The Art Of Rivalry

This is a story about rivalry among artists. Not the kind of rivalry that grows out of hatred and dislike, but rather, rivalry that emerges from admiration, friendship, love. The kind of rivalry that existed between Degas and Manet, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. These were some of the most famous and creative relationships in the history of art, driving each individual to heights of creativity and inspiration - and provoking them to despair, jealousy and betrayal. Matisse's success threatened Picasso so much that his friends would throw darts at a portrait of his rival's beloved daughter Marguerite, shouting 'there's one in the eye for Matisse!' And Willem de Kooning's twisted friendship with Jackson Pollock didn't stop him taking up with his friend's lover barely a year after Pollock's fatal car crash. In The Art of Rivalry, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee explores how, as both artists struggled to come into their own, they each played vital roles in provoking the other's creative breakthroughs - ultimately determining the course of modern art itself.

The summary of The Art of Rivalry – Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art presented here include a short review of the book at the start followed by quick overview of main points and a list of important take-aways at the end of the summary. The Summary of The book "The Art of Rivalry," published in 2016, provides an in-depth examination of the extraordinary achievements of several of the best artists in the annals of human history, as well as the personal relationships with their contemporaries that helped propel them to the top of their fields. These ideas explain how competition between artists encourages innovation and how relationships have been essential to the development of the arts in general. The Art of Rivalry summary includes the key points and important takeaways from the book The Art of Rivalry by Sebastian Smee. Disclaimer: 1. This summary is meant to preview and not to substitute the original book. 2. We recommend, for in-depth study purchase the excellent original book. 3. In this summary key points are rewritten and recreated and no part/text is directly taken or copied from original book. 4. If original author/publisher wants us to remove this summary, please contact us at [email protected].

Matisse and Picasso achieved extraordinary prominence during their lifetimes. They have become cultural icons, standing not only for different kinds of art but also for different ways of living. Matisse, known for his restraint and intense sense of privacy, for his decorum and discretion, created an art that transcended daily life and conveyed a sensuality that inhabited an abstract and ethereal realm of being. In contrast, Picasso became the exemplar of intense emotionality, of theatricality, of art as a kind of autobiographical confession that was often charged with violence and explosive eroticism. In Matisse and Picasso , Jack Flam explores the compelling, competitive, parallel lives of these two artists and their very different attitudes toward the idea of artistic greatness, toward the women they loved, and ultimately toward their confrontations with death.

“You’re mad at me, but I am killing you.”—NBA star Gary Payton “Find the hate.”—NFL star Warren Sapp “Why can’t you be more like Rafi Kohan?”—your mom, probably Whether in basketball, football, or MMA, athletes talk trash to each other—and sometimes to fans—like it’s their job. And in some ways, it is: sports only matter if we decide to care about them. And insulting your opponent, or playing the heel, is probably the fastest route to making someone care. Talking smack is as old as the bible; it’s perhaps the original sport. But until now, there’s never been a book about it. In this lively, often hilarious history, Rafi Kohan interviews some of the world’s top competitors—on the petty rivalries and mind games that fuel them. He talks to point guards and soccer strikers, cricketers and insult comedians, forming a theory along the way about the surprising and influential role that name-calling plays in our world. Brilliantly original and wide-ranging, Trash Talk is a book for sports fans, culture mavens, or anyone looking to get an edge.

Why is there so much bad blood involved in the stories of artists and their artworks? Immerse yourself in 18 infamous artistic rivalries, dramatized with gripping moments of narrative, to understand how the rivalries that art fans love to gossip about serve a larger purpose in the way cultures approach the idea of art and the artist. Why did Michelangelo loathe Raphael for decades after the latter had died? How did Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse balance their perpetual competition with a lifelong friendship? What transgression pitted the notorious titans of the London graffiti scene, Banksy and King Robbo, in a rivalry that ended with a tragic and unforeseeable death? An investigative journey transforms some of the "big names" of the art world into real people--often grumpy, ornery, antagonistic, and flawed--and better reveals how all of us respond to art.

