Description
Book SynopsisAs one of the leading critical voices on art of the postwar years, polymath Lawrence Gowing (1918–1991) combined a passion for close visual involvement with formidable literary skills. Edited by art historian Sarah Whitfield, four decades of Gowing’s writing are brought together for the first time in this volume, covering subjects from the Old Masters to Francis Bacon and Howard Hodgkin.
Having first gained success as a painter, Gowing's 1952 monograph on Vermeer brought him early recognition as a writer with the ability to combine aesthetic experience with a meticulous historical perspective.
Gowing’s foremost commitment was to the pioneering painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notably Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. The exhibitions he curated at the Tate and Museum of Modern Art famously helped to mould and reshape public perceptions. Characterised by a desire to instruct and encourage, his writing reflects a highly successful career as a curator and teacher.
Table of ContentsPreface · sarah whitfield 9 Writers on Art Monument of Criticism 27 Mr Berenson’s Venice 29 Berenson 33 Mind the Paintwork 37 History and Faith 42 Spellbinder 47 Art Before 1900 Mantegna 55 Brueghel’s World 61 The Solemnity of Martyrs 85 Roman Paroxysm 88 Privacy and Pride 93 An Artist in His Studio 97 Forger Versus Critic 106 Hogarth in Print: The Tyranny of Taste 113 Hogarth Revisited 128 Francisco Goya 144 The Unfathomable Goya 153 Turner: Imagination and Reality 157 Turner’s Pictures of Nothing 197 Confidence and Conscience in Two Centuries of Art 203 Daumier at the Tate 215 Impressionism and Beyond The Great Transformation 221 The Logic of Organised Sensations 234 The Early Work of Cézanne 274 Renoir’s Sentiment and Sense 301 Matisse: The Harmony of Light 317 Henri Matisse: Harmony in Red 352 Teaching by Example 360 In the Monkey Cage 363 Living in the Present 366 Objects-Lessons in Object-Love 370 Cubist 375 Paint in America 378 British Painting A Brilliant Game of Tip and Run 387 Remembering Coldstream 390 Positioning in Representation 406 Francis Bacon: The Human Presence 417 Howard Hodgkin 440 The New Tate 447 Index of Names 455
