ART

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life” —Pablo Picasso

Escape from the everyday! Lose yourself in more than 2,500 of history’s greatest works of art, spanning from the dawn of man, to the dawn of a new millennium. ART brings to life thousands of famous (and not-so-famous) paintings, sculptures, and sketches in an entertaining and accessible way, offering a fun—not fussy—guided tour through the world of art.

Now, New York Times best-selling author Ross King offers his expert perspective on ART in this exclusive Q&A:  

1. You’ve written extensively about Italian Renaissance art and the French Impressionists. Can you talk about the depiction of these two monumental eras in ART and what stands out the most for you?

I may be biased, but these two eras are crucially important in Western art. And they’re given suitably lavish and intelligent treatment in these pages. The difficult thing is to find the right balance between text and images, but here, as throughout, the editors are spot-on in their choice of paintings and crystal clear in their explanations. The section on the Renaissance has four beautifully illustrated pages on Botticelli’s Primavera, while that on Impressionism zeroes in on Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Through a series of close-ups and explanations we’re able to see how wonderful - and, in some ways, how truly bizarre - these two landmark paintings really are.

2. What in this book is new to you?  

Masses of material are new to me. Pages and pages of material were a complete terra incognita to me. It’s humbling how much I don’t know! One of the images that really amazed me was the Standard of Ur. The little mosaics (even the war ones) are charming. I’m used to marveling at the skill and artistry of craftsmen 500 years ago, but these mosaics are almost 5,000 years old.

3. Every picture tells a story. Which picture in ART tells the story that most deeply stirs you?  

One of my favorite paintings, with a sad story behind it, is Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. It was painted in 1882, when Manet was 50 years old and suffering pains and paralysis from what was probably tertiary syphilis. Cut off from the outside world because of his illness, he’d only been able to paint still lifes and portraits, not the lively café scenes he loved. He was full of regret. A year earlier he spoke of his “twenty lost years” - the two decades of hostile reviews and a mocking public. But somehow he managed to overcome his depression and debilities in order to paint one of his most mesmerizing canvases. It’s a painting that creates its own strange and magical universe. But the critics and the public were bewildered as usual, and within a year he was dead.  

4. It’s interesting to see how war has been depicted in art throughout millennia. What does an artist bring to an illustration of war that modern-day journalism does not?

The 20th century was an age of great war photography, but the century’s most famous image of war came from the brush of a painter. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is probably the most important painting of the 20th century. Its inspiration actually came from photography. Picasso was shocked when he saw the black and white photographs of the massacre on the front pages of the Paris newspapers - but all of those photographs are now forgotten, and Guernica is an icon. Why? War artists, unlike war photographers, are able to compose their scenes for maximum effect. As the book shows, Picasso painted Guernica as an allegory, drawing on a tradition of war paintings and introducing his own compelling personal symbolism. 

 

Get a closer look at one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. Click on the image below to discover and interpret details of Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, painted in 1517.