Mystery fans, history buffs and culture vultures alike will savor this delectable immersion in the mindset of an age.
Rigorous study of the circumstances, theories and individuals surrounding the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece.
Since her creation in 1503, Mona Lisa has served as muse, riddle and obsession for scholars, scientists, musicians, writers and art patrons. At the height of Europe’s Belle Époque, she disappeared, seemingly right from under the noses of Louvre guards, plunging the worlds of both high culture and regular society into grief and outrage. For more than two years, rumors, parody and scandalous accusations peppered global headlines, as investigators struggled to piece together the crime and, most crucially, identify the culprit. Citizens of every echelon were suspect, from museum employees to denizens of the art world, including painters, collectors and dealers. Various theories of collaborations and plots swirled around for decades. Scotti (Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter’s, 2006, etc.) masterfully excavates historical truths and brazen speculations, deftly interlacing them into a gracefully crafted account that weds heady prose to shrewd investigative journalism. Her elegant yet bold reconsideration of the most famous art crime in history offers a rare meditation on the notion of motive. Analyzing a work of art that has been anthropomorphized into mythic status for five centuries, Scotti nails it: “When Mona Lisa slipped out of her frames, she seemed to change from a missing masterpiece to a missing person. She came alive in the popular imagination. The public felt her loss as emotionally as an abduction or kidnapping.” More nuanced and focused than Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler’s The Crimes of Paris (2009), Scotti’s inquiry peels away veils of hearsay and sensationalism to reveal a caper as enigmatic as its victim.
Mystery fans, history buffs and culture vultures alike will savor this delectable immersion in the mindset of an age.Pub Date: April 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-307-26580-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.
A noted critic advises us to dance to the music of art.
Senior art critic at New York Magazine and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, Saltz (Seeing Out Louder, 2009, etc.) became a writer only after a decadeslong battle with “demons who preached defeat.” Hoping to spare others the struggle that he experienced, he offers ebullient, practical, and wise counsel to those who wonder, “How can I be an artist?” and who “take that leap of faith to rise above the cacophony of external messages and internal fears.” In a slim volume profusely illustrated with works by a wide range of artists, Saltz encourages readers to think, work, and see like an artist. He urges would-be artists to hone their power of perception: “Looking hard isn’t just about looking long; it’s about allowing yourself to be rapt.” Looking hard yields rich sources of visual interest and also illuminates “the mysteries of your taste and eye.” The author urges artists to work consistently and early, “within the first two hours of the day,” before “the pesky demons of daily life” exert their negative influence. Thoughtful exercises underscore his assertions. To get readers thinking about genre and convention, for example, Saltz presents illustrations of nudes by artists including Goya, Matisse, Florine Stettheimer, and Manet. “Forget the subject matter,” he writes, “what is each of these paintings actually saying?” One exercise instructs readers to make a simple drawing and then remake it in an entirely different style: Egyptian, Chinese ink-drawing, cave painting, and the styles of other artists, like Keith Haring and Georgia O’Keeffe. Freely experiment with “different sizes, tools, materials, subjects, anything,” he writes. “Don’t resist something if you’re afraid it’s taking you far afield of your usual direction. That’s the wild animal in you, feeding.” Although much of his advice is pertinent to amateur artists, Saltz also rings in on how to navigate the art world, compose an artist’s statement, deal with rejection, find a community of artists, and beat back demons. Above all, he advises, “Work, Work, Work.”
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08646-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Despite its glaring absence of women philosophers, Grayling’s accessible omnibus will provide a steppingstone for the...
A magnificent recapping of the history of philosophy, as it stands apart from theology, in the classic model of Bertrand Russell, as “an invitation and an entrance.”
In the hands of British scholar and journalist Grayling (Master/New Coll. of the Humanities; Democracy and Its Crisis, 2018, etc.), it is a delight to engage in this sweeping history of the great thinkers throughout the ages, from pre-Socratics to the present. Moreover, in the last section of the book, the author offers a considerably shorter yet fair introduction to Indian, Chinese, Arabic-Persian, and African philosophy (hindered only by the “veil” of language, yet he ends with a challenge to readers to address this surmountable difficulty). The attempt to “make sense of things” has plagued humanity for centuries and has also led to its great advances, especially the “rise of modern thought” in terms of empiricism and rationalism as they gained momentum from the 17th century. These great forces unharnessed philosophy from the strictures of religion, culminating in the essential concept, particularly by Immanuel Kant and his fellow Enlightenment thinkers, that the “autonomy” of man meant “self-government, independence of thought, and possession of the right and the responsibility to make choices about one’s own life.” As Grayling notes, this is “essential to the life worth living,” a matter dear to the very “first” philosophers: Thales, who relied on observation and reason to “know thyself,” and Socrates, for whom the first great question was how to live. As he moves into the more recondite reaches of “analytic” and language philosophy of the 20th century, the author mostly keeps the narrative from becoming overly academic. Unfortunately, there is a disturbing lack of women philosophers across Grayling’s 2,500-year survey, even under the cursory rubric of “feminist philosophy.” The author’s approach is especially refreshing due to his acknowledgement that few philosophers were truly unique (even Buddha or Confucius); often what was required for lasting significance was a kind of luck and a stable of devoted followers.
Despite its glaring absence of women philosophers, Grayling’s accessible omnibus will provide a steppingstone for the student or novice.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7874-8
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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