Review by Booklist Review
"In the art world, scandal has almost always been a good thing for the artist and for their art," writes Charney (The Collector of Lives, 2017) in his lavishly illustrated new book on rivalry, scandal, and shock over 2,000 years of art history. Each chapter introduces and defines one of these three key terms and then whisks the reader away on a breathless ride through a series of case studies that key in on a specific artwork or art-world intervention. Though the visual analysis is well trodden--for example, the discussion of Caravaggio's paintings highlights the artist's unique decisions to dress biblical figures in contemporary garb and show unusual moments in their familiar stories--the framework of controversy invigorates the accounts with new energy and fresh perspectives. There's a casualness to the prose (for example, Charney describes baroque painters as "a badass bunch") and the structure, with little obvious connections between case studies. But on his main point, Charney is clear: impropriety does not only make for good art-world stories, it is also the fuel that drives invention.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this delightful romp, novelist and art history professor Charney (The Collector of Lives) makes a thrilling case for how "antagonistic actions, moods, and tendencies... actually helped shape and elevate the course of art." Charney makes his case in often-irreverent prose ("Caravaggio was a major-league asshole") and uses vignettes to demonstrate how his themes of scandal, shock, and rivalry have advanced the careers of artists and changed the trajectory of art from classical times through to the present. Notoriety and the risqué testing of society's boundaries, for example, often accelerated the careers of such painters as Greuze, Manet, and Picasso, while controversy, Charney asserts, is not always bad: Duchamp's Dadaist urinal created shock waves in its day, but seems tepid when compared to the bizarre performance art practiced by contemporary artists Ulay and Marina Abramovic (who "carved a star into her own stomach"). And rivalries--such as those between Italian painters Duccio and Giotto, sculptors Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, and Roman architects Bernini and Borromini--often pushed artists to new heights, yielding famous designs including Florence's Gates of Paradise. Like the topics it addresses, this will undoubtedly add spice to conversations about the meaning and purpose of art. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Are the best artists badly behaved? This is the question Charney (art history, American Univ. of Rome & Univ. of Ljubljana, Slovenia; The Museum of Lost Art; The Art of Forgery) seeks to answer. He makes the case that rivalries, scandals, and shocking moments seem to have benefited the reputations of some artists. He opens and closes his exploration with stories about Caravaggio, a notorious "bad boy" painter in Renaissance Italy, who was known for threatening people, joining gangs of artists, and even killing a rival. Caravaggio is just one of the many artists detailed here (some from the Western canon, some from outside it). Charney covers a lot of ground in each chapter, with bite-sized but comprehensive coverage of dramatic events in the art world. His theme is artists who have learned how to cleverly rebel against societal norms while raising their notoriety and popularity. In the business world, competition may lead to cheaper goods, but in the art world, competition, rivalry, and scandal can raise one's net worth. VERDICT This book offers lots of peeks into the art world throughout history. It's an in-depth look at varied time periods and artists, which readers interested in gossip, drama, or art history will enjoy.--Rebecca Kluberdanz, Central New York Lib. Resources Council, Syracuse
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