Modern Art

by Trewin Copplestone

Book Overview

LARGE HARDCOVER This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671076701
• ISBN13: 9780671076702
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Bookthrift Co
• Weight: 3.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A MASTERPIECE

The fascinating introduction to this impressive work deals with history of art and seeks to find an exact definition of modern art. It discusses terms like abstract" and "avant-garde" and explores the historical background to modern art, starting with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. It also treats the role of Royal Academy and the French Salon and looks at the impact of photography and the role of the arts and crafts movement. The main text then proceeds with the chapters Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, The Nabis, The Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau. The second part is titled The Twentieth Century and it consists of chapters on inter alia Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Vorticism, Modern Sculpture, De Stijl, Dada and Surrealism, The Bauhaus, Mexican Revolutionary Art, Postwar Europe, The 1960s, Pop, Art in Australia and Art in America, Motion and Mechanics, Happenings and Assemblage, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Realism and Superrealism. The book offers a cornucopia of full color pictures, of which many are full-page plates. There are also black and white illustrations. Paging through this book overwhelms the senses, but a quick perusal confirms my love for the work of Salvador Dali (whose Premonition Of Civil War 1936 and Christ Of St. John Of the Cross 1951) are reproduced here, plus Andy Warhol who's Marilyn 1967 is here. David Hockney's Peter Getting Out Of Nick's Pool 1966 is also very striking. This masterpiece of a book concludes with an in-depth bibliography, a section on picture information and a thorough index. As it was published in 1985 it cannot be considered the last word on modern art anymore, but it remains an impressive reference work that comprehensively and engagingly maps the art of the twentieth century up to middle 1980s.