Matt's Old Masters: Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Hogarth [Paperback]

Matthew Collings' Old Masters book is bold, quietly scholarly, copiously filled with full colour reproductions and characteristically opinionated. In his early books (This is Modern Art and It Hurts) Collings promoted, with his penetrating and wry critical intelligence, what to many seemed like the indulgences--not to say the inanities--of the brand of popular modern art characterised by Charles Saatchi's patronage and Cool Britannia's posturing. His last book, Art Crazy Nationwas, however, more cautious: Collings wasn't retreating but not all the work of the Young British Artists was good and he knew it.

In this book, his wonderful study of Titian, Rubens, Velazquez and Hogarth, Collings returns us to "proper" painters who did "proper" painting. Addressing an audience who are now at ease decoding the gestural puzzles of conceptual art, he seeks to re-engage with work usually written about in as dour and stuffy a manner as the old galleries in which they often hang. This art is all about the painting: the verve and the style and the practice of how colourful goo can make powerful, challenging pictures. Appreciating it takes a little patience and some art historical context and Collings does a fine job aiding the would-be aesthete's eye and brain.

Collings is never dull and this is a hugely entertaining and amusing read. It is a further pleasure still to see the author turning his attention to painters who looked like they were going to miss out on his earnestly ironic readings. --Mark Thwaite --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'In jaunty vernacular prose, he provides a romp through the life and style of four painters.' (Sue Hubbard THE INDEPENDENT ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Matthew Collings on Titian, Rubens, Velasquez and Hogarth

Welcome to an alarming book. In it Matthew Collings, known for his TV programmes and books about new art, tells you how to look at the old masters. Of course you can look at them however you like. But this book gives you some art historical facts as the context for what you're looking at - Collings gives you the resources you need, in order to make sense of what you're seeing. And he gets you to think for yourself. In art culture today all you hear about are literal meanings, about subject matter and ideas. Matt Collings objects to the droning repetition of that stuff. He looks to the past for a different model of art, one where the surface, the form, the look of something, is part of the idea, maybe even the main thing. We can't have the past back as a complete package, of course. That would be mad. But we can find critical principles in it that we can use to make something better out of our own time. The key figures he has chosen are Titian, Rubens, Velasquez and Hogarth. The first three stand for the highest that painting can go - rich, free, flowing, grand. In art historical terms, this is the 'painterly' stream of art. The last one didn't punch quite so high, but in him Collings sees a principle of adapting your understanding and admiration for what seems higher and greater than yourself - the achievements of the past - to your own sense of what is alive and real. Matthew Collings' new book gives a unique approach to the paintings of the past.

Matthew Collings is an artist, art historian and cultural critic who writes for various newspapers and magazines. He was a presenter on The Late Show and now presents Channel 4's annual broadcast of the Turner Prize.