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A review by iseefeelings
But is It Art?: An Introduction to Art Theory by Cynthia Freeland
3.0
As far as I remember, I had never be so mindful about theories of art until taking an online course with this book as my required textbook reading. The reason to scrutinize this field, as the author wrote in the Introduction, "guiding us in what we value (or dislike), informing our comprehension, and introducing new generations to our cultural heritage."
A fairly short overview of art theory and I would hesitate to recommend this book to the common readers since too many chapters require you to have further research and a good background in art history or aesthetics.
In order to convey the challenge in coming up with any suitable theory, Freeland took both the prominent concepts (such as those of Plato, Aristotle, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, Tolstoy, Clive Bell, Arthur Danto) and the little-known ones (Guerrilla Girls, Walter Benjamin, John Dewey, Robert Irwin and a few more). She did a good job in putting out and summarizing a wide range of theories. However, the book seems to lack a good structure for readers to follow somehow. I guess I would struggle a lot to read this book without any learning materials because each theory is so thinly spread and not as clear as it should be. Similarly, some theories were analysed at a good pace but others were rather unconvincing and lengthy.
But notwithstanding all the shortcomings, I genuinely appreciate three things from the book: its pocket size, Freeland's great prediction of digital/ interactive art in the following years (this book was first published in 2001) and the way it considerably expanded my view on modern and temporary art.
To end this review, I will take a quote of my favourite theory by Robert Irwin, just as Freeland did in her Conclusion, in which he "proposed to describe art as 'a continuous examination of our perceptual awareness and a continuous expansion of our awareness of the world around us.']
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* my page
A fairly short overview of art theory and I would hesitate to recommend this book to the common readers since too many chapters require you to have further research and a good background in art history or aesthetics.
In order to convey the challenge in coming up with any suitable theory, Freeland took both the prominent concepts (such as those of Plato, Aristotle, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, Tolstoy, Clive Bell, Arthur Danto) and the little-known ones (Guerrilla Girls, Walter Benjamin, John Dewey, Robert Irwin and a few more). She did a good job in putting out and summarizing a wide range of theories. However, the book seems to lack a good structure for readers to follow somehow. I guess I would struggle a lot to read this book without any learning materials because each theory is so thinly spread and not as clear as it should be. Similarly, some theories were analysed at a good pace but others were rather unconvincing and lengthy.
But notwithstanding all the shortcomings, I genuinely appreciate three things from the book: its pocket size, Freeland's great prediction of digital/ interactive art in the following years (this book was first published in 2001) and the way it considerably expanded my view on modern and temporary art.
To end this review, I will take a quote of my favourite theory by Robert Irwin, just as Freeland did in her Conclusion, in which he "proposed to describe art as 'a continuous examination of our perceptual awareness and a continuous expansion of our awareness of the world around us.']
_
* my page