February 15, 2023
Do artists hold the power to wake us up from the semiconscious, zombielike routines of modern life? Celebrated art expert Gompertz's essays about famous works of art and artists instruct the reader in what to look at, how to look, and, ultimately, how to live in more rewarding ways. This thorough and diverse collection explores some of history's most notable creations by the likes of such masters as Rembrandt, Cezanne, and Artemisia Gentileschi as well as such contemporary artists as James Turrell, Jennifer Packer, David Hockney, and Yayoi Kusama. Pertinent biographical information and humorous anecdotes introduce the reader to many ways of shifting one's perspective, altered points of view that hold the possibility of improving one's experiences. In addition to heightening awareness, Gompertz's illuminations of artists' lives and minds are accessible and full of valuable information. This is an exhilarating resource for personal growth, a consciousness-raising exploration for artists and art lovers, and an asset for anyone interested in the who, what, and why of great artworks.
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March 20, 2023
In this stimulating entry, Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?), the artistic director of London’s Barbican Centre, examines the ways artists use their powers of perception to “see the world afresh” and help others do the same. Nineteenth-century English landscape painter John Constable used an “empirical” attention to nature to paint meticulously detailed, six-foot-tall cloudscapes that let viewers “see what was in plain sight but routinely overlooked.” And after Frida Kahlo was injured in a streetcar accident at 18 that left her with lifelong health problems, she harnessed her pain in dramatic self portraits that “bar her soul with brushstrokes rather than a pen.” Meanwhile, after contemporary painter Jennifer Packer observed the conspicuous absence of Black people in paintings in contemporary museums, she took it as an “intellectual provocation” to weave a recurring theme of partial disappearance into her own work (she depicts figures that “fade in and out of view like a small boat on a high sea”). Gompertz combines accessible discussions of artistic technique with an appealing enthusiasm, rendering entries vivid and thought-provoking. Artists and art lovers alike will be delighted.