PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

This book evolved as a companion to the BBC program of the same name. Telling us that Leonardo DaVinci gave the Futurist painter Martinetti "the shits" and comparing Andrew Wyeth's Helga paintings to "pious deodorant ads," Hughes writes about the art of the 20th century without a hint of the preciousness or bombast common to art critics the world over. Tracing the evolution of so called "Modern Art" from the erection of the "mechanico-phallic" Eiffel tower, through Futurism, Suprematism, Expressionism, Pop-art, Photo-realism, etc., the book reads like the notes of a hyper-intelligent punk rock kid wandering the halls of the Louvre.