This book made me laugh from start to finish. Wolfe's nuanced, insightful prose tears into a topic with a bland innocence that explodes into discovery of the absurd behind every corner. And here he picks a topic many of us are too afraid to explore, lest we be seen as uneducated peons.
If you've ever thought that our art community has become a bunch of stuffed shirts, who blather on about nonsense of little importance, here's a great skewer. Wolfe tracks the history of art going from "meaningful, interesting" to "obscure, theoretical." The title refers to the fact that art of the latter half of the 20th century left behind imitating reality and inspiring people for a basis in pure theory, or "the word." As a result, the art becomes like a painting about its own theory, and requires knowing its theory to appreciate.
Wolfe mocks all of the pointless and self-aggrandizing aspects of these movements in, and also gives you insight into the people getting involved in this stuff. He does so without taking a direct polemic stance. Instead, he explores details and tracks them from idea to completion to consequence, and in doing so, shows the Emperor wearing no clothes. Once he's got you onboard with his vision, he really lets fly and the comedy commences all over again!
"The Painted Word" forced me to re-evaluate my opinions about art, since I liked at least one artist he skewered, but even more gave me the ability to laugh at a much-needed mockery of one of life's ludicrous detours. As Wolfe says early in the book, we're afraid to speak up and say the Emperor has no clothes because opposing theory sounds ignorant and backward. But after reading this volume, it's hard to think that art itself has fallen into its own hype, and that it would be ignorant and backward to keep rubber-stamping it for the sake of seeming edumacated.Get more detail about
The Painted Word.
