The Invisible Masterpiece
Contributors: Helen Atkins (Translator)
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Published: September 1, 2001
Language: eng
Number of pages: 480
ISBN-13: 9780226042657
First sentence: Our notion of the 'work of art' has its origin in the concept of the unique 'masterpiece', an idea that gained currency when the first museums were founded: revered icons or works of star quality were crucial to justify the existence of the temples of art that bourgeois culture demanded.
Description: "The Invisible Masterpiece is a history of the modern work of art, from its emergence c.1800 through to the 1960s. Before 1800, art-works were either imitative (portraits, landscapes) or narrative (history painting), but under the impact of Romantic modernity the physical object - a painted canvas, say, or a sculpture - was reinterpreted in a novel way. Now the work of art was visible testimony to the artist's attempt to achieve the impossible - absolute or ultimate art.

The 'invisible masterpiece', then, is an unattainable ideal, an ideal that has both bewitched and bewildered artists." "The Invisible Masterpiece is an unusual reconstruction of the history of the work of art since 1800, in which Hans Belting explores and explains the dreams and fears, the triumphs and failures of modernity's painters and sculptors."--BOOK JACKET.