Art History Textbooks ReviewsArt History Textbooks Reviews

This really is a wonderfully done book. It's well written, beautifully illustrated, nicely laid out and it's printed on a slick, glossy paper that allows for decent reproductions of the art being discussed. The volume starts out at the dawn of art with Paleolithic man when "art is fused with the erotic and sacred." The book covers art from the so-called "prehistoric Venuses," cave paintings and carvings and takes the reader on a fascinating tour of the whole of western art (with a few diversions to eastern art such as the Japanese Shunga woodblock painting "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife") and arrives safely in the present time. It's one heck of a complicated subject to cover and the author does is superb at keeping the work interesting. Of course, sex has always been a subject of great interested to most humans as well as artists throughout history. Even artists such as Rembrandt produced tiny prints of humorous erotic subject matter(soft-porn) that also made fun of such subjects as monks and the French. He made his engravings tiny so that a buyer could easily carry his dirty pictures around in his pocket in order to share it with other dirty old men friends. His prices for these tiny forerunners of "French Post Cards" wasn't cheap however and now they sell for truly astronomical prices because all those engravings were made during the artist's life.
Throughout much of the history of Western Art the nude had to be wrapped in the invisible cloak of respectability by recreating the scenes of classical art and mythological subjects as vehicles for sexual portrayals. Respectability was also often achieved by illustrating the evils of the world, such as slave markets, rapes and harem life so that the so-called enlightened western audience and their government censors could justify the nudity and blatant sexual symbolism as having a higher moral purpose.
Smith does a terrific job of illustrating his insightful and scholarly discussions with numerous examples of the trends he is explaining. Chapter 12 was particularly interesting because it dealt with "Pleasurable pains." It examines "one deviant sexual fantasy" that "is so frequently and urgently expressed in European art that it calls for a more detailed treatment here. This fantasy concerns the plight of the bound and helpless victim." The chapter is illustrated by works of Jacques Callot's "The Wheel, from Miseries of War," various works by Titan, Rubens, Valentin, Rembrandt, Bachiacca, Allori and other masters. Frequent subject matter of the illustrations for this chapter include "Judith," "David with the Head of Goliath," "Head of Medusa," "Salome," and the "Beheading of John the Baptist." This is only one of many fascinating chapters, but definitely the goriest one, included in this coherent and comprehensive overview of the subject.
A reader doesn't have to be an art historian or collector to enjoy this book. Because of the material discussed, the reader will never be bored--just as artists over the history of mankind have not become bored with the subject for their own works.
I found the chapter dealing with prehistoric art one of the most interesting, but I'm certain every reader will have their own favorites. Some of them deal with humor and sex and provide a pleasant change of pace from the heavy concentration of religious art.