Book Description
This first ever survey of the subject demonstrates that realism has had a continuous yet restlessly changing place in American and European painting throughout the twentieth century--from Eakins, Bellows, and Homer, through Vuillard, Bonnard, Schiele, Morandi, Hopper, and Giacometti, to Balthus, Lucian Freud, and David Hockney. Most accounts of twentieth-century art have tended to overlook the persistent, diverse, vibrant, and powerful presence of realist painting. Brendan Prendeville discusses the historical, artistic, and critical contexts in which painting has taken a realist turn, from the Ashcan School to Soviet Socialist Realism, from painting of the Existentialist era to the time of Photorealism. In this period, he argues, the western tradition of pictorial realism has in fact been renewed and modified through the diverse influences of modernism, political conflict, and new visual technologies. 180 illustrations, 80 in color.
About the Author
Brendan Prendeville lectures in art history and visual culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has published articles, catalogue essays, and reviews on modern sculpture, art and science, realist painting, phenomenology, and visual theory, and has curated exhibitions on associated themes.
Realism in 20th Century Painting FROM THE PUBLISHER
This first ever survey of the subject demonstrates that realism has had a continuous yet restlessly changing place in American and European painting throughout the twentieth century—from Eakins, Bellows, and Homer, through Vuillard, Bonnard, Schiele, Morandi, Hopper, and Giacometti, to Balthus, Lucian Freud, and David Hockney. Most accounts of twentieth-century art have tended to overlook the persistent, diverse, vibrant, and powerful presence of realist painting. Brendan Prendeville discusses the historical, artistic, and critical contexts in which painting has taken a realist turn, from the Ashcan School to Soviet Socialist Realism, from painting of the Existentialist era to the time of Photorealism. In this period, he argues, the western tradition of pictorial realism has in fact been renewed and modified through the diverse influences of modernism, political conflict, and new visual technologies. 180 illustrations, 80 in color.
FROM THE CRITICS
KLIATT
These two new titles make welcome additions to the remarkable Thames & Hudson World of Art series. Impressionism: Origins, Practice, Reception employs over 250 illustrations to shed light on the major artists of the Impressionist era, including their personalities, social circumstances, subject matter, and artistic concerns. Also examined are the critical reaction to their exhibitions, their impact on the art market, and their legacy. Drawing on recently discovered reviews and letters as well as current social history, the book uses caricatures, photographs, fashion illustrations, advertising posters, and drawings along with the paintings of Renoir, Manet, Monet, and many others in explaining the significance of the Impressionist movement. A chronology, select bibliography, and index are also included. Prendeville's comprehensive survey of Realism in 20th Century Painting offers a distinctive focus on modern painting, in contrast to the usual focus on the development toward abstraction. In presenting a chronological survey of the work of both well-known and lesser-known 20th-century realist painters, the author uses 200 illustrations—almost half of which are in color—to show how these artists fit into the complex of artistic styles and movements that characterized that century. (It should be noted that several of the illustrations in Prendeville's volume are explicitly sexual in nature.) An extensive, thematically arranged bibliography and index are included as well. Like Impressionism: Origins, Practice, Reception, this book employs a clear and understandable writing style even when addressing complex issues. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high schoolstudents, advanced students, and adults. 2000, Norton/Thames & Hudson, 224p, illus, index, 21cm, 99-69883, $16.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Rhonda Cooper; Dir., University Art Gallery, Stony Brook, NY, March 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 2)
Art & Photography
Book Info
