of a woman with less self-knowledge than she likely believes..
Coming soon: a comprehensive documentary film about the life and accomplishments of RAPHAEL in a fresh, original format. This is the first film in an ongoing series of Renaissance films.
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Hilary Fraser's study Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century: Looking like a Woman (2014), is a great bit of #feminist recovery. Fraser explores how #women in C19th wrote about #art & what it tells us about female creativity 150 years ago. While at times getting slightly bogged down in the detail, overall this is a compelling work of #arthistory that (re)establishes forgotten female voices talking about art & artists
James Elkins, What Painting Is (2000) is a strangely compelling discussion of the practice(s) of #painters using the extended metaphor of alchemy. Elkins manages to convince you that this is an interesting way of understanding what painters do when #painting by illustration of painterly practices & alchemic ones. Focussing on the surface of paintings, Elkins offers a idiosyncratic approach to understanding painting as process #arthistory @bookstodon
Suzanne Valadon is not well serviced by
Catherine Hewitt's breezy biography, Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon (2017). It captures much of the whirl of her life & the succession of crises through which she passed, but the account of the #paintings themselves is relatively weak & without a good (other) book of reproductions to hand you'd be lost. Still if your interested in Valadon not a bad place to start
As a (relative) latecomer to formalised #arthistory, and as a critical #politicaleconomist, I found his book Art Worlds to be one of the most plausible & convincing analyses of the social milieu in which art is produced.;
the book dovetailed really well with my own political economic position (hence why I liked it) & helped me configure where my interests intersected.
If you've not read it, I really recommend it; great stuff