Rating: 
Summary: Robert Hughes is way off-track
Review: As a young artist, I would like to take this global freedom of speech opportunity to say that Robert Hughes is the most opinionated old-school reviewer to ever try and take anything away from talented people he couldn't understand or dare appreciate. His reviews of Barnett Newman and Jean Michel Basquiat have to be read to be laughed-at. Who would think that a TIME magazine art critic could write so many books and even get his own tv series? A presentation and reasonable critique is one thing, but a narrow-minded opinion is another.
Rating: 
Summary: A panoramic view of American Art with vivid opinions
Review: Dismissing a critic simply because you disagree with him, even violently disagree with him, is to miss the value a critic has. A critic's role is to spark your own thinking and investigation, to encourage us to formulate our own views and develop our arguments for them more explicitly. Letting a critic supply you with your views or to simply reject him because he doesn't confirm your pre-dispositions is a waste of your own reading time as well as the work the critic put into to his work. Rejecting a critic's views is fine, if you do it with well-formed argument and facts or for explicit aesthetic views and tastes. The whole purpose of affirmation includes the idea of rejection. Just as accepting everything is to accept nothing, making choices on acceptance includes the statement, "No, not this." Robert Hughes has strong views and has the talent for stating them forcefully. Whether or not you agree with him is almost beside the point. This book is a wonderful tour of American Art from Colonial times through the mid 1990s. While I don't want to try and state Mr. Hughes' views for him, my reading of this book tells me that when architecture, painting, and sculpture comes from an artist honestly trying to come to grips with his or her views of the world and our living in it, Mr. Hughes considers that a good thing. Whenever that is compromised in favor of social acceptance or whenever an artistic establishment forms to enforce an orthodoxy and muzzle expression he considers that a bad thing. He also tends to favor actual skill, facility, and even virtuosity in expression (if not necessarily technique) over posing and demanding acceptance. The artist must be able to communicate to others and win an audience and hold them over time to win the author's admiration. Influencing others and having resonance with other artists and other times is also a plus. The sorry state of art in our time with the dominance of a self-reinforcing elite art establishment in the museums, the shows, and the galleries comes in for a heavy beating later in the book. It isn't a blanket rejection of current art, rather it is a large pin the balloon of recent pretension and I think this is very valuable. I see this in the book and hope I am saying this correctly in part because I agree with this view. Not every conclusion Mr. Hughes makes is one I find myself endorsing, but as I say, that is beside the point. He has mastered a lot of information, presents us with hundreds of wonderful works to consider, and challenges us to think for ourselves about the issues he raises. I think this is a wonderful service and that this is a wonderful book. I am glad to have it on my shelf to dip into again and again.
Rating:
Summary: A panoramic view of American Art with vivid opinions
Review: Dismissing a critic simply because you disagree with him, even violently disagree with him, is to miss the value a critic has. A critic's role is to spark your own thinking and investigation, to encourage us to formulate our own views and develop our arguments for them more explicitly. Letting a critic supply you with your views or to simply reject him because he doesn't confirm your pre-dispositions is a waste of your own reading time as well as the work the critic put into to his work. Rejecting a critic's views is fine, if you do it with well-formed argument and facts or for explicit aesthetic views and tastes. The whole purpose of affirmation includes the idea of rejection. Just as accepting everything is to accept nothing, making choices on acceptance includes the statement, "No, not this." Robert Hughes has strong views and has the talent for stating them forcefully. Whether or not you agree with him is almost beside the point. This book is a wonderful tour of American Art from Colonial times through the mid 1990s. While I don't want to try and state Mr. Hughes' views for him, my reading of this book tells me that when architecture, painting, and sculpture comes from an artist honestly trying to come to grips with his or her views of the world and our living in it, Mr. Hughes considers that a good thing. Whenever that is compromised in favor of social acceptance or whenever an artistic establishment forms to enforce an orthodoxy and muzzle expression he considers that a bad thing. He also tends to favor actual skill, facility, and even virtuosity in expression (if not necessarily technique) over posing and demanding acceptance. The artist must be able to communicate to others and win an audience and hold them over time to win the author's admiration. Influencing others and having resonance with other artists and other times is also a plus. The sorry state of art in our time with the dominance of a self-reinforcing elite art establishment in the museums, the shows, and the galleries comes in for a heavy beating later in the book. It isn't a blanket rejection of current art, rather it is a large pin the balloon of recent pretension and I think this is very valuable. I see this in the book and hope I am saying this correctly in part because I agree with this view. Not every conclusion Mr. Hughes makes is one I find myself endorsing, but as I say, that is beside the point. He has mastered a lot of information, presents us with hundreds of wonderful works to consider, and challenges us to think for ourselves about the issues he raises. I think this is a wonderful service and that this is a wonderful book. I am glad to have it on my shelf to dip into again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: Good writing and critique; great reproductions
Review: Hughes is a fine, trenchant writer who knows American art. He is a good teacher. The best thing about this book, though, is the superb quality of the reproductions, all (?) of which are in color. There are some surprising ommissions (Church's icebergs are nowhere in sight), but this is a completely subjective complaint. This book is really a good bargain. The binding on the paperback is suspect, but it is nothing a little book tape won't fix.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing resource: Americas notable, gifted artists.
Review: I find this book very hard to put down. Robert Hughes is a compiler of history, presenting the people who shaped Americas identity--its soul--and the gifts these artists created for the world: a reflection of a unique reality molded by an American experience.
Rating:
Summary: New World Symphony
Review: I have been a fan of Robert Hughes since I fist saw the television show "Ths Shock of the New" and also his criticism in Time Magazine. In this book, he takes as his subject the epic of the American artisitc experience. In lesser hands this could be a dull topic, but thanks to Hughes's enthusiasm and interesting takes on American life, this subject becomes quite fascinating indeed. Hughes begins at the beginning and starts off with a discussion of Spanish colonial art of the old west before moving onto the East coast and the founding fathers of American Art (West Copley, Peale and Stuart). When discussing the paintings Hughes ties it in with the politics of the various periods, the literature and even the music, establishing that art does not exist in a vacuum. I have seem many of the works discussed in this work and found Hughes's insights inspiring in some instances sending off to look up material on them. The strongest sections deal with aside from the early American artists, Cole's The Way of Empire series, the Eakins, Steiglitz, and Masden Hartley. Although I rate this book with five stars, I did have one or two problems. I would have thought that he might have examined Sargent's technique more thoroughly. I have always noticed that he seems to have a problem drawing hands. The most profound disagreement that I have with Hughes is over theRegionalist movement of the 1930s. I am afraid I do not share his view of Benton. Rather than put him in the context of socialist realism and nazi art, I would have thought a more natural point of departure would be the discovery (some might say invention) of an early American aesthetic. Benton, Grant Wood and John Curry were more part of this trend than any of the international movement of totalitarian art. I also disagreed with the section on the abstract expressionists who Hughes likes and I do not, finding them sterile and self-indulgent. The book concludes with a survey of the art work of the 1980s and 1990s. This is more about commerce and perception and is illustrated by a story of the purchase of Van Gough's Irises. Whether one agress or disagrees with Hughes's judgements, oneis sure to find this survey of American art history stimulating and thought provoking.
Rating: 
Summary: What I think is important in American art by R. Hughes
Review: In American Visions, Robert Hughes takes on the rather daunting task of summing up the history of American art. While he does not entirely succeed it is a valiant effort. By using nine time periods, Hughes attempts to make the understanding of the art he believes is important easier to digest. The inherent problem lies with the concept of what Hughes deems important. Art is not easily criticized, one man's masterpiece is often someone else's waste of time, and although I admire Hughes' willingness to put himself on the line time after time, I often disagree with his emphasis. Artists like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper get their due, but many others like Alexander Calder get a fleeting mention. Sculpture and photography are ignored and architecture is dealt with in huge sections and then forgotten until the next period Hughes feels is worth discussing. Hughes also has the annoying habit of referencing a painting and then not have it shown, an example being the Warhol "Electric Chair" pieces that are not presented although they are discussed in some detail. Hughes' vocabulary will have you reaching for a dictionary at some points and wincing at the use of crude descriptions at others ( "Charles Demuth was not a flaming queen" "Mabel Dodge Luhan ...an intolerable b----) Overall this book frustrates as it educates and the combination is irritating to say the least. It just appears that Hughes has just bitten off more than the reader can chew. While it is a starting point for those of us whose art history is sorely lacking it just doesn't satisfy as a reference work; it is more of a critical review of art in America, not the same thing as a history.
Rating:
Summary: What I think is important in American art by R. Hughes
Review: In American Visions, Robert Hughes takes on the rather daunting task of summing up the history of American art. While he does not entirely succeed it is a valiant effort. By using nine time periods, Hughes attempts to make the understanding of the art he believes is important easier to digest. The inherent problem lies with the concept of what Hughes deems important. Art is not easily criticized, one man's masterpiece is often someone else's waste of time, and although I admire Hughes' willingness to put himself on the line time after time, I often disagree with his emphasis. Artists like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper get their due, but many others like Alexander Calder get a fleeting mention. Sculpture and photography are ignored and architecture is dealt with in huge sections and then forgotten until the next period Hughes feels is worth discussing. Hughes also has the annoying habit of referencing a painting and then not have it shown, an example being the Warhol "Electric Chair" pieces that are not presented although they are discussed in some detail. Hughes' vocabulary will have you reaching for a dictionary at some points and wincing at the use of crude descriptions at others ( "Charles Demuth was not a flaming queen" "Mabel Dodge Luhan ...an intolerable b----) Overall this book frustrates as it educates and the combination is irritating to say the least. It just appears that Hughes has just bitten off more than the reader can chew. While it is a starting point for those of us whose art history is sorely lacking it just doesn't satisfy as a reference work; it is more of a critical review of art in America, not the same thing as a history.
Rating:
Summary: AMERICAN VISIONS 4 COLONIAL WAY OF THINKING
Review: In short, Robert Hughes view on Graffiti Art and artist Jean Michel Basquiat in his book American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America are dismissive. first of all, Graffiti Art evolved outside of an art historical context and it wasn't meant to opperate in it. Hughes says Graffiti art was "short lived." After the 80's art world disposed of graffiti as a trend it still existed in urban environments and is now sadly "still" being appropriated by contemporary western artists today.
Hughes calls Basquiat a "Little Black Rimbaud" and speaks of his work as being "visual monotony of arid overstyling." I think Hughes was speaking about how the work didn't address him or include him and therefore he attacks the artist. By making racist comments such as the one mentioned above one has to consider that Hughes is not only wreckless in his writing but racist in intent!
I think time has also proven Robert Hughes incorrect about Jean Michel Basquiat and Graffiti Art.
Rating:
Summary: The Cultural Gadfly by Fiona Kerr
Review: Robert Hughes views the history of American Art as only an outsider would. He challenges our preconceived notions of "great art", by describing some of our favourite works as "kitsch". And how right he is, as so many artists have pandered to the foibles of fashion, turning away from true creativity in order to spin a fast buck. Hughes pulls no punches, turning his antipodean lack of reverence, his critical blowtorch, onto many a classic work. And yet through all of this one cannot fail to hear the timbre of the authorial voice. Sardonic, yes, but resonant in its appreciation of great works. He weaves into the story of American art the political climate and history that surrounded and moulded the creation of the artist's work. Not only a book on art, but on the totality of the American experience.
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