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It's an intimidating book, but somehow this diverse group of thinkers is organized in a way that could be read straight through. The assembly of so many artists, politicians, philosophers, and theorists in one place has had a profound impact on my understanding of particular artworks, and my relationship to art in general. Personally, I find it to be an invaluable tool for research and artistic growth. The subtitle to this book is "An Anthology of Changing Ideas", which is remarkably accurate. The excerpts in this book run the ideological spectrum from Winston Churchill to Adolf Hitler, and everyone in-between.
that topic is really not addressed in this anthology. i wish that i had gone for the feminist art volume-- it's much more relevant for anyone who is interested in art as political expression. it's probably still good as a reference if you're going to be writing a lot of papers for standard survey courses covering this time period, though. my college library had the "feminist art theory" volume from this same series, and i LOVED that book to death. since i liked that book so much, i thought it would be a good investment to cash in a recent gift certificate on this hefty volume.
It looked extremely dull. There are also letters and notes in the book by artists such as Cezanne and Matisse, which are delightful to read.
I don't think any art student or teacher could do without this book, I used it as a beginners guide while studying art, and I won't stop using it. I use a dictionary sometimes, but not always, though I agree, the language is hard to comprehend at first glance.
Had I read the reviews about this book, I wouldn't have bought it.I had to though, for my "Art: Language and Theory" class, in my second year of Graphic Design major. It covers art theories in the 20th century, and has texts written by artists, philosophers, polticians and much more.I now refer to it with every paper I write, every presentation I make and so on.
Don't be put off when you first get this book, you'll learn to value and appreciate it with little time. I was shocked with it at first, it's almost 1300 pages, with not a single image in it.
But the thing is, I found it extremely useful, and enjoyable to read at times too.
The writings seem to be obscure at times, with the editors trying to draw distant similarites between varying fields. This book is not a beginner guide and it helps to have some knowledge of art history as well as a little world history. I used this book for a graduate theory class and ended up reading pretty much all of it. Most of the passages used overly pretentious language, so keep a dictionary nearby. A better or easier read would have to be "Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art". The book provides an excellent overview of the major movements during the past 100 years but also misses out on a lot of the most current trends. I believe there were less than 3 articles dated after 1999.
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