About modern art: critical essays, 1948-96

Abstract

"About Modern Art: Critical Essays 1918-96 is a long-awaited collection of Sylvester's essays on twentieth century artists. The 64 items include important pieces on Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Mondrian, Klee, Brancusi, Soutine, de Kooning, Newman, Warhol, Richard Serra and Gilbert and George. And looking back to the start of the nineteenth century, there are essays on Goya and Constable." "As curator and critic, David Sylvester wrote about many of the works as they were being created, enabling us to observe here the evolution of a perspective on modern art that is the fruit of an intense professional and personal involvement. His sustained investigations into the artists and their practice give us piercing insights into the works and the artists themselves. This is not dry, remote, academic criticism: it has an immediacy and passion which leaves one with an inspiring sense of the relevance and importance of art to life. Sylvester focuses time and again on the instinctive emotional and physical response of the spectator when he or she is confronted by a work of art: his attentiveness to this response gives his criticism an extraordinary clarity and power, and takes it far from the constrictions of theory." "A frank and entertaining introduction, previously unpublished, charts David Sylvester's intellectual progress as an art critic, and explores the sources of his passions and antipathies. And the collection ends with a recent essay on Cezanne, containing new insights into his place in the history of European art."--Jacket.

Contents

Chap. 1 Late Klee -- Klee 1 ; Klee 2 -- Chap. 2 Post-War -- End of the streamlined era ; Giacometti ; Bacon ; DuBuffet ; Pollock ; Rothko ; Guston ; Reinhardt -- Chap. 3 Masters -- Art of an aftermath ; Monet ; Kandinsky ; Picasso ; Gris ; Uses of still life : Cézanne, Braque, Bonnard ; Soutine ; Mondrian -- 1 ; Bonnard ; Matisse -- Chap. 4 England English abstract art -- Sickewrt ; Coldstream ; Andrews ; Bomberg ; Auerbach ; Bacon ; Riley -- Chap. 5 Surrealists -- Arp ; Moore ; Miró ; Ernst ; Magritte -- 1 ; Magritte -- 2 -- Chap. 6 Americans -- Art of the Coke culture -- Johns ; Lichtenstein ; Rosenquist ; Oldenburg ; Morris -- Chap. 7 Forerunners -- Daumier ; Goya ; Constable -- Chap. 8 England -- Epstein ; Stokes ; Hamilton ; Caro ; Kossoff ; Morley ; Long ; Gilbert and George -- Chap. 9 Americans -- Newman ; De Kooning -- 1 ; De Kooning -- 2 ; Twombly ; Cage ; Warhol ; Serra ; Newman -- 2 -- Chap. 10 Masters -- Picasso -- 2 ; Picasso and Duchamp ; Brancusi ; Mondrian -- 2 ; Cézanne.