Critical Compendium » Art/aesthetics

Artists in Exile: How Refugees From Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts, by Joseph Horowitz

“It is hard to imagine where American culture would be today without the contributions of Hitler and Stalin — that is, without the thousands of creatively gifted refugees who fled these murderers. A good many cultural historians and writers have explored this meaty subject from different angles since Anthony Heilbut’s 1983 landmark, “Exiled in Paradise” (still the best book on the topic). And now, in “Artists in Exile,” Joseph Horowitz has taken a crack at it. Horowitz, a former music critic for The New York Times and the author of seven previous books, including the superb trio “Understanding Toscanini,” “Wagner Nights” and “Classical Music in America,” is well versed in this subject.” Read the review at the New York Times.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, History, Nonfiction | Posted 02.05.08 | Comments: None

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination, by Lynda Roscoe Hartigan

‘He had a thing for blue. Also clay pipes and Victorian postcards, ticket stubs, bits of tulle, starfish and old clock parts. He was drawn to automats and secondhand-book stalls, corresponded with ballerinas, filmed pigeons, liked pie. These are among the oft-repeated facts about Joseph Cornell. Notice, in even so brief a litany, the transition from art to life and back again. Perhaps more than any other artist’s work, Cornell’s is best appreciated in the context of imagining the life of the man.’ Read the review at the International Herald Tribune.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Biography, Nonfiction | Posted 01.14.08 | Comments: None

The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll, by Brett Milano

‘In the 1980s, the Boston rock scene was an embarrassment of riches. Bands like the Cars, Aerosmith, ‘Til Tuesday, the J. Geils Band, and Boston were megastars of the music world, while less commercial Hub acts like Mission of Burma and the Pixies gained devoted underground followings and would influence rock for years. Veteran music critic and Somerville resident Brett Milano has seen it all, and his rocking “The Sound of Our Town” should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding Boston’s unique contribution to rock ‘n’ roll.’ Read the review at the Boston Globe.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Music, Nonfiction | Posted 01.13.08 | Comments: None

The Rough Guide to Film: An A-Z of Directors and Their Movies, by Rough Guides

‘The new “Rough Guide” mimics (David Thomson who wrote “Biographical Dictionary of Film”) in that it creates a dictionary from criticism, but it is systematized differently — that is, the focus is on directors, more than 800 of them. Nor is there one essayist chipping away at a masterwork but four (listed) critics, who are up to what feels more like a recycling exercise of old reviews from the “Time Out” series of city guides.’ Read the review at the Los Angeles Times.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Nonfiction | Posted 01.09.08 | Comments: None

30,000 Years of Art, by Phaidon

‘The world’s panoply of art cannot be neatly shoehorned between two covers of a book, but that certainly doesn’t stop publishers from trying. From the idealistic titles — such as Flammarion’s “100 Masterpieces of Paintings” - to the accessible - such as “Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces” - volumes that quantify art history hit the shelves regularly. This year, Phaidon entered the fray with a massive and yet price-effective project that is one of the best books of the season: ‘30,000 Years of Art.’ Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Nonfiction | Posted 12.24.07 | Comments: None

Mirror of the World: A New History of Art, by Julian Bell

‘The plate of available art is piled higher and higher. Will appetite fail? Not yet, and nothing has been found that gives a better account of great tracts of art and art’s history than texts built around pictures like “Mirror of the World and The Story of Art.” About the art to which none of the illustrations is relevant, little is said. Bell’s time span runs from the emergence of art-like acts among the hominid ancestors of Homo sapiens to the present.’ Read the review at the London Review of Books.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Nonfiction | Posted 12.02.07 | Comments: None

Edward Burra: 20th Century Eye, by Jane Stevenson

‘Jane Stevenson’s magnificent biography, her debut as a biographer and the first full-scale study of the artist’s life and work, answers (Edward) Burra’s irritable question (’when this and when that & what date this & if I shat?…& what may I enquire has all that crap to do with Painting?"). "All that crap" has quite a lot to do with painting, after all.’ Read the review at the London Telegraph.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Biography, Nonfiction | Posted 12.02.07 | Comments: 1 Comment

Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy, by Michael S. Sherry

‘The . . . pieces in this collection are quick, burnished, furious columns (Will) Self wrote for England’s Independent newspaper. The walk from London to New York is full of festive associations - spontaneous thoughts, images, old songs, and those long-ago days of debauch evoked by his passage - but in these shorter articles, with the friction that can come from word constraint, his riffs catch fire.’ Read the review at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Nonfiction | Posted 11.30.07 | Comments: None

Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Peter Gay

‘Modernism, as a puffed-out Peter Gay concludes at the end of this extended survey, ‘has had rather a long run’. So has Gay himself. He was born in Berlin in 1923, and escaped abroad with his family after Hitler’s putsch in 1933. Resettled in America, he eventually began to work his way through the cultural history of the world he had lost.’ Read the review at the Guardian.

Filed under: Art/aesthetics, Nonfiction | Posted 11.10.07 | Comments: None