Synopses & Reviews
The career path of Vincent van Gogh (1853and#8211;1890), one of the world's most recognizable artists, was anything but typical. Focusing on the early stages of van Gogh's artistic development,
Becoming van Gogh illustrates the artist's efforts to master draftsmanship, understand the challenges of materials and techniques, incorporate color theory, and fold myriad influences into his artistic vocabulary. Van Gogh was aware of avant-garde trends including Georges Seurat's divisionism, Paul Signac's and Camille Pissarro's pointillism, and#201;mile Bernard's synthetism, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's immersion in the bohemian culture of Montmartre.
This handsome book features works by van Gogh alongside works by the artists who influenced him, showing how he incorporated elements of their techniques into a style that became, eventually, uniquely his own. It features essays exploring how van Gogh imbued his early works with energy as he strove to master drawing with graphite, ink, and washes; how he began to understand color with watercolor paintings; and how heand#160;tested his skill with oils on canvas. The distinguished contributors to this volume offer insight into van Gogh's temperament, memory, typography, and relationship with his critics, among other topics. Generously illustrated with 262 color images, the book also includes a chronology charting the artist's stylistic development.
Review
andldquo;[A] thrilling, erudite show . . . [an] excellent catalog.andrdquo;andmdash;Roberta Smith,and#160;Theand#160;New York Timesand#160;
Review
"Readers will be swept along by the book's lavish images . . . this is the rare exhibition catalogue that is not only as good as being there, but even better."and#8212;Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell,
Ornament MagazineReview
and#39;
Abstract Bodies makes a remarkable intervention into art history, combining a rigorous attention to the history of sculpture with surprising and elaborate readings of the art of the 1960s. As a result of his disciplined attention to abstract forms rather than figural representations of the body, David Getsy has opened a new chapter in art history. This is a brilliant and original book and will change the way we think about the dynamics between art, embodiment, plasticity, and queer form.and#39;
Jack Halberstam, University of Southern California
Review
and#39;David Getsyand#39;s
Abstract Bodies represents a welcome convergence of the long established academic discipline of art history with the more recent interdisciplinary field of transgender studies. This book is not a history of transgender artists or transgender themes in art, but rather a path-breaking application of transgender studies as a heuristic lens. His deft coupling of subject matter and critical framework enables readers to grasp the profound extent to which the plasticity of shape and transformation of substance in reference to human being is a central feature of recent Western history.and#39;
Susan Stryker, University of Arizona
Review
and#39;
Abstract Bodies more than bridges art history and gender studiesandmdash;David Getsy demonstrates that these fields
need each other. This book shows us how to see genderand#39;s capacities in texture, light and formandmdash;loosened from the discourse of sex, gender becomes a material possibility. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to write about sculpture, or who wants to know how queer art history can be.and#39;
Jennifer Doyle, University of California at Riverside
Review
and#39;The insights that emerge from David Getsyandrsquo;s analyses of sculpture, reception, anecdote, historiography, and of the particular languages andndash; andandnbsp;
voicesandnbsp;andndash; of artists, are provocative and profound.andnbsp;In the process of locating transformational energies inandnbsp;these artistsandrsquo; works, Getsy not only connects us more intimately to eachandnbsp;artist but also redirects theandnbsp;field of postwar abstract sculpture.and#39;
Michael Brenson, Bard College
Review
"Getsy manages to take what seems to be the most obvious aspect of Rodinand#8212;his sexualityand#8212;and look at it in a fresh and compelling way. . . . You will never look at or think about Rodin's sexy subject matter the same way again."and#8212;Bob Duggan, Big Think
Synopsis
A groundbreaking publication that explores the social, cultural, and artistic effects of fashion during the Impressionist era
Synopsis
A fascinating look at the genesis and meaning of Van Gogh's famed paintings of his bedroom
Vincent van Gogh's The Bedroom, a painting of his room in Arles, is arguably the most famous depiction of a bedroom in the history of art. The artist made three versions of the work, now in the collections of the Van Gogh Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Musee d'Orsay. This book is the first in-depth study of their making and their meaning to the artist.
In Van Gogh's Bedrooms, an international team of art historians, scientists, and conservators investigates the psychological and emotional significance of the bedroom in Van Gogh's oeuvre, surveying dwellings as a motif that appears throughout his work. Essays address the context in which the bedroom was first conceived, the uniqueness of the subject, and the similarities and differences among the three works both on and below the painted surface. The publication reproduces more than 50 paintings, drawings, and illustrated letters by the artist, along with other objects that evoke his peripatetic life and relentless quest for "home."
Synopsis
The first examination of all three of Van Gogh's world-renowned paintings of his bedroom, this book explores their psychological implications and significance in the artist's oeuvre.
Synopsis
This volume is the first to explore fashion as a critical aspect of modernity, one that paralleled and many times converged with the development of Impressionism, starting in the 1860s and continuing through the next two decades, when fashion attracted the foremost writers and artists of the day. Although they have depicted fashionable subjects throughout history, for many artists and writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Standeacute;phane Mallarmandeacute;, andEacute;mile Zola, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, andEacute;douard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, fashion became integral to the search for new literary and visual expression. In a series of essays that examine fashion and its social, cultural, and artistic context during some of the most important years of the Impressionist eraandmdash;years that also gave birth to the modern fashion industryandmdash;a group of fifteen scholars, drawn from five interdisciplinary fields, examine approximately 140 Impressionist-era artworks, including those by dedicated fashion portraitists, in light of the rise of the department store, new working methods for designing clothing, and new social and technological changes that led to the democratization of fashion and, simultaneously, its ascendance as a vehicle for modernity.
