Book 59 - Herbert Read "The Philosophy Of Modern Art"

Herbert Read "The Philosophy Of Modern Art" (Faber & Faber)




To many who frequent art galleries, modern art is a mystery; for many others, it is a mystery not worth pursuing. Herbert Read, who was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art has written a philosophy of the mystery of modern art, and in a way merely deepens the enigma.

The thirteen essays were delivered as lectures at various time, only gathered together for this book and they cover a wide range. After parts one and two dealing respectively with the modern epoch and arts as a human activity, he looks specifically at Gauguin, Picasso, Klee, Nash, Moore, Nicholson and Pevsner before concluding on English art.

I bought it from Halls Secondhand bookshop in Tonbridge Wells for the essays on Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson, I also enjoyed the rest of the book.

Of Moore, he states: "The sculptor must come out into the open, into the church and the market-place, the town-hall and the public-park; his work must rise majestically above the agora, the assembled people ... in its dignity and monumentality, it has every requirement of a public statue". (P 215)

Of Nicholson, " ...he reveals in the multiplicity of the variations he can command with these limited means, for like all great artists he realizes that beauty is the product of self-imposes difficulties". (P221)

It is clear, succinct and interesting, whether ones agrees with him or not. Will it convince the masses? I doubt it as, in most essays, he preaches to the converted to deepen their appreciation.