What are the best books to help me appreciate art? I've always felt that I didn't fully understand art and that there were some layers beneath it that I'm missing. Do I have to learn about the history of art, and if so, do you guys have any recommendations?
>>8146538
the nude by kenneth clark
in fact most stuff by him
>>8146856
Thanks, I'll check him out. Anyone got any other recommendations?
I liked/appreciated art before reading this, but the biography of Cezanne by Alex Danchev made me better understand art and what it means to be an artist.
It's really dense though and if you don't have some understanding of late 19th century French art, there will be a lot of names you'll have to look up because Danchev takes it for granted that the reader knows who he's talking about.
To appreciate art you absolutely have to understand its historical context, both in the sense of the development of artistic technique, and how it fits into / responds to its zeitgeist.
I can't recommend any great art history books, but I would recommend you first delve into appreciating the art of an era whose general history you understand best.
A random recommendation though: Check out Cellini's Autobiography. It's one of the most famous (infamous?) in history because he's such a weird and bombastic guy, and it's a nice window into (late) Renaissance.
Actually you might also want ot check out Jacob Burckhardt, the urvater of "art as an organic expression of it's era's zeitgeist" method of not just art history, but history in general. Hugely influential, highly readable, still standard reading today. Nietzsche was significantly influenced by it, and a personal friend of Burckhardt, and it was a major factor in spurring the development of non-political (social, cultural, etc.) history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXtqtMU2vgI
https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/mikhail-lifshitz-the-philosophy-of-art-of-karl-marx.pdf
all you really need senpai
start with gombrich's story of art
>>8146856
>>8147932
I'll back up the gentlemen who said Clark, 'The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form' is top 10 material imo. Other suggestions of a similar vain
'The Shock of the New,' by Robert Hughes
'The Hall of Uselessness,' by Simon Leys
Along with Clark, these two never just take the bovine/porcine path of classifying art in accordance to some inherited schema. if the point of putting various pieces of art onto a continuum is to see the elements that when summed produce our present selves, surely you want someone whose real field of expertise lies in people and not their productions…
As far as classic foundation stuff
'Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime,' by Immanuel Kant
'Theory of Colors,' by Goethe
The relevant pieces from the second half of 'The World as Will and Representation,' by my homie Schopenhauer
And read more novels, of course
Oh, and fuck the marx book
Thanks guys, I appreciate it
>>8147967
>to appreciate art you absolutely have to understand its historical context and development of artistic techniue
Lol
Actually falling for the art history meme.
They count on poor bastards like you to keep the checks coming.
