"This book is based on two beliefs," says John Russell in his preface "One is that in art, as in the sciences, ours is one of the big centuries. The other is that the history of art, if properly set out, is the history of everything." It is in this spirit that the book deals with the major movements in art and the major artists since the 1860s, and it also interweaves the central historical and cultural events and themes of the modern period. The Meanings of Modern Art is the work of a critic who has lived with modern art for almost half a century and has been close to many of those who have created the masterworks of our time. The book contains a choice of illustrations as exacting as it is generous, and the 328 illustrations in color and in black and white are integrated with the text. The history of art as presented here is truly "the history of everything." In the words of the College Art Association, which in 1978 gave John Russell its Mather Award for art criticism, "John Russell can illuminate everything from the stones of Egypt to the bricks of Carl Andre."--Publisher's description.

That modern art is different from earlier art is so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning. Yet there is little agreement as to the meaning or the importance of this difference. Indeed, contemporary aestheticians, especially, seem to feel that modern art does not depart in any essential way from the art of the past. One reason for this view is that, with the exception of Marxism, the leading philosophical schools today are ahistorical in orientation. This is as true of phenomenology and existentialism as it is of contemporary analytic philosophy. As a result there have been few attempts by philosophers to understand the meaning of the history of art—an understanding fundamental to any grasp of the difference between modern art and its predecessors. Art expresses an ideal image of man, and an essential part of understanding the meaning of a work of art is understanding this image. When the ideal image changes, art, too, must change. It is thus possible to look at the emergence of modern art as a function of the disintegration of the Platonic-Christian conception of man. The artist no longer has an obvious, generally accepted route to follow. One sign of this is that there is no one style today comparable to Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, or Baroque. This lack of direction has given the artist a new freedom. Today there is a great variety of answers to the question, "What is art?" Such variety, however, betrays an uncertainty about the meaning of art. An uneasiness about the meaning of art has led modern artists to enter into dialogue with art historians, psychologists and philosophers. Perhaps this interpretation can contribute to that dialogue.

A survey of modern art from the Impressionists to the present, with a new chapter on the art of the seventies and eighties, and corrections and revisions in the text.

A survey of modern art from the Impressionists to the present, with a new chapter on the art of the seventies and eighties, and corrections and revisions in the text.

The monochrome—a single-color work of art—is highly ambiguous. For some it epitomizes purity and is art reduced to its essence. For others it is just a stunt, the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Why are monochrome works both so admired and such an easy target of scorn? Why does a monochrome look so simple and yet is so challenging to comprehend? And what is it that drives artists to create such works? In this illuminating book, Simon Morley unpacks the meanings of the monochrome as it has developed internationally over the twentieth century to today. In doing so, he also explores how artists have understood what they make, how critics variously interpret it, and how art is encountered by viewers.