Styles, Schools and Movements (text only) by A.Dempsey

by A.Dempsey

Styles, Schools and The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art [Paperback]Amy Dempsey (Author)

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction, Theory, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive. Includes majors galleries associated with each school (modern and contemporary art): a smart thought. Although presented like an encyclopedia, reading the thing cover to cover makes you intimately aware of the impact art has had on all facets of society for the past couple of centuries -- not the least of which is the impact of art on art itself.

convention>subversion>convention

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to have if you love art. It was worth the extra weight in my luggage!

[Zel Polev · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose it was a good introduction to various art movements. I liked that it listed major and minor art movements and what they were about. However, the writing wasn't great. It wasn't terrible but I was expecting something better. Sometimes the book would write about the movement's styles and/or their ideology. What it never fails to do is list a block of artists in that movement. This bothered me a lot because it was just a paragraph dedicated to names. As I'm reading, my eyes glazes over and I get annoyed. It honestly felt like padding, especially when the movement is scarce on information. Some movements have a lot written about them, some not. What is consistent is that block of paragraph. Also, there are run on sentences and it didn't improve my impression of the book.

Another thing I disliked was the description of artworks and no accompanying image. I hate when books go on about how expressive or sensuous the brushstrokes are and not provide an accompanying image. How can I tell? I just have to go on blind faith that it is. This happens on multiple occasions and it was annoying.

I also had the feeling that the book was scraping for content near the end. The beginning had a lot written because they've been studied extensively. However, the last sections of the book contained sections such as photographic art and video art. The photographic art was art that had photographs as artworks and not just as documentation. Well...yeah.

I also didn't like the sections dedicated to architecture. A lot of it were just about embracing the new technology and I just wanted an overview of the visual styles of that period.

While I acknowledge that this book compiles a helpful list of art movements, I wasn't really a fan of the writing.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Přečtena je pouze kapitola 1945/65.
Dobre shrnutí hlavních hnutí
Nejde moc do hloubky, ale opravdu pěkný úvod do dejn moderního umění

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference, plan to buy it!