Paging Through Art History
The world's panoply of art cannot be neatly shoehorned between two covers of a book, but that certainly doesn't stop publishers from trying. From the idealistic titles — such as Flammarion's "100 Masterpieces of Paintings" — to the accessible — such as "Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces" — volumes that quantify art history hit the shelves regularly. This year, Phaidon entered the fray with a massive and yet price-effective project that is one of the best books of the season: "30,000 Years of Art" (Phaidon, 1,062 pages, $49.99).
The book, which could function as a small table itself, contains 1,000 masterworks in chronological order. Each large page includes one work of art (surrounded by a generous amount of white space) along with a brief description of the featured work. For easy reference, the year of completion, along with the period or genre of the work, is printed in the bottom right corner on each page.
What's always remarkable is how relatively small the output of the modern era really is. The first image is "The Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel" made circa 28,000 B.C.E. — and it takes a lot of cave paintings, drawings, religious or ritual objects, and sculpture to get to Andy Warhol.
As large as the book is, flipping through it doesn't take long. The text is smoothly written and the basic facts of the pieces, including current ownership, are clearly marked. All of which allows the centuries to breeze by.
Among the most interesting is the 1600s. Things start off here with a figure from Sierra Leone, which is in the collection of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. The century features strong representation from countries in Europe, though the Netherlands is especially prominent. There are familiar faces, such as Frans Hals's "The Laughing Cavalier" (1624), as well as some surprises, such as "The Goldfinch" by Carel Fabritius (1654).
The biggest surprise to be found in the 17th century is a piece from America. A garment that is believed to be Powhatan's mantle, circa 1610, is made of four hides and decorated with the shapes of one human, two animals, and 34 small circles. The reminder that this primitive construction was made in the same century that Peter Paul Rubens painted "The Horrors of War" is enough to justify the price of the book.
If the project suffers from oversimplification, the contemporary pages are the hardest hit. Brice Marden's 1989 "Cold Mountain 4" faces a page with an Aboriginal Memorial in Australia from the previous year — and they represent two of the six pieces selected for the entire decade of the 1980s. And from Brice Marden, we shoot straight to Jeff Koons's "Puppy" (1992). The book ends with James Turrell's ongoing work "Roden Crater," an extinct volcano that has been transformed into land art, an "interactive light environment and observatory." The book includes nothing from the late '90s or early '00s. That's right: not a single Damien Hirst. Not even one dot.
Still, it's the broad, historical perspective that gives this book plenty of charm. There's a glossary in the back with page numbers that refer to examples in the book — and some detailed charts that plot the evolution of human artistic progress, a process that takes Phaidon only 1,062 pages to deliver.
pcatton@nysun.com
