Seeing Like an Artist
What Artists Perceive in the Art of Others
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Beguiling and informative”—Wall Street Journal
Learn to see art as an artist does. Discover how a painting’s composition or a sculpture’s spatial structure influence the experience of what you’re seeing. With an artist as your guide, viewing art becomes a powerfully enriching experience that will stay in your mind long after you’ve left a museum.
A visit to view art can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In fifteen essays—each framed around a specific theme—he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art.
Drawing heavily on examples from the European traditions of art, Perry aims to overturn assumptions and asks readers to re-think artistic prejudices while rebuilding new preferences. Included are essays on how artists “read” paintings, how scale and format influence viewers, how to engage with sculptures and murals, as well as guides to some of the great museums and churches of Europe.
Seeing Like an Artist is for any artist, art-lover, or museumgoer who wants to grow their appreciation for the art of others.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sculptor Perry covers "how certain paintings and sculpture were made" in his conversational debut, a convincing "plea to look closely." Across 16 essays, Perry combines memoir and art criticism, recalling in "A Grand Tour" a 1979 trip to the Louvre and seeing work by Camille Corot (who "make you proud to be a human after all") and Paolo Veronese (who painted "Shakespearean" characters). "Summoning Francis" covers the early inspiration he found in Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert, while "Reading Paintings" is a masterclass in technical components including color, shape, and what Perry calls velocity, or the speed with which the viewer is "asked to read through the fictional space of the picture," in works such as Picasso's Man with a Guitar. The book includes very few reproductions of the artworks discussed, relying instead on Perry's own sketches, which don't all scratch the itch. Still, Perry has an expansive knowledge of European artists, comparing well-known ones with more obscure figures, and his guidance is well delivered: "I'll try to evoke what I've come to love not because I believe it's what you should love, but, rather, because I hope my enthusiasm might inspire you to find what you love." Budding art aficionados, take note.
