A review by losthitsu
What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in a Nutshell by Will Gompertz

5.0

Sometimes, a non-fiction book delivers exactly the sort of easily digestible information you were hoping to gain from it. I like looking at art but often feel lost or like I'm missing a joke when it comes to a lot of contemporary pieces, and this helped me to understand and in many ways appreciate what they are trying to achieve and why they are here. It's a solid, structured guide that clearly explains how the individual styles evolved and influenced each other, delivered in a non-patronising tone and in a way that is accessible for people like me without any formal art education. Yes I sometimes wished the author wasn't trying so hard to be funny and the imaginary conversations between artists gave me some serious second-hand embarrassment, but now that I finished the book they feel like part of the performance.