Recent Reading No. 1
Posted in Reviews on Mon Oct 2, 06 by Kyle under Books and Painting.
A great as the internet is, I still revel in the depth and breadth that a good book can bring to a subject. Not to mention the fact that one does not have to wait for it to download, and you never get a busy cursor. So in light of that, and the fact that I have actually have made the time to read, I’d like to share some of what has be occupying my time lately.
Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture by Malcolm Barnard. (Palgrav, 2001)
This book is an overview of the academic schools or approaches that can be put to use in examining all things visual. There are several books in this genre that I have read or browsed through and I found that this particular volume’s strength is in its comparison and contrasting of the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches (ie. formalism, feminist, marxist, and structuralist analysis, etc). If you aren’t familiar with all of these -ists and -isms then you might want to start elsewhere. Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory is an easy to read introduction to such topics, although it is written primarily with literature and not visual material in mind.
Returning to Barnard’s book, I really liked the wealth of sources referred to in its examples. Each of the chapters gives an overview of the content of several books or articles written from the perspective that chapter is addressing and then looks at their content and analytical strategy. I found myself making metal notes to follow up and remember to read several of the articles and books mentioned. If visual theory interests you at all and you don’t mind reading a decidedly academic book written in an academic (but not oppressively so) style, then this one is a appropriately sized and informative tome.
American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the America Experience by Barbara Novak. (Harper & Row, 1979)
I have to admit that I haven’t finished reading this book just yet. I’ve been reading it off and on between other books. None of my art history classes adequately covered 19th century art to my satisfaction in any significant depth. The whole period still seems to fall through the cracks. It falls off the “Intro to Art History” classes’ syllabus in the end of the semester rush. And of course no one would dare include it in their “History of Modern Art” class when there are so many serious and gravely important toilet fixtures and spilled paint pieces to study even though the majority of forces and developments that made the Modern era modern originated in the 19th century. So I took it upon myself to read up here and there. I’ve been enjoying the chapter on the Hudson River School and was very interested in the conceptual basis of those beautiful landscape paintings.
My one qualm so far is that all of the illustrations are in black and white, and many of the paintings referenced in the text are not reproduced. Fortunately, unlike 1979 when this edition came out, we have the internet to refer to these days to fill in the gaps and literally get a better picture. It also make me happy that I have a membership to the deYoung museum and can go visit some of the paintings mentioned in person, which is even better than image search engines.