Rothko at the Tate
Studies in World Art, Book 68
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Rothko at the Tate
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Narrated by:
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Joe Van Riper
About this listen
Rothko is now one of those mythical artists, an icon of 20th century creativity, the central figure in a tragic legend. Which means to say that one is pretty much compelled to agree that everything he did was wonderful, a manifestation of genius. I have to say that I find myself increasingly resistant to this approach.
Some works by Rothko I do in fact respond to, with their glowing blocks of color. Even then, however, I find myself resistant to the suggestion, promoted by the artist himself, that his paintings are somehow to be thought of as devotional objects. Spirituality may have been the aim, but the exact nature of that spirituality always remained cannily undeclared.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Thirty thousand years ago our prehistoric ancestors painted perfect images of animals on walls of tortuous caves, most often without any light. How was this possible? Scholars and archaeologists have for centuries pored over these works of art, speculating and hoping to come away with the key to the mystery. David and Lefrre give us a new understanding of an art lost in time, revealing what had until recently remained unexplainable - the oldest enigma in humanity has been solved.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Amazing conclusion that will change your views
- By D on 05-13-15
By: Bertrand David, and others
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Picasso's War
- How Modern Art Came to America
- By: Hugh Eakin
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 137
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Story5 out of 5 stars 136
In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture? The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Better Books on Picasso Available
- By john burke on 08-17-22
By: Hugh Eakin
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From Bauhaus to Our House
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dennis McKee
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 276
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 192
In Tom Wolfe's hands, the strange saga of American architecture in the 20th century makes for both high comedy and intellectual excitement. This is his sequel to The Painted Word, the book that caused such a furor in the art world five years before. Once again Wolfe shows how social and intellectual fashions have determined aesthetic form in our time and how willingly the creators have abandoned personal vision and originality in order to work a la mode.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So snarky I kept having to back up and repeat
- By Ellen on 04-08-09
By: Tom Wolfe
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The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 258
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 220
What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A whirlwind tour of Western art
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-18-12
By: Peter Whitfield
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The Contemporaries
- Travels in the 21st-Century Art World
- By: Roger White
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Mispronunciations Spoil This Reading!
- By Jenny Jenkins on 06-17-15
By: Roger White
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The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 196
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
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So Much Longing in So Little Space
- The Art of Edvard Munch
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
In So Much Longing in So Little Space, Karl Ove Knausgaard sets out to understand the enduring and awesome power of Edvard Munch's work by training his gaze on the landscapes that inspired Munch and speaking firsthand with other contemporary artists, including Anselm Kiefer, for whom Munch's legacy looms large. Bringing together art history, biography, and memoir, Knausgaard tells a passionate, freewheeling, and pensive story about not just one of history's most significant painters, but the very meaning of choosing the artist's life, as he himself has done.
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5 out of 5 stars
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not just for Munch fans
- By Alexander on 08-19-24
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Art Is Life
- Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.
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1 out of 5 stars
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WRONG for audio program
- By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22
By: Jerry Saltz
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The Vanishing Velázquez
- A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece
- By: Laura Cumming
- Narrated by: Siobhan Redmond
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4 out of 5 stars 139
When John Snare, a 19th-century provincial bookseller, traveled to a liquidation auction, he stumbled on a vivid portrait of King Charles I that defied any explanation. The Charles of the painting was young - too young to be king - and yet also too young to be painted by the Flemish painter to which the work was attributed. Snare had found something incredible - but what? His research brought him to Diego Velázquez, whose long-lost portrait of Prince Charles has eluded art experts for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fascinating study of art history
- By Ron on 07-02-16
By: Laura Cumming
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In Montmartre
- Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Emma Bering
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 259
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 220
A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a teenage Pablo Picasso, eager for fame and fortune, first makes his way up the hillside of Paris’s famous windmill-topped district.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Florid narrative history with suspect details
- By Keith on 10-30-19
By: Sue Roe
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Da Vinci's Ghost
- Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image
- By: Toby Lester
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Haunting Expierience
- By Paul on 02-10-12
By: Toby Lester
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Why Architecture Matters
- By: Paul Goldberger
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
The purpose of Why Architecture Matters is to "come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually" - with its impact on our lives. "Architecture begins to matter," writes Paul Goldberger, "when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Reading too mechanical
- By Petrie on 09-01-15
By: Paul Goldberger
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How Do We Look
- The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as an accompaniment to How Do We Look and The Eye of Faith, the famed Civilizations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Really needs a PDF
- By Britt Elin Gihleengen on 12-06-18
By: Mary Beard
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Where the Heart Beats
- John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists
- By: Kay Larson
- Narrated by: Jason Wineinger
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself - and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. "Remarkably researched, exquisitely written", Where the Heart Beats weaves together "a great many threads of cultural history" (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mind Expansion
- By Robert Keith on 04-04-15
By: Kay Larson
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You Say to Brick
- The Life of Louis Kahn
- By: Wendy Lesser
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Born to a Jewish family in Estonia in 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew up in poverty in Philadelphia; by the time of his death in 1974, he was widely recognized as one of the greatest architects of his era. Yet this enormous reputation was based on only a handful of masterpieces, all built during the last 15 years of his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A book about architect needs pictures
- By Kristin Olson-garewal on 10-15-17
By: Wendy Lesser
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Eye of the Beholder
- Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing
- By: Laura Snyder
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Historical book about the evolution of optics through the eyes of two geniuses
- By Memi on 04-12-17
By: Laura Snyder