OTHER BOOKS

Dorling Kindersley, 2015

Hardcover with slip case
416 pages
Dorling Kindersley
ISBN-10: 0241186102

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas

Covering every era and over 650 artists, this comprehensive, illustrated guide offers an accessible yet expansive view of art history, featuring everything from iconic works and lesser-known gems to techniques and themes.

Offering a comprehensive overview of Western artists, themes, paintings, techniques, and stories, Art: A Visual History is packed full of large, full-colour images of iconic works and lesser-known gems. Exploring every era, from 30,000BCE to the present, it includes features on the major schools and movements, as well as close-up critical appraisals of 22 masterpieces – from Botticelli’s Primavera to J. M. W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.

With detailed referencing, crisp reproductions and a fresh design, this beautiful book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in art history – from first-time gallery goers to knowledgeable art enthusiasts.

“This is a fantastic book if you want a comprehensive, detailed history of art. Excellent pictures, just the right balance of opinion and fact. The author has really toiled at this book and I strongly recommend it if you want to learn about art history”.

“This is the most candid art book I have ever read. If you want to know what art professionals say about artists and their works, ‘after hours,’ this is it. The author also gives tips on how to appreciate certain artists. This is more than just saying what the artist did well. He gives you an approach to art that can sometimes seem a bit unapproachable, especially modern and contemporary art. Last thing, some art history books lack warmth or heart. It’s like they are written by committee. This book is different. The author tells you what he thinks and feels and it’s a pleasure to read”.

Yale University Press, 2015

Hardcover
583 pages
Yale University Press
ISBN 978-0-300-20737-8

In 1925, the 22-year-old Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) and the legendary art critic and historian Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) met in Italy. From that moment, they began a correspondence that lasted until Berenson’s death at age 94. This book makes available, for the first time, the complete correspondence between two of the most influential figures in the 20th-century art world and gives a new and unique insight into their lives and motivations. The letters are arranged into ten chronological sections, each accompanied by biographical details and providing the context for the events and personalities referred to. They were both talented letter writers: informative, spontaneous, humorous, gossipy, and in their frequent letters they exchanged news and views about art and politics, friends and family life, collectors, connoisseurship, discoveries, books read and written, and travel. Berenson advised Clark on his blossoming career, warning against the museum and commercial art worlds while encouraging his promise as a writer and interpreter of the arts. Above all, these letters trace the development of a deep and intimate friendship.

‘Robert Cumming’s informative and shrewd linking commentaries, footnoted glosses and lively biographical appendix all enhance and illuminate the letters. There are skittish touches that are thoroughly endearing. He lets the correspondence’s ‘evolving continuity’ stand as an ‘authentic testimony’.’-Richard Davenport-Hines, Literary Review.

‘Both men are blessed on this occasion in having Robert Cumming as editor. His apparatus is superbly thorough, and the footnotes salvage many a dull reference. In giving us rather more than we need, Cumming confers amplitude and completeness upon his project.’-Duncan Fallowell, the Spectator.

‘…Cumming is a perceptive and diligent editor; his annotations and notes a mine of information’-Robert Carver, the Tablet.

“Superbly edited and annotated… Cumming’s introductions to the various chapters form a deft narrative of the two lives”-Patrick McCaughey, Australian Book Review.

“The letters have been edited and annotated to superlative effect by Robert Cumming… How do I love this book? Let me count the ways. First there are the letters themselves, richissime in information and observations on art, people and the world at large… a steady stream of historical context engages the reader and leads him on… This is a real contribution to the study of art history.”-Eliot Rowlands, Art Newspaper.