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Review of Gompertz's What Are You Looking At? 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

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Review of Gompertz's What Are You Looking At? 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye
Chyanne Summerlin
February 19, 2014
Reflection: Will Gompertz; What are you looking at?

I enjoyed reading Gompertz book on modern arts. It was funny, witty and a helpful source to me, someone who doesn’t know too much of nothing about the arts. I learned a lot of different facts and core knowledge and even how some pieces came to be. Will Gompertz made me feel as if I was in the book as he was typing the words in the book. As he told about the different art pieces I felt as I was there as they were being produced. When I went on to read the chapter 7 about cubism, I learned that taking a subject and deconstructing it through intense analytical observation was the very essence of cubism as quoted in the book. I learned that sex and art was a good pair. That in some way sex and raunchiness was art, it can be a little vulgar seeing naked bodies but once you read how the piece came about you soon understand. It’s a statement not just some figures or objects on a piece of canvas thrown together. But meaning, reason, a likeness for the art. People take the human body as being X-rated sometimes and I also did too. But once Picasso opened my eyes and I saw that the human body stood for something. The human body has meaning, it has depth. To a viewer it may seem dramatic but I think that’s what Picasso wanted you to feel. In the piece El Greco, The Opening of the Faith Seal, it spoke to me. It was to me beautiful people, which looked happy and joyous. Another chapter that caught my attention was Surrealism. That chapter stuck out to me because of all the imagination put into the art pieces. The very first piece by Louise Bourgeois Maman, if I hadn’t read what it as about or for or representing I would have thought it was a huge spider. Some artist have me guessing a lot what they do and what made them do a certain piece in the first place. But luckily I got to read how many of the pieces came about and why they were made. But the surrealism was a fun

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