Synopsis
Late nineteenth-century Britain experienced an explosion of interest in sculpture. Sculptors of the and#147;New Sculptureand#8221; movement sought a new direction and a modern idiom for their art. This book analyzes for the first time the art-theoretical concerns of the late-Victorian sculptors, focusing on their attitudes toward representation of the human body. David J. Getsy uncovers a previously unrecognized sophistication in the New Sculpture through close study of works by key figures in the movement: Frederic Leighton, Alfred Gilbert, Hamo Thornycroft, Edward Onslow Ford, and James Havard Thomas.
These artists sought to activate and animate the conventional format of the ideal statue so that it would convincingly stand in for both a living body and an ideal image. Getsy demonstrates the conceptual complexity of the New Sculptors and places their concerns within the larger framework of modern sculpture.
Synopsis
The Art Institute of Chicago houses one of the worldand#8217;s greatest collections of late-19th-century French art. This stunning book highlights more than 100 of the museumand#8217;s masterpieces, from the bold works of and#201;douard Manet, an important figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism, to Claude Monetand#8217;s light-filled paintingsand#8212;the hallmarks of the periodand#8212;and Paul Cand#233;zanneand#8217;s influential Post-Impressionist canvases.
Each beautifully reproduced work is situated in terms of the memorable era in which it was created, and collectively they exemplify the diversity of ideas and extraordinary wealth of talent at work during the remarkable Impressionist period. The publication also features a chronologyand#8212;illustrated with color reproductions, archival photographs, and exhibition shotsand#8212;that documents the history and formation of the Art Institute of Chicagoand#8217;s renowned collection. The Age of French Impressionism offers art enthusiasts a fascinating overview of the Impressionist movement and its legacy.
Synopsis
The Art Institute of Chicago has one of the largest and finest holdings of late 19th-century French art in the world. This lavishly illustrated book features over ninety paintingsand#8212;nearly the entire collectionand#8212;engagingly discussed in terms of the context in which so much memorable art was produced. It offers a fascinating overview of the Impressionist movement and its legacy, drawing upon the latest art-historical findings.
The volume explores works by artists who sought official sanction by the French Academy, from Manetand#8212;notorious for his bold and direct styleand#8212;to Boudin and Jongkind, who are known for their light effects and deft brushwork. Paintings by Caillebotte, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley offer insight on such topics as contemporary life, the changing quality of light, and painting outdoors. Another section examines the works of artists who were influenced by Impressionismand#160;and compelled to explore new avenues of expression, including those of Cand#233;zanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Each image, handsomely reproduced, exemplifies the diversity of ideas and extraordinary wealth of talent at work in late 19th-century France. A fascinating illustrated chronology of the formation of this world-renowned collection is also included.
Synopsis
Drawing on transgender studies and queer theory, this book analyzes how abstract sculpture of the 1960s posed questions of genderandrsquo;s mutability and multiplicity as artists and critics struggled to map the human onto sculptural objects that refused the human form.
Synopsis
Original and theoretically astute,
Abstract Bodies is the first book to apply the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies to the discipline of art history. It recasts debates around abstraction and figuration in 1960s art through a discussion of genderandrsquo;s mutability and multiplicity. In that decade, sculpture purged representation and figuration but continued to explore the human as an implicit reference. Even as the statue and the figure were left behind, artists and critics asked how the human, and particularly gender and sexuality, related to abstract sculptural objects that refused the human form.
This book examines abstract sculpture in the 1960s that came to propose unconventional and open accounts of bodies, persons, and genders. Drawing on transgender and queer theory, David J. Getsy offers innovative and archivally rich new interpretations of artworks by and critical writing about four major artistsandmdash;Dan Flavin (1933andndash;1996), Nancy Grossman (b. 1940), John Chamberlain (1927andndash;2011), and David Smith (1906andndash;1965). Abstract Bodies makes a case for abstraction as a resource in reconsidering genderandrsquo;s multiple capacities and offers an ambitious contribution to this burgeoning interdisciplinary field.and#160;
Synopsis
During his lifetime, Auguste Rodin's name became synonymous with modern sculpture-- and sex. Rodin came to emphasize the importance of desire and the sexual as the markers of his individual perspective, using them to fuel his increasingly daring treatments of the nude. In the minds of many viewers, the dramatic and activated surfaces of his sculptures came to be seen as evidence of not just a sculptor's touch but of a lover's touch as well. This fascinating book makes a case for reconsidering the terms of Rodin's influence, arguing that the sculptor placed renewed emphasis on the materiality and objecthood of sculpture as a means of asserting his own desire's inseparability from his works.
Synopsis
An in-depth exploration of Vincent van Gogh's unconventional path to becoming one of the world's most recognizable artists
About the Author
Gloria Groom is David and Mary Winton Green Curator of Nineteenth-Century European Painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. Douglas Druick is Searle Curator and Chair of Medieval through Modern European Painting and Sculpture, and Prince Trust Curator and Chair of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago.