Just Looking: Essays on Art

by John Updike

Book Overview

Updike's personal look at art--both classic and contemporary--in a collection of twenty-three brilliant pieces. 200 illustrations, 150 in color.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394579046
• ISBN13: 9780394579047
• Release Date: September 1989
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 2.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.4" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

12 Extra Pages

I have a copy of this book but there is a binding error. Pages 109 to 132 are repeated. Are there any other books like this or is this possibly the only one? How does this affect the value?

A Delightful and Beautiful Book

In the 23 essays in JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART, John Updike is a delightful guide and insightful companion as he reviews art across the centuries. Throughout, Updike's voice is totally engaging, informed but never pedantic, respectful but not reverential. Here is a sample: o "From his art, we might imagine him [Renoir] a plump, rosy, placid man, but in fact, he was bony-faced, nervous, reactionary, and restless." o "This painting of Wertheimer tells us what we have been missing in even the more admirable of Sargent's portraits: an at-ease emotional possession of the subject that enables him to concentrate on making a painting. Where no warming familiarity exists, a certain distancing finesse takes over." o "In 1944, Robert Motherwell wrote of his friend Jackson Pollock, `His principal problem is to discover what his true subject is. And since painting is his thought's medium, the resolution must grow out of the process of his painting itself.' Three years later, in sudden full stride, Pollock could state, `When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing.' Pollock painting is the subject of Pollock's paintings." o "[Modigliani] ...drank while he painted and liked to complete a canvas in one sitting." o "As his eyes increasingly dimmed, Degas perforce experimented with roughness of execution, never losing his underlying integrity of drawing." o "Faces gave [Fairfield] Porter a lot of trouble and his paint thickens as he worries over them." JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART is also beautiful book with great reproductions. These tie seamlessly to Updike's commentary and enable the reader to fully appreciate his wonderful insights. If you can't get to your local museum to visit the Vermeers (thank you, New York), this book is a superb alternative.