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What is painting? / Julian Bell.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: [London] : Thames & Hudson, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Edition: New edition; Revised editionDescription: 224 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0500239738
  • 9780500239735
Subject(s):
Contents:
Images and marks -- Sight and knowledge -- Form and time -- Expression -- The arts and art -- Representation.
Summary: "Yes, but is it art? This lucid book by Julian Bell, himself a painter, confronts the uncertainty many people feel about art today and challenges generally accepted ideas. Now in a completely revised second edition, What is Painting? is a fresh, focused look at painting. Bell addresses questions such as does anything unite those objects we call paintings? and what factors have changed the nature of painting over the last two centuries? by looking at historical evidence and reasoning from common experience. The current shape of painting pushes the book's arguments in new directions and a substantial new chapter, The Arts and Art, speaks to the interplay between 2D work, 3D work, and the immateriality of digital imagery. The text has been revised paragraph by paragraph considering both force of presentation and historical perspective. The intention is to provide a general reader's introduction to theories of painting that is not only reliably informative but stimulating and amusing to read. The book is an introductory guide to art theory for everyone interested in understanding modern art or in making art themselves."-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 750.1 B433 Available 33111009204161
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

At the turn of the twenty-first century, many felt sceptical or confused about painting's on-going cultural relevance. In this context, Julian Bell's What is Painting? provided an accessible and inspired account of artistic thinking and practice, and of the complexities then facing artists and their audiences. Eighteen years on, the situation is partly reversed. Painting has proved too resilient a practice to be marginalized any longer. Yet is there any sense of forward momentum for the art? Interrogating the factors that have changed our ideas of painting over the past two centuries, Bell addresses relations between figuration and abstraction and between narrative and non-narrative painting, as well as the waning of conceptual art's dominance and the proliferation of experiments with the physical limits of painting. He also clarifies general concepts such as 'expression' and 'representation'.

Fully revised to provide a fresh look at the situation of painting, this new edition maintains the objective of lucid, historically informative explanation that earned the original edition its status as a text of lasting value. The book provides a general reader's introduction to theories of painting that is not only reliable, but also stimulating and amusing to read.

First published 1999.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 206-213) and index.

Images and marks -- Sight and knowledge -- Form and time -- Expression -- The arts and art -- Representation.

"Yes, but is it art? This lucid book by Julian Bell, himself a painter, confronts the uncertainty many people feel about art today and challenges generally accepted ideas. Now in a completely revised second edition, What is Painting? is a fresh, focused look at painting. Bell addresses questions such as does anything unite those objects we call paintings? and what factors have changed the nature of painting over the last two centuries? by looking at historical evidence and reasoning from common experience. The current shape of painting pushes the book's arguments in new directions and a substantial new chapter, The Arts and Art, speaks to the interplay between 2D work, 3D work, and the immateriality of digital imagery. The text has been revised paragraph by paragraph considering both force of presentation and historical perspective. The intention is to provide a general reader's introduction to theories of painting that is not only reliably informative but stimulating and amusing to read. The book is an introductory guide to art theory for everyone interested in understanding modern art or in making art themselves."-- Provided by publisher.

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