French symbolist artist Odilon Redon (1840–1916) seemed to thrive at the intersection of literature and art. Known as “the painter-writer,” he drew on the works of Poe, Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Mallarmé for his subject matter. And yet he concluded that visual art has nothing to do with literature. Examining this apparent contradiction, The Brush and the Pen transforms the way we understand Redon’s career and brings to life the interaction between writers and artists in fin-de-siècle Paris.Dario Gamboni tracks Redon’s evolution from collaboration with the writers of symbolism and decadence to a defense of the autonomy of the visual arts. He argues that Redon’s conversion was the symptom of a mounting crisis in the relationship between artists and writers, provoked at the turn of the century by the growing power of art criticism that foreshadowed the modernist separation of the arts into intractable fields. In addition to being a distinguished study of this provocative artist, The Brush and the Pen offers a critical reappraisal of the interaction of art, writing, criticism, and government institutions in late nineteenth-century France.

The Brush and the Pen: Odilon Redon and Literature

Arts & Photography

Gamboni, Dario

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

In this book - the first comprehensive examination of modern iconoclasm - Dario Gamboni looks closely at deliberate attacks against works of art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He probes for motives and reassesses the circumstances in which institutions was well as individuals have attempted to eradicate public buildings, churches, sculptures, paintings, and other works of art. His interest spurred by the destruction of public monuments in the Communist bloc after 1989, Gamboni shows that iconoclasm is not just a thing of the past, but is also an international contemporary cultural phenomenon that includes explicable and inexplicable vandalism, political protest, and censorship. He examines incidents of destruction, some comic and others disquieting, in the United States, France, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, the former Soviet Union and its satellites, and elsewhere. To explore the relationship between the destruction of art in this century and older forms of iconoclasm, the author presents case studies of such European and American controversies as the Suffragette protests in London's National Gallery and the hotly-debated removal of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc in New York.

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution

Yale University Press

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (Picturing History)

The first comprehensive examination of modern iconoclasm, The Destruction of Art looks at deliberate attacks against works of art since the nineteenth century. Dario Gamboni challenges the assumption that iconoclasm is a thing of the past and shows that it is in fact a widespread contemporary cultural phenomenon that includes vandalism, political protest, and censorship. He asks what iconoclasm can teach us about the place of works of art and material culture in society.

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution (Picturing History)

Reaktion Books

French artist Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) once reproached the Impressionists for searching “around the eye and not at the mysterious centre of thought.” But what did he mean by this enigmatic phrase? In this innovative investigation into Gauguin’s art and thought, Dario Gamboni illuminates Gauguin’s quest for this “mysterious centre” and offers a fresh look at the artist’s output in all media―from ceramics and sculptures to prints, paintings, and his large corpus of writings. Foregrounding Gauguin’s conscious use of ambiguity, Gamboni unpacks what the artist called the “language of the listening eye.” Gamboni shows that the interaction between perception, cognition, and imagination was at the core of Gauguin’s work, and he traces a line of continuity in them that has been previously overlooked. Emulating Gauguin’s wide-ranging curiosity with literature, psychology, theology, and the natural sciences―not to mention the whole of art history―this richly illustrated book provides new insight into the life and works of this well-known yet little understood artist.

Paul Gauguin: The Mysterious Centre of Thought

In January 2006, a man tried to break Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain sculpture with a small hammer. The sculpted foot of Michelangelo’s David was damaged in 1991 by a purportedly mentally ill artist. Each such incident confronts us with the unsettling dynamic between destruction and art. In this book, renowned art historian Dario Gamboni is the first to tackle this weighty issue in depth.\nStarting with the sweeping obliteration of architecture and art under the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Gamboni investigates other instances of destruction around the globe, uncovering a surprisingly widespread phenomenon. As he demonstrates through analyses of nineteenth- and twentieth-century incidents in the United States and Europe, a complex relationship exists between the evolution of modern art and a long history of iconoclasm. Gamboni probes the concept of artists’ rights, the power of political protest, and the ways in which iconoclasm offers a unique interpretation of society’s relationship to art and material culture. Compelling, thought-provoking, and featuring more than one hundred and fifty illustrations, The Destruction of Art forces us to rethink the ways in which we interact with art and its power to shock or subdue.

Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art

Ambiguity is inherent in images because visual perception is an interpretative act involving memory and imagination. Modern art has made this aspect of perception crucial to its relationship with the viewer. Potential Images, the first systematic exploration of this topic, considers those works of art that rely to a great degree on imaginative response. Dario Gamboni concentrates on the last decades of the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth centuries, during which ambiguity and indeterminacy became defining characteristics of art. He examines how work by Redon, Gauguin, Rodin, Duchamp and numerous others sought to involve the beholder and reshaped artistic communication. Drawing on a vast range of sources, Gamboni finds striking parallels in other realms of contemporary culture and points to the intense exchanges that supported this process of cultural transformation. Potential Images also identifies the historical antecedents of this appeal to the viewer, finally proposing a conception of art in which artist and audience occupy symmetrical, equal and even interchangeable positions.

Last winter, a man tried to break Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain sculpture. The sculpted foot of Michelangelo’s David was damaged in 1991 by a purportedly mentally ill artist. With each incident, intellectuals must confront the unsettling dynamic between destruction and art. Renowned art historian Dario Gamboni is the first to tackle this weighty issue in depth, exploring specters of censorship, iconoclasm, and vandalism that surround such acts.
Gamboni uncovers here a disquieting phenomenon that still thrives today worldwide. As he demonstrates through analyses of incidents occurring in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and Europe, a complex relationship exists among the evolution of modern art, destruction of artworks, and the long history of iconoclasm. From the controversial removal of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc from New York City’s Federal Plaza to suffragette protests at London’s National Gallery, Gamboni probes the concept of artist’s rights, the power of political protest and how iconoclasm sheds light on society’s relationship to art and material culture. 
Compelling and thought-provoking, The Destruction of Art forces us to rethink the ways that we interact with art and react to its power to shock or subdue.

Robe-à-Raies et Robe-à-carreaux

Individual Artists

COHEN ET COHEN

La plume et le pinceau Odilon Redon et la littérature

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

MINUIT

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gamboni, Dario. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gamboni, Dario

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gamboni, Dario. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Brush and the Pen: Odilon Redon and Literature

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution (Picturing History)

Paul Gauguin: The Mysterious Centre of Thought

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution

Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art

Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art

The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (Picturing History)

Robe-à-Raies et Robe-à-carreaux

La plume et le pinceau Odilon Redon et la littérature