| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £11.85
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Courbet's Realism for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £11.85, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"'This book, ' Michael Fried's work opens, 'was written not so much chapter by chapter as painting by painting over a span of roughly ten years.' "Courbet's Realism" is a magnificent work and its very first sentence brings us up against the qualities of mind of its author, qualities that make it as impressive as it is. It allows us to reconstruct the keen eye, the commitment to perception, the gift of rapt concentration, the conviction that great paintings are not necessarily understood easily, and the further conviction that a great painter deserves to get from us as good as he gives. By drawing on these qualities, Fried achieves something out of reach for all but a handful of his colleagues. In his writing, art history takes on some of the character of art itself. It is driven by the same stubborn resolve to open our eyes."--Richard Wollheim, "San Francisco Review of Books"
"Courbet's Realism" is clearly a major contribution to the highly active field of Courbet studies. . . . But to contribute here and now is necessarily also to contribute to central debates about art history itself, and so the book is also--I hesitate to say 'more importantly, ' because of the way object and method are woven together in it--a major contribution to current attempts to rethink the foundations and objects of art history. . . . It will not be an easy book to come to terms with; for all its engagement with contemporary literary theory and related developments, it is not an application of anything, and its deeply thought-through arguments will not fall easily in line with the emerging shapes of the various 'new art histories' that tap many of the same theoretical resources. At this moment, there may be nothing more valuable than such a work."--Stephen Melville, "Art History"
"Courbet's Realism" is clearly a major contribution to the highly active field of Courbet studies. . . . But to contribute here and now is necessarily also to contribute to central debates about art history itself, and so the book is also--I hesitate to say 'more importantly, ' because of the way object and method are woven together in it--a major contribution to current attempts to rethink the foundations and objects of art history. . . . It will not be an easy book to come to terms with; for all its engagement with contemporary literary theory and related developments, it is not an application of anything, and its deeply thought-through arguments will not fall easily in line with the emerging shapes of the various 'new art histories' that tap many of the same theoretical resources. At this moment, there may be nothing more valuable than such a work."--Stephen Melville, "Art History"
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
GUSTAVE COURBET was born in the village of Ornans, not far from Besancon, on 10 June 1819. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
GUSTAVE COURBET was born in the village of Ornans, not far from Besancon, on 10 June 1819. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Touchstone
7 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Michael Fried is always a polemist, but he is also a great critic and an incredible sensitive thinker. Although you cannot agree with all his assumptions on Courbet, is always a great learning reading him and discussing his arguments. If you want to get good scholarship on Courbet, you must read it.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Tortured
22 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback
I went out of my way to read and understood everything in this book. I wanted to see a good example of current art history and what warrants the glowing reviews on the back cover. It was an admittedly self-inflicted torture.
This book does not help us understand Courbet. The author, Fried, makes a vaguely interesting distinction between theatrical staging of a painting and an "absorptive" one in which the figures are unaware of being observed. He claims that Courbet's career can be defined by its powerful avoidance of the theatrical in favor of the "absorptive." However, he tells us that Courbet was probably unaware of this metaphorical pursuit. So Fried embarks on a very elaborate tracing of Courbet's unconscious efforts to avoid theatricality. He makes tortured efforts at explaining away contradictions to his theory - efforts almost as tortured as mine at reading his book. He makes preposterous claims. For instance, Courbet is seen as a "painter-beholder" subsumed into his own painting with the shovel of one of his "Stonebreakers" representing his paintbrush and the basket of rocks of the other representing his pallet. These two actors in the painting are on the wrong sides for Courbet's left and right hands, so Fried wastes our time making explanations. Then, Fried tells us that the postures of the two figures constitute the two initials of Courbet's name. There are very many things that can be said about the contents and effects of a painting. In my opinion, there are none more unworthy than these remarks.
It would be easier for me to claim that Fried only deals with symbols and illustrated ideas, but discussions of style do creep into his analysis, grudgingly. Sometimes he is quite perceptive about Courbet's use of paint, but Fried shows no delight in Courbet's work. He just looks for support of his crackpot claims and takes us on one obsessive path after another. His way of thinking in abstractions piled on abstractions apparently requires the invention of words such as "spectatorhood," "embodiedness," and "detheatricalization" and phrases like "single absorptive continuum." Numerous laughable sentences in this book can take a very long time to unravel - if you can do it.
There are lots of intriguing issues about Courbet's revolutionary and problematic qualities. Fried's quasi-Freudian approach doesn't illuminate any of these. It comes across as an egotistical claim to be first to discover a profound truth about Courbet which even the artist himself was unaware. Fried constantly refers to his "claim" and his "reading." I suggest that, instead of "reading" the paintings, he LOOK at them.
This book does not help us understand Courbet. The author, Fried, makes a vaguely interesting distinction between theatrical staging of a painting and an "absorptive" one in which the figures are unaware of being observed. He claims that Courbet's career can be defined by its powerful avoidance of the theatrical in favor of the "absorptive." However, he tells us that Courbet was probably unaware of this metaphorical pursuit. So Fried embarks on a very elaborate tracing of Courbet's unconscious efforts to avoid theatricality. He makes tortured efforts at explaining away contradictions to his theory - efforts almost as tortured as mine at reading his book. He makes preposterous claims. For instance, Courbet is seen as a "painter-beholder" subsumed into his own painting with the shovel of one of his "Stonebreakers" representing his paintbrush and the basket of rocks of the other representing his pallet. These two actors in the painting are on the wrong sides for Courbet's left and right hands, so Fried wastes our time making explanations. Then, Fried tells us that the postures of the two figures constitute the two initials of Courbet's name. There are very many things that can be said about the contents and effects of a painting. In my opinion, there are none more unworthy than these remarks.
It would be easier for me to claim that Fried only deals with symbols and illustrated ideas, but discussions of style do creep into his analysis, grudgingly. Sometimes he is quite perceptive about Courbet's use of paint, but Fried shows no delight in Courbet's work. He just looks for support of his crackpot claims and takes us on one obsessive path after another. His way of thinking in abstractions piled on abstractions apparently requires the invention of words such as "spectatorhood," "embodiedness," and "detheatricalization" and phrases like "single absorptive continuum." Numerous laughable sentences in this book can take a very long time to unravel - if you can do it.
There are lots of intriguing issues about Courbet's revolutionary and problematic qualities. Fried's quasi-Freudian approach doesn't illuminate any of these. It comes across as an egotistical claim to be first to discover a profound truth about Courbet which even the artist himself was unaware. Fried constantly refers to his "claim" and his "reading." I suggest that, instead of "reading" the paintings, he LOOK at them.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
