Portland Public Library

Rendez-vous with art, Philippe de Montebello, Martin Gayford

eng

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Rendez-vous with art

889943163

Philippe de Montebello, Martin Gayford

Transcribed conversations between a former longtime director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an art critic, recording their reactions to works of art at museums in six countries over a period of two yearsBeginning with a fragment of yellow jasper--all that is left of the face of an Egyptian woman who lived 3,500 years ago, more enigmatic than the Mona Lisa--this book confronts the elusive questions: how, and why, do we look at art? The authors talked in art galleries, churches and museums around the world, and their book is structured around their journeys. But whether they were in the Louvre or the Prado, the Mauritshuis or the Palazzo Pitti, they reveal the pleasures of truly looking at works of art--as well as some of the pitfalls. This is neither a work of art history nor of art criticism--though it touches on aspects of both. Nor is it a conventional travel book, though to write it the authors met on two continents and in six countries. Always their destination was some outstanding collection or individual work of art, and the resulting discussion started from what they saw. The result is highly unusual and very personal: a book about what it feels like to experience pictures and sculptures. Both men convey, with subtlety and brilliance, the delights and significance of their subject matter--some of the greatest creations of human beings through our long history

Introduction : Yellow jasper lips at the Met -- 1. An afternoon in Florence -- 2. A flood and a chimera -- 3. Immersed in the Bargello -- 4. A sense of place -- 5. The case of the Duccio Madonna -- 6. In the Met Café -- 7. Princely collections -- 8. An artistic "Education sentimentale" -- 9. Lost in the Louvre -- 10. Crowds and the power of art -- 11. Heaven and hell in the Prado -- 12. Hieronymus Bosch and the hell of looking at art with other people -- 13. Titian and Velázquez -- 14. "Las Meninas" -- 15. Goya : an excursion -- 16. Rubens, Tiepolo, Goya again -- 17. Rotterdam : museums and their discontents -- 18. Star-spotting at the Mauritshuis -- 19. Where do you put it? -- Exploring the rainforests of Paris -- 21. Hunting lions at the British Museum -- 22. Lunch in the Great Court -- 23. Fragments

Rendezvous with art