Exzerpt aus dem Jahr 2006 im Fachbereich Kunst - Architektur; Baugeschichte; Denkmalpflege; Note: 1;0; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitauml;t Muuml;nchen (Institut fuuml;r Kunstgeschichte); Veranstaltung: Propauml;deutikum Architektur; 3 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis; Sprache: Deutsch; Abstract: Der italienische Maler; Architekt und Kunsthistoriograph Giorgio Vasari hat mit seinen Viten; den Leben der ausgezeichnetsten Maler; Bildhauer und Baumeister von Cimabue bis zum Jahre 1567; Kunstgeschichte geschrieben. Vasaris Viten sind mehr als nur eine Anreihung verschiedener Kuuml;nstler Biographien - Vasari war der Erste; der kuuml;nstlerische Werke nicht nur beschreibt; sondern ihren Stil auml;sthetisch - kritisch beurteilt. In "Das Leben des florentinischen Baumeisters Leon Battista Alberti" beschreibt Vasari also nicht einfach nur die Biographie Albertis; sondern er schildert und kritisiert dessen kuuml;nstlerische Arbeiten.
#4474064 in eBooks 2008-02-13 2008-02-13File Name: B00D1VVVK8
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. The text is excellent; but the scarcity of illustrations is a great drawbackBy Ralph BlumenauTom Rosenthal died in January 2014; but still lived to see the publication of this selection he made of articles from his vast output of over fifty years. And they are a joy to read; as the personality of artists he discusses spring to life under his pen even if; for reasons explained later; the discussion of their paintings often assumes an acquaintance with them which many readers will not have.The book opens with a wonderful memoir of Michael Ayrton; that self-taught and fantastically versatile "painter - sculptor - draughtsman - engraver - portraitist - stage designer - book illustrator - novelist - short-story writer - essayist - critic - art historian - broadcaster - film-maker"; bringing out not only his output but also his vivid personality.The next essay is about Arthur Boyd; and some of Rosenthals descriptions of his paintings are so powerful that; even if one does not know the paintings; their essence seems to be conjured up in ones mind; but do look them up on Google Images; and you will see that no words can really convey Boyds strange visions.Ivon Hitchens; the subject of the next essay; is an altogether calmer artist. While Rosenthal has praised Ayrton and Boyd for their versatility (for which some critics have maligned them); he praises Hitchens for his consistency (for which he was equally maligned as being boring); though he also draws attention to abstract works; flower paintings; nudes and others that are less well known (and less represented on Google Images) than his landscapes.There follows a warm piece about Thelma Hulbert; a quiet and little known painter of the Euston Road School.The following piece; about Wyndham Lewis; is not a critique of that artists work; but chronicles the history of Rosenthals acquisition over the years of Lewisiana; down to his First World War ration book which Rosenthal found in New York. He never met Lewis who had died in 1957; but had been drawn to him because Michael Ayrton had been a close friend of Lewis. Rosenthal; as the son of German-Jewish refugees; was; like Ayrton (also of Jewish descent) nevertheless a devotee of the writer who in the 1920s and early 1930s was strongly antisemitic; both men were helped by the fact that Lewis had recanted his fascism and antisemitism by 1939.Much the longest piece is about L.S.Lowry - delightful accounts of Rosenthals meetings with him; and radio scripts of interviews with and about him. Rosenthal is scathing about ignorant people who talk about his "matchstick men" or about that gregarious man being a "recluse"; let alone that he is a "naive" painter. Not many people are aware that in later life Lowry also painters sea-scapes and beach scenes. And we learn that; oddly enough; Lowrys favourite painter was Rossetti.The next chapter is about the friendship and collaboration between Benjamin Britten and the Australian painter Sidney Nolan. It begins with a collaborative work of art that never happened. The idea was the Sydney Opera House should open in 1966 with an opera about an episode in 1836 when the crew of a wrecked ship was massacred by Aborigines; with the only survivor; a Mrs Eliza Fraser; was rescued by an escaped convict called Bracewell. The Australian writer Patrick White had written a novel about this which was to be the basis of the libretto; Sidney Nolan (who was Arthur Boyds brother-in-law) had done a number of paintings based on the story and was to do the sets and the costumes; while Benjamin Britten was to write the music. It never came about because Britten took against White (and then vice versa). But Nolan continued being linked the Britten. Together with Peter Pears they made "an epic journey to Australia". The Brecht-Keller text of Brittens opera "The Childrens Crusade" stimulated Nolans series of fifteen paintings. Fourteen of them hung in Brittens home (as are several other paintings by Nolan) and twelve of them appeared in a limited edition of Brittens score. They allude; not to the child victims of the medieval crusade; but to those of the Holocaust. Nolan would also create a series of paintings responding to Brittens "Winter Words".Then there are two short chapters about Paula Rego. Much of her savage art is a feminist protest against the cruelties to which women are exposed back street abortions; female genital mutilation; child trafficking. Others are sinister takes on folk tales. Rosenthal compared her to Goya.Strindberg is the subject of the next chapter. He was a considerable painter as well as a playwright; and Rosenthal compares him with Turner; whom Strindberg indeed described as the greaest of English artists. The similarities are not only in style; but also in subject matter: turbulent seas; skies; sunsets.Next is an enthusiastic chapter about Jack Yeats; the exuberant Irish painter.There are a few illustrations in the book; costs will have prevented there being more. But that will be frustrating to readers who do not know many of the paintings Rosenthal discusses. Most of the painters are so idiosyncratic that; without the images before you (and in many cases not on Google Images either) even the best verbal descriptions and analyses; such as Rosenthals are; have to be quite inadequate.The last three chapters are not about artists. The first is about Walter and Eva Neurath; the refugees from Germany; who established Thames Hudson; revolutionizing the publication of books about art. Next Rosenthal has a piece about antisemitism in England. He had never experienced discrimination in his career; but he recounts examples of casual remarks about Jews made to him or in his presence: he doubts whether this sort of thing will disappear in his or his sons lifetime. Finally there is the obituary Rosenthal wrote about Matthew Hodgart; an English literature don and his tutor at Pembroke College; Cambridge. These last two chapters strike me as an odd inclusion in this volume; but they were clearly important to him.