Product Description

This popular anthology of twentieth–century art theoretical texts has now been expanded to take account of new research, and to include significant contributions to art theory from the 1990s.

• New edition of this popular anthology of twentieth–century art–theoretical texts.
• Now updated to include the results of new research, together with significant contributions from the 1990s.
• Includes writings by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures.
• The editors provide contextual introductions to 340 texts.
• Complements Art in Theory 1648–1815 and Art in Theory 1815–1900 to create a complete survey of the theories underpinning the development of art in the modern period.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4881 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1288 pages

Review
"Occasionally one comes across a book that is at once compelling and frightening, a book that excites and disorientates, a book with intimations of the sublime. Art in Theory is such a book. An indispensable source book." (Arlis News–Sheet)

From the Back Cover
Since it was first published in 1992, this book has become one of the leading anthologies of art theoretical texts in the English–speaking world. This expanded edition includes the fruits of recent research, involving a considerable amount of newly–translated material from the entire period, together with additional texts from the last decades of the twentieth century.

The features that made the first edition so successful have been retained:

• The volume provides comprehensive representation of the theories which underpinned developments in the visual arts during the twentieth century.
• As well as writings by artists, the anthology includes texts by critics, philosophers, politicians, and literary figures.
• The content is clearly structured into eight broadly chronological sections, starting with the legacy of symbolism and concluding with contemporary debates about the postmodern.
• The editors provide individual introductions to each of the 371 anthologized texts.

Material new to this expanded edition includes texts on African art, on the Bauhaus and on the re–emergent avant–gardes of the period after the Second World War. Post–modernist debates are amplified by texts on gender, on installation and performance art, and on the increasing globalization of culture.

About the Author
Charles Harrison is Professor of History and Theory of Art and Staff Tutor in Arts at the Open University. He is the author of numerous books on modern art criticism and art theory.

Paul Wood is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the Open University. He is co–editor, with Charles Harrison and Jason Gaiger, of Art in Theory 1648–1815 (2001) and Art in Theory 1815–1900 (1998).

Customer Reviews

Essential primer & intro to world of theory...
Sadly I've only come across this wonderful book (and its earlier companions) recently- a vast collection of key essays and theories relating to culture in the 20th Century. It certainly beats the **** out of a book like Beginning Theory, which is half the price but much, much shorter. A key book that should be owned by all undergraduates starting Uni operating in the wide remit of humanities. The essays/excerpts are short, easy to read & broken down into eight major sections and subsequent sub-sections. Seriously, this book is packed with the kind of thinking and quotations that should litter any university-standard essay- & also gives you a sample of certain writers- which could then be pursued from this wonderful starting point.

The book has sections on: Classicism & Originality; Expression & the Primitive; Modernity; Cubism; Neo-Classicism & the Call to Order; Dissent & Disorder; Abstraction & Form; Utility & Construction; The Modern as Ideal; Realism as Figuration; Realism as Critique; Modernism as Critique; The American Avant-Garde; Individualism in Europe; Art&Society; Art&Modern Life; Modernist Art; Objecthood&Reductivism; Attitudes to Form; Critical Revisions; The Critique of Originality; Figures of Difference;& The Condition of History. Seriously you could easily read the lot in the first year at uni, setting you up greatly for the harder years that follow...Plenty of key cultural thinkers appear here, a brief survey of the contents pages offers Freud, Rilke, Kandinsky, Croce, Lenin, Wyndham Lewis, Braque, Picasso, Spengler, Duchamp, Man Ray, Tatlin, Klee, Jung, Alfred Rosenberg, John Reed, Trotsky, Breton, Bataille, Brecht, Adorno, Pollock, Sartre, Artaud, Lacan, Camus, Bacon, Schlesinger Jr, Lukacs, Barthes, Raymond Williams,Cage, Warhol, Robbe-Grillet, Derrida, Foucault, Mulvey, Jameson, Said, Baudrillard, Kristeva, Wollen, & just about every major theorist of the 20th Century.

This book is excellent value and the ideal primer for anyone studying any subject relating to theory (pretty much most); only quibble would be the relatively fragile cover, which would require a plastic cover or be easily ruined with the amount of reference to this book that would no doubt occur. OWN!

BUY IT NOW!
I reluctantly bought this book believing it would join others on my bookshelf, however it has become my primary source of reference before starting any art essay. How did I manage before? For anyone with an interest in Fine Art this is a must have! I've noticed that it is difficult to obtain this book now -Phew! got my copy just in time. Seek it out and but it now!! This is one you really need!

Worth its Weight in Gold!
This book is filled to the brim with 371, yes 371 individual sources/texts each with an introduction to contextualise each one. Using it for an essay or dissertation will provide you with quotes that you would not be able to find in other books as well as giving you some of the more obvious source which are great too. It is a big book at 1250 pages which was intimating at first when it dropped through the door but really quickly I discovered that its as good as having a whole library in one book which is just about portable.

This is a great book and when you start using it you will realise what a bargain it is too. Worth its weight in gold