検索キーワード： 歴史・批評

Clive Bell is perhaps more well-known today for being a Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his own right: an internationally renowned art critic who championed young artists, he defended daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed off to all things foreign. For decades Bell has been a shadowy figure, refracted through the wealth of writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings Bell to the forefront.

The second half of William Feaver's Baillie Gifford Prize-shortlisted work of biography: the definitive story of the epic life of one of the 20th century's most important artists. William Feaver, Lucian Freud’s collaborator, curator and close friend, knew the unknowable artist better than most. Over many years, Freud narrated to him the story of his life, ‘our novel’. Fame follows Freud at the height of his powers, painting the most iconic works of his career in a constant and dissatisfied pursuit of perfection, just outrunning his gambling debts and tailor’s bills.

In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud’s early childhood: Sigmund Freud’s grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho - consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret - Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man’s coming of age.

This is the beautifully told story of charismatic and unconventional pop artist Martin Sharp, from his lonely privileged childhood to the heady days of the underground magazine Oz to Swinging London and beyond. Sharp blurred the boundaries of high art and low; he drew rock stars and reprobates into his world, collaborated with Eric Clapton, obsessively championed eccentric singer Tiny Tim, was haunted by Sydney's Luna Park and, paradoxically, became a recluse whose phone never stopped ringing.

Bestselling, award-winning writer Simon Garfield returns with an enthralling investigation of humans’ peculiar fascination with small things—and what small things tell us about our larger world. “[Simon Garfield is] an exuberant truffle-hound of the recondite and delightful factoid.”...

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography. In this work, which was actually begun in 1558 but not published until 1730, Cellini beautifully chronicles his flamboyant times. He tells of his adventures in Italy and France, and his relations with popes, kings, and fellow artists.

In this series of essays, Roger Kimball, managing editor of the New Criterion and an art critic for the London Spectator, examines the current art scene with a scathing intelligence and a crystalline eloquence of writing style. Particularly amusing are his dissections of art-show catalogspeak.

Phoebe Hoban, author of definitive biographies of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Alice Neel, now turns her attention to Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund and one of the greatest painters England has produced. Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the first biography to assess Freud’s work and life, showing how the two converge.

Until the 20th century, art history was, in the main, written by white, western men who tended to write about other white, western men. The idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet, they have - and, of course, continue to do so - often against tremendous odds, from laws to religion and the pressures of family and public disapproval. Feminism has shaken up the story of art and, for the first time, cast light on the often-brilliant work by women artists who were often ignored, patronised or marginalised.

Brought to you by Penguin. **BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK** 'A modern masterpiece' Guardian Uncovering the mystery of her mother’s disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story. In the autumn of 1929, a small child was...

In So Much Longing in So Little Space, Karl Ove Knausgaard explores the life and work of Edvard Munch. Setting out to understand the enduring power of Munch’s painting, Knausgaard reflects on the essence of creativity, on choosing to be an artist, experiencing the world through art and its influence on his own writing. As co-curator of a major new exhibition of Munch's work in Oslo, Knausgaard visits the landscapes that inspired him, and speaks with contemporary artists, including Vanessa Baird and Anselm Kiefer. 

*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week* *Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2016* "The Vanishing Man is a riveting detective story and a brilliant reconstruction of an art controversy, but it is also a homage to the art of Velázquez, written by a critic who remains spellbound by his genius, as...

Today's computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach", turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative - or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and explores the riches of computer-created art.

Even 150 years later, we are haunted by the Civil War---by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary W. Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment.

Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece is on any art historian's list of the 10 most important paintings ever made. Often referred to by the subject of its central panel, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, it represents the fulcrum between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time.

'An enchanting debut' Woman's Own November 1942 Dear Elizabeth, I've got myself a new project, to cheer myself up a bit. It has absolutely nothing to do with the war effort. We're completely starved of art in London these days. Anything decent was stashed away by the authorities years ago.But...

Hot Cold Heavy Light collects 100 writings - some long, some short - that taken together form a group portrait of many of the world’s most significant and interesting artists. From Pablo Picasso to Cindy Sherman, Old Masters to contemporary masters, paintings to comix, and saints to charlatans, Schjeldahl ranges widely through the diverse and confusing art world, an expert guide to a dazzling scene.

Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine he was editing. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death 30 years later. Fascinated by the artist's brilliance and charisma, Peppiatt accompanied him on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, seeing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life' and meeting everybody around him.

The Rape of Europa is one of Titian's great masterpieces, a work charged with eroticism and classical mystique behind which lies a tale as compelling as the painting itself. Here Charles FitzRoy weaves a unique account of its history and the painting's movement following the rise and fall of the countries in which it has been housed. This is the tale of how Titian's masterpiece has captivated kings, nobles, artists, and lovers alike for over four centuries since its conception and continues to do so today.

A deeply researched warning about how the digital economy threatens artists' lives and work—the music, writing, and visual art that sustain our souls and societies—from an award-winning essayist and critic There are two stories you hear about earning a living as an artist in the digital age...