It can be hard to know where to start reading around subjects as broad as ‘Art’ or ‘History of Art’. So, I’ve collated some of my favourite reads for different areas of art to act as a starting point.
My first recommendation has to be John Berger’s amazing seminal book Ways of Seeing. Berger explores The West’s relationship with art, perception, sight, and knowledge through case studies, challenging the art canon and traditional criticism in an unorthodox and fascinating format. One section is solely photographs, and even the font and texture of the book are different to any I’ve experienced. He also has a book on photography—Understanding a Photograph—which I would recommend, along with Susan Sotang’s On Photography, for budding photographers.
It would be impossible to talk about art books without mentioning E.H Gombrich’s canonical staple The Story of Art, familiar to every history of art student across the country. This comprehensive chronological history has formed the basis of curricula and attitudes for decades, but is notably lacking in female artists or people of colour. This inspired Katy Hessel to write a rival chronological history featuring only women, The Story of Art Without Men; I found Hessel’s book really helpful for discovering incredible contemporary female artists and filling some gaps. However, my personal favourite feminist approach to the discipline is Linda Nochlin’s essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, an exploration of the historical relationship between women and art as a discipline. Essay-wise, there’s also Susan Sotang’s Notes on Camp or Albert Camus’ Create Dangerously Penguin modern minis, perhaps more digestible than an entire book.
For shorter informative reads, I’d recommend the nonfiction Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction series on art history or art theory or, for a longer but very accessible historical perspective, Charlotte Mullins A Little History of Art, which attempts to overview 100,000 years of art history. If you’re interested in the historical approach, a lot of art movements in the 1900s, for example Futurism, wrote many zealous manifestos describing their aims, which you can buy in collections or read online for free. You could explore this nineteenth-century focus further with Robert Hughes’ more academic The Shock of the New, which completely reconceptualised my approach to Modernist works.
There’s also an abundance of novels focused on art, a category which involves some of my favourite books of all time. On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, looks at life, race, love, and art through the story of two rival art historians and their families, the Kipps and the Belseys, with a campus centred plot which may appeal in particular to university students. I also loved the beautiful and loving descriptions of antiques and paintings in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, a kunstleroman which follows the life of Theodore Decker, who steals a painting during a terrorist attack at The Met. And, of course, I couldn’t leave out Oscar Wilde’s famous aesthetic masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray, centred on the original painting in the attic. Classics lovers should also definitely read To The Lighthouse, by Virgina Woolf, and her collated writings on art Oh to Be A Painter. Lily Briscoe, one of the characters in To the Lighthouse, is a painter, and there are some incredible stream of consciousness passages following her painting process.
For poetry lovers, there’s a whole genre of art poetry called ekphrastic poetry, which includes works by writers from Robert Browning (‘Fra Lippo Lippi’) and modernist William Carlos Williams (‘landscape with the fall of Icarus’) to Rainer Maria Rilke (‘Archaic torso of Apollo’). The most famous example is probably Keats ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’, but, though not technically ekphrastic, I personally love Frank O’Haras’ work touching on art, such as ‘Why I am Not a Painter’ – my favourite is ‘Having a Coke With You’. English literature students will also recognise the witty feminine perspective of Christian Rossetti (whose brother, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, was a famous Pre Raphaelite painter) in, ‘In An Artists Studio’ If you’re interested in reading these or finding more like them, The Poetry Foundation is a great free online resource.
Those who were a little too interested in the Louvre robbery could check out some titles like The Atlas of Art Crime, by Laura Evans, or Susie Hodges Art Fraud, both on my Christmas list. Noah Charnay, the founder of the Association for Research Into Crimes Against Art, has also written a great book on art theft and heists — The Museum of Stolen Art. I personally love the memoirs written by perpetrators of art crimes whilst they are in prison, of which there are more than you’d expect. For example, I am currently reading A Forger’s Tale by master forgerer Shaun Greenhalgh.
With regards to purchasing, I’d always recommend a cheaper online second-hand bookstore. I use World of Books a lot, but there’s also sites like Awesome Books and charity shops like Oxfam (which have a store on Nicholson Street). Edinburgh has great second hand bookstores, with my favourites being Armchair Books and Edinburgh Books on West Port. I’d also recommend Lighthouse Books opposite Pear Tree for an independent bookshop with a political emphasis, though it’s slightly on the pricier side. You could always look to the Waterstones and Blackwells Art displays for inspiration then find the same books online or at these stores for cheaper! For example, publishers Harper Collins tend to do regular discounts up to 50% off. The National Gallery of Scotland also has free entry and a great gift shop, so give it a visit if you get the chance.
“Antique art books” by BLW Photography is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
