The Eye of Man: Form and Content in Western Painting by Selden Rodman soon to be presented for sale on the excellent BookLovers of Bath web site!
Published: New York: Devin-Adair, 1955, Hardback in dust wrapper.
Illustrated by way of: Black and White Photographs;
From the cover: This is the book on modern art that a new generation has been waiting for.
In these pages, inflated artistic reputations are punctured, the heads of revered critics topple, and sacrosanct movements are exposed to the glaring test of their capacity for reflecting and creating life. But, most important, Mr. Rodman describes the achievements and aims of a new group of painters who express human and spiritual values without sacrificing the vital knowledge attained by the great formalists from Cezanne to Matisse.
The Eye of Man argues powerfully for that dynamic, expressive art which avoids the pretentiousness of purely formal painting without content, and which never is debased to the level of mere illustration.
Asserting that our age has carried private painting to extremes that have caused an almost complete lack of communication between artist and public, Selden Rodman passionately affirms the place of recognizable content and spiritual values in painting.
In the course of his argument, Mr. Rodman reassesses Western art from the Byzantines to the present and analyzes from a fresh viewpoint the works of the great pictorial spokesmen for humanity: Giotto, Gruenewald, El Greco, Rembrandt, Goya, Daumier, Van Gogh, Orozco, Rouault, and Shahn artists whose meaning and vitality have lately suffered from the rewriting of art histories by formalist aestheticians
Good+ in Good+ Dust Wrapper. Unlaminated dust wrapper a little edgeworn and gubby with rubbing to the spine ends and corners. Edges of the text block lightly tanned. Pastedowns and endpapers browned with pencil doodles to the rear pastedown and blank. Pages lightly age-tanned.
Black Spine Strip over Grey boards with Red titling to the Spine & Upper Board. 182 pages. Index. 10¼” x 7¼”.
Of course, if you don’t like this one, may I woo you with the cream of my crop hither or maybe further, hand picked, books in my Art Painting catalogue?
BookLovers of Bath 