Name: The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Art in a Dozen Masterpieces
ISBN: 9781538156599

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The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Art in a Dozen Masterpieces

Noah Charney

Hardcover

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Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

"Brimming with examples from across the artistic spectrum, this is the perfect primer to hook future art enthusiasts." Publishers Weekly

Interested in art but feel under-informed? Curious but afraid you might not "get" it? Already a fan and wishing to immerse yourself in a fun, engaging, informative and informed read that will refresh and top up your Art History 101 and Introduction to Art courses from college?

The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Art in a Dozen Masterpieces avoids the common approach of throwing hundreds of images at a reader and expecting them to learn from and memorize them all.

Instead, the book will guide its readers through a brief series of masterpieces of Western art--from cave paintings to sharks in formaldehyde. This book twelve chapters teach readers about art, the art trade, and art history in a thorough (though concise) fashion.

Each chapter is linked to one notable masterpiece, with references to others, giving readers a fixed, digestible number of objects that they will get to know in depth, and which they can use as a lens to understand the thousands of other, related objects that they might encounter in the future.

Museums can be daunting, and art presents a strange new language, one that certainly intrigues but is often intimidating and foreign. This book, written by one of the world's best-known art historians uses entertaining stories to break down intimidating barriers and invites readers of all ages for a one-stop immersion into art.

Book Details

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publish Date: Oct 30th, 2022
Pages: 184
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 10.07in - 7.26in - 0.55in - 1.33lb
EAN: 9781538156599
Categories: • History - General• Museum Studies• Subjects & Themes - General

About the Author

Charney, Noah: -

Noah Charney is an art historian by training and is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), a non-profit think tank and consultancy group on art crime prevention and solution. He has been written about internationally, including feature articles in the New York Times Magazine, Italy's Ventiquattro, Time Magazine, and has made appearances on National Public Radio, MSNBC, CNBC and ITV television, and many other news outlets. His novel, The Art Thief, was published in 2007 and has sold in sixteen other languages to date.

Dr. Noah Charney is the internationally best-selling author of more than a dozen books, translated into fourteen languages, including The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art, which was nominated for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Museum of Lost Art, which was the finalist for the 2018 Digital Book World Award. He is a professor of art history specializing in art crime, and has taught for Yale University, Brown University, American University of Rome and University of Ljubljana. He is founder of ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a ground-breaking research group (www.artcrimeresearch.org) and teaches on their annual summer-long Postgraduate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection. He has written for dozens of major magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian, the Washington Post, the Observer and The Art Newspaper. His recent books on art include The Devil in the Gallery: How Scandal, Shock and Rivalry Shaped the Art World, Making It: The Artist's Survival Guide, The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know About Art in a Dozen Masterpieces, and Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art, several of which were Amazon #1 best-sellers in their category. He also published the critically-acclaimed The Slavic Myths (Thames & Hudson) in the fall of 2023 and The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: The Complete Story of the World's Most Famous Artwork (Rowman & Littlefield, February 2024), which was praised in The New York Times Book Review and The Telegraph among others. He recently fronted an influencer campaign for Samsung, in 2022 he presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary, China's Stolen Treaures, his TED Ed videos (some on art crime) have been viewed by millions each, and he featured in a recent Amazon Prime documentary, The Picasso of Thieves. A course of his, "Lost Art," featured this summer for The Teaching Company's Great Courses/Wondrium, the first of several that are scheduled, and he teaches online courses for Atlas Obscura, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery UK, and Yale University on art theft and forgery. He lives in Slovenia with his wife, children and their hairless dog, Hubert van Eyck (believe it or not). Learn more at www.noahcharney.com

Praise for this book

This book is -- dare I say it -- a masterpiece. Noah Charney is my favorite guide to the world of fine art. He makes it accessible, fascinating and fun -- and shows us why fine art is still relevant in the age of Tik Tok.--A.J. Jacobs, best-selling author of, most recently, Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey

Through 12 chapters, Dr Charney introduces us to the basic terminology, stylistic periods and ways of interpreting fine art from prehistory to the present day. This book introduces readers to the art market, crime, restoration issues, and the myriad errors inevitable in any profession, especially one so subject to interpretation as the study of art. This "handbook" intended for the lay readers is all that and more--it can be an indispensable vade mecum for professionals and even experienced art historians. The book is a stimulating read and an inspiring contribution to art history mainly because Charney's view is original, entertaining and brilliantly witty. His knowledge is anchored in a wealth of practical experience, a broad view of the profession and deep reflection. He replays in fascinating ways the various fundamental ideas of art, which he explains in a way easy to follow for today's reader. Charney skillfully navigates between standard art and pop culture, offers pictorial comparisons between pagan gods and martial arts, Plato and Sci-Fi movies, artists like Michelangelo and Raphael and today's top athletes and rock stars, compares self-portraits and selfies... He uses an approachable contemporary vocabulary, talking about influencers and six-packs. He also makes excellent arguments with his unmistakable pedagogical gift. The book challenges the reader to master the basic skills of viewing and understanding fine arts in the shortest time--just twelve hours--how to look, understand and evaluate. The goal is fully achieved. The fresh language and engaging voice will impress even the most demanding reader.--Barbara Jaki, director, National Gallery of Art, Slovenia

