From a carved mammoth tusk (ca. 40,000 BCE) to Bosch's Garden of
Earthly Delights (1505-1510) to Duchamp's Fountain (1917), a
remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto the
cultural consciousness of the past 40,000 years.
Author Kelly Grovier devotes himself to illuminating these and more than
fifty other seminal works in this radical new history of art. Stepping
away from biography, style, and the chronology of "isms" that
preoccupies most of art history, A New Way of Seeing invites a new
interaction with art, one in which we learn from the artworks and not
just about them. Grovier identifies that part of the artwork that
bridges the divide between art and life and elevates its value beyond
the visual to the vital. This book challenges the sensibility that
conceives of artists as brands and the works they create as nothing more
than material commodities to hoard, hide, and flip for profit.
Lavishly illustrated with many of the most breathtaking and enduring
artworks ever created, Kelly Grovier casts fresh light on these famous
works by daring to isolate a single, and often overlooked, detail
responsible for its greatness and power to move.