"It’s an in-depth look at varied time periods and artists, which readers interested in gossip, drama, or art history will enjoy." Library Journal, Starred Review Scandal, shock and rivalry all have negative connotations, don’t they? They can be catastrophic to businesses and individual careers. A whiff of scandal can turn a politician into a smoking ruin. But these potentially disastrous “negatives” can and have spurred the world of fine art to new heights. A look at the history of art tells us that rivalries have, in fact, not only benefited the course of art, from ancient times to the present, but have also helped shape our narrative of art, lending it a sense of drama that it might otherwise lack, and therefore drawing the interest of a public who might not be drawn to the objects alone. There would be no Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo had rival Raphael not tricked the pope into assigning him the commission, certain that Michelangelo, who had never before worked with frescoes, would botch the job and become a laughing stock. Scandal and shock have proven to be powerful weapons when harnessed and wielded willfully and well. That scandal is good for exposure has been so obviously the case that many artists have courted it intentionally, which we will define as shock: intentionally overturning expectations of the majority in a way that traditionalist find dismaying or upsetting, but which a certain minority avant-garde find exciting. From Damien Hirst presenting the public with a shark embalmed in formaldehyde and entombed in a glass case to Marcel Duchamp trying to convince the art community that a urinal is a great sculpture shock has been a key promotional tool. The Devil in the Gallery is a guided tour of the history of art through it scandals, rivalries, and shocking acts, each of which resulted in a positive step forward for art in general and, in most cases, for the careers of the artists in question. In addition to telling dozens of stories, lavishly illustrated in full color, of such dramatic moments and arguing how they not only affected the history of art but affected it for the better, we will also examine the proactive role of the recipients of these intentionally dramatic actions: The art historians, the critics and even you, the general public. The Devil likes to lurk in dark corners of the art world, morphing into many forms. Let us shed light upon him.

A dazzling portrait of Paris’s forgotten artist and cabaret star, whose incandescent life asks us to see the history of modern art in new ways. In freewheeling 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse captivated as a nightclub performer, sold out gallery showings of her paintings, starred in Surrealist films, and shared drinks and ideas with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp. Her best-selling memoir—featuring an introduction by Ernest Hemingway—made front-page news in France and was immediately banned in America. All before she turned thirty. Kiki was once the symbol of bohemian Paris. But if she is remembered today, it is only for posing for several now-celebrated male artists, including Amedeo Modigliani and Alexander Calder, and especially photographer Man Ray. Why has Man Ray’s legacy endured while Kiki has become a footnote? Kiki and Man Ray met in 1921 during a chance encounter at a café. What followed was an explosive decade-long connection, both professional and romantic, during which the couple grew and experimented as artists, competed for fame, and created many of the shocking images that cemented Man Ray’s reputation as one of the great artists of the modern era. The works they made together, including the Surrealist icons Le Violon d’Ingres and Noire et blanche, now set records at auction. Charting their volatile relationship, award-winning historian Mark Braude illuminates for the first time Kiki’s seminal influence not only on Man Ray’s art, but on the culture of 1920s Paris and beyond. As provocative and magnetically irresistible as Kiki herself, Kiki Man Ray is the story of an exceptional life that will challenge ideas about artists and muses—and the lines separating the two.

The unauthorized biography of Canada's most famous artist couple and the rivalry that drove them. She painted as if with pure light, radiant colours making quotidian kitchen scenes come alive with sublimated drama. He painted like clockwork, each stroke precise and measured with exquisite care, leaving no angle unchecked and no subtlety of tone unattended. Some would say Mary Pratt was fire and Christopher, ice. And yet Newfoundland's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (or Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner...) presented their marriage as a portrait of harmony and balance. But balance off the canvas rarely makes great art, and the Pratts' art was spectacular. As a youth at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Mary pursued her future husband, a prodigious art talent, and supported his determination to study painting instead of medicine. They married and removed themselves to a Newfoundland outport where his painting alone provided the means to raise a family. But as Mary's own talents became evident and she sought her own hours at the easel, when not raising their four children, and as rumours of Christopher's affair with a young model spread, the Pratts' harmonious exterior slowly cracked, to scandal in Newfoundland and fascination across the country. A marriage ended, and gave way to a furious competition for dominance in Canadian art.

Fiercely competitive, Matisse and Picasso engaged in one of the most formidable artistic dialogues of this century. The intense beginning of the relationship between the two artists - from the time they met in 1906 until 1917, when Matisse left for Nice - has already been amply studied, but their continuous exchange during the second part of their careers has never been examined in detail. In Matisse and Picasso, Yve-Alain Bois stages the intertwined evolution of the two giants of modern art as if it were an ongoing game of chess between two masters. As Joachim Pissarro points out in the foreword of this volume, Matisse and Picasso's dense plot and rich narrative make this work read more like a suspense novel than a traditional art history treatise. Bois' thoroughly researched historical demonstration is supported by striking visual juxtapositions of works by the two artists brought together here for the first time, making this long-awaited study a major contribution to the history of twentieth-century art.

Offering an examination of the paragone, meaning artistic rivalry, in nineteenth-century France and England, this book considers how artists were impacted by prevailing aesthetic theories, or institutional and cultural paradigms, to compete in the art world. The paragone has been considered primarily in the context of Renaissance art history, but in this book readers will see how the legacy of this humanistic competitive model survived into the late nineteenth century.