In the day of our condensed attention spans, I couldn't think of a better tool to bone up on art history than The 12-Hour Art Expert, a read so exhilarating you won't need anywhere near the amount of time allotted in the title to get through. Even a jaded art fool like myself still found something fresh and a new to learn. An informed and informing read.--Kenny Schachter, artist, lecturer and author of Art Becomes Architecture Becomes Art

Noah Charney delivers a particularly accessible and thoughtful whistle-stop tour of the aesthetic development of the last 43000 years of human creative production. Written in a personable and often humorous way, 12-Hour Art Expert successfully approaches the creative history of human endeavour through a judicious selection of case studies that disentangle often complex art historical concepts and empower the reader to gain a clear understanding of our collective and evolving cultural identities. Deliberately separating itself from the often-fusty realm of traditional art historical scholarship, this book is both a reflective advancement of prevailing academic discourses, and an unaffected departure point for those looking towards an accessible entry point to survey the history of human creativity. The complexities and historical significance of cultural objects are interpreted and presented rigorously and digestibly, and the often-perplexing world of art historical movements, styles and terminology is transcribed and interpreted in a faithful and entertaining way. Within the text, Charney manages to embed and reaffirm important concepts, dates and protagonists within the mind of the reader, equipping them with the semantic and theoretical tools to confidently engage with both familiar, and non-familiar, cultural artefacts.--Gareth Fletcher, Programme Director, Master's Program in Art Logistics, Sotheby's Institute of Art

'You do not need extensive training to understand art, much less to enjoy it, ' asserts art historian Charney in this enlightening crash course. Determined to buck the 'intimidation problem' that's plagued the art world for centuries, Charney moves through 12 chapters organized around a specific masterpiece--from Bernini's 17th century Tomb of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni to Marcel Duchamp's subversive Fountain (1917)--to offer readers an amiable tour through art history, terminology, and styles, as well as the relationship between the price of an artwork and its desirability: 'an equation for the value of art: value = perceived (rarity + authenticity + demand).' Charney also revisits his deep fascination with authenticity, dissecting the fuss around Leonardo da Vinci's famed works--which, he writes, have become a 'cultural currency'--to illustrate how art connoisseurship has engendered a thriving forgery industry. While he writes exaltingly of the art world, Charney keeps his narrative refreshingly grounded, empowering lay readers to better appreciate and understand works of art, but to also trust their instincts: 'Don't be afraid to call 'hogwash' (or its synonym, BS) on artworks that you've given an honest chance.... I do it all the time.' Brimming with examples from across the artistic spectrum, this is the perfect primer to hook future art enthusiasts.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Art History 101 was never like this! Instead of the usual catalog of images and dates to memorize, here is a wide-ranging and entertaining overview of Western art. Charney uses a dozen masterpieces as landmarks for an amazing journey through art history. He is an excellent guide, passionate, knowledgeable, and witty. Chapter titles include "The -isms Cheat Sheet in Thirty Paintings" and "When Bad Things Happen to Good Art: Conservation and Loss." Woven throughout are explanations of art techniques, movements, and forms as well as engaging discussions of art criticism over time. Sharp color reproductions are provided for the dozen masterpieces, which include Van Eyck's Adoration of the Magi, Gentileschi's Judith and Holofernes, and Duchamp's Fountain, as well as images of other, related works. Charney achieves his goal "to make art as accessible, understandable, enjoyable, and intriguing as possible for as many people as are willing to be open-minded and consider engaging with it." Anyone with even the slightest interest in art will be hooked by this fun master class in masterpieces.-- "Booklist"

Art historian Noah Charney describes himself as "a proponent of making art feel accessible to anyone who is willing to meet it halfway," and The 12-Hour Art Expert accomplishes that mission via an anecdotal, conversational approach that explains art history and various artistic movements in an informative, fun manner. Charney covers ample material in clever ways.... And the book goes beyond art history to incorporate Charney's specific expertise in the history of art theft, with an informative overview that discusses both famous heists and the processes used to determine a work's authenticity. There's a fascinating discussion of how advanced technology led to better restoration techniques, including identifying portions of paintings added later, or original artists' contributions obscured by subsequent restorations. There's even a timely discussion of what NFTs and other trends in art might mean for the future. Throughout, Charney allows that specific pieces or styles might not appeal to every art appreciator. Still, The 12-Hour Art Expert is intended to serve as an introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about art, and it covers a wealth of information in a genial, accessible way.-- "Foreword Reviews"