Sebastian Smee
Author of The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the Pulitzer Prizes.
Works by Sebastian Smee
The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art (2016) 279 copies, 7 reviews
De kunst van de rivaliteit: vier vriendschappen, verraad en doorbraken in de moderne kunst (2016) 3 copies
Titian comes together 1 copy
Verscheurd Parijs 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Smee, Sebastian
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Sydney (BA|1994)
- Occupations
- art critic
- Organizations
- Washington Post
The Daily Telegraph
Prospect
The Australian
The Boston Globe
The Art Newspaper - Awards and honors
- Pulitzer Prize (Criticism, 2011)
- Nationality
- Australia
- Associated Place (for map)
- Australia
Members
Reviews
This Quarterly Essay feels as if it’s written just for me. Net Loss, the Inner Life in the Digital Age by art critic for the Washington post Sebastian Smee explores the doubts we are beginning to have about social media.
Not long ago I had a conversation about my remarkable luck at the Louvre, when it just so happened that The Spouse and I were the only two people in the gallery that houses the Mona Lisa. ‘Did you take a photo?’ I was asked. There was mutual puzzlement. Hers was about show more why I didn’t, so that I could remember it and prove it happened, and mine because it was an unforgettable magical experience and my friends don’t need me to ‘prove’ my story. