Titian; The Last Days

Over Spring Break, I finished an excessive number of books, but this was not one of them.

Titian, by Mark Hudson, is about everything and everyone (and everyone's cousin) in Italy within a century or two of Titian's life. I read detailed accounts of the possible interpretations of paintings (which Titian probably never even saw) by artists who Titian never knew. I read the word "beatific" four times in one page, and eventually looked it up. ( If you're curious, it means saintly, calm, enlightened, etc; it is not simply another way to say beautiful. It is also used to address the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. If you find this excessive and unwarranted explanantion tedious, I recommend you do NOT read this book). Reading this, I felt as though someone had written a three page dissertation on Titian, realized that it had to be a 100 page paper, panicked, and proceeded to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. And then, realizing he only had 99.5 pages, threw in the kitchen sink and made the page margins a bit smaller.

So if you'd like to educate yourself about Titian's home and how it looks now, rumors about the personal lives of those who inspired and trained him, and the nuances of tempera paint as opposed to oil paint, I would recommend this book. If you want to learn something about Titian, I'd recommend Wikipedia.

Seven Days in the Art World

So I thought I'd mix it up with some current nonfiction, and the book I chose is a fascinating look into the complex world of art - buying, selling, auctioning, collecting, studying, etc - that I never really thought about before.

Like most nonfiction, Seven Days in the Art World, by Sarah Thornton, is not a book for everyone. If you think Sports Illustrated when you think nonfiction, I'd sit this one out. But if you're interested in art, history, art history, high society, money, and/or psychology (especially group psychology), then I'd definitely give it a spin. There are a lot confusing aspects to the art world, like why does some strange-looking art sell for millions, and who decides? How are artists trained, and what kind of qualifications help an artist to be successful? How does the art market work economically, and what does that have to do with the art itself? And what does one do with a degree in art history?

Thornton uses her BA in art history, her PhD in sociology, and her extensive experience in all facets of the visual arts industry to help us understand this chaotic, lucrative whirlwind that is the art world. She divides the book into 5 clear parts, with a few helpful visuals. The first is The Auction, all about the people, personalities and pocketbooks in New York City that determine the value of artwork. Next is The Crit, about a class at the prestigious CalArts grad school. The Fair takes place in Switzerland, at a prestigious international art fair, and in The Magazine, we return to Manhattan to experience ArtForum, and important artistic publication that was mentioned several times in previous chapters. The Studio takes us to Tokyo, into the intimate world of an excentric Japanese artist named Takashi Murakami, who is making an eighteen-foot sculpture that will soon be platinmum-plated.

By the time you've finished 7 Days in the Art World, you will not only have visited 5 countries, including Italy and the UK, but you will also have the kind of knowledge about art and the people who deal with it that you'll be able to refer to countless times in the near future. Thornton's expeditious name-dropping and process-explaining imparts quite a bit of knowlegde and insight that most people could never aquire, due to the small and exclusive nature of the art circle.

If my positive review isn't enough to convince you, it was a New York Times Best Art Book of the Year, was a best-seller in Canada, got positive reviews from Vogue and Financial Times, and has been translated into 10 languages. You can also visit Sarah Thornton's website to learn more about her and her work.

Happy Reading!