Description
In Seeing is Believing, Robert Cumming extends his exploration of the pleasures of aesthetic experience. From the freezing winter of Brueghel’s Hunters in the Snow to Constable’s and Turner’s watercolours of a rapidly changing middle England, Robert investigates the varying qualities of landscape painting, pairing this with the detailed portraiture of Manet’s A bar at the Folies Bergère, the inscrutability of the Mona Lisa, and Matisse’s lyrical movement in La Danse. You will travel as Robert’s companion through the grand museums of Paris, Vienna and London, and visit undiscovered gems such as the Lady Lever Art Gallery. Your experience of Slow Looking will deepen as Robert encourages you to explore art through your own eyes, senses and experiences.
With new illustrations by the artist Gino Ballantyne, Seeing is Believing builds on the explorations of Velazquez, Canaletto, Fra Angelico, and Pollock in Book One – Learning to Look. The Series will conclude with Book Three – Continuing to Look which will investigate artists such as Rembrandt, Picasso, Poussin, Rubens, Degas, Sir Luke Fildes and Bridget Riley.
About the Author
Having swapped a promising career in law for the art world, Robert Cumming first worked as a lecturer at the Tate Gallery. He then set up The Christie’s Fine Arts Course which developed into Christie’s Education with centres and partnerships worldwide. In 2005, Robert was appointed Professor of Art History at Boston University, Massachusetts. He has published many books devoted to the delights to be found in looking at works of art which have been translated into over 24 languages, sold over one million copies, and been awarded prestigious literary prizes. The Slow Looking series is the culmination of Robert’s work and life within the art world.
Gino Ballantyne a Scottish artist born in Malta, he studied at Glasgow School of Art. His work focuses on the human condition to compel understanding of both humanity and civilisation, exploring narratives of the ordinary and the terrible. Gino has exhibited nationally and internationally, Gino and Robert have worked closely together for many years.
Contents
Foreword
Family Life
Settling Down
Seeing is Believing
The Paintings
Preface
Bruegel, Hunters in the Snow (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)
Matisse, La Danse (St Petersburg, Hermitage Museum)
Da Vinci, Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre)
Turner, Dudley (London, British Museum) and Constable, Double Rainbow
(Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery)
Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergere (London, Courtauld)
Thanks and Acknowledgements
Endorsements and Reviews
I sat down to read with some trepidation that it would be yet another rather academic art criticism book. I was immediately intrigued by the authors skill in engaging the reader with his interpretations of his chosen paintings along with amusing personal anecdotes. Some of the paintings chosen were obvious favourites but there was a surprise inclusion of a Pollock drip painting which gave me a new insight into that artist’s work. This is a book for both professionals and those looking for a way into understanding the use of structure and the intentions of the artist. Unusually for me, having started the book, I read it in five hours never once becoming bored. The illustrations by Gino Ballantyne, skilfully take us a step away from the actual work making the compositions much easier, particularly for the layman, to understand.
Look forward to the next book. Dame Barbara Rae CBE RA RSA
Robert’s wonderful book takes us on his own multi-sensory grand tour of the greatest European paintings treating us like one of his own lucky students, even taking us out for mouthwatering lunches. Erudite and insightful he teaches us to look and taste for ourselves. His own pioneering story of seeing and understanding is the fascinating subtext. Professor Chris Orr MBE RA
This book is a primer in how to look – how to allow looking to develop by doing it with intensity and total concentration and not accepting what one is told by art historians.
I strongly recommend it. Sir Charles Saumarez Smith (former Director, National Gallery, London)
He is in the business of making us look far more carefully than we usually do but also wants to make us think very hard. He is triumphantly successful on both fronts . . .
I never stopped wanting to turn the page. David Ekserdjian (Emeritus Professor of History of Art and Film, University of Leicester)
Robert Cumming is a wonderfully intelligent, civilised and illuminating guide to the adventure of looking at paintings . . . his bold analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of 20th century art is particularly refreshing and timely. Philip Hook (author of Breakfast at Sotheby’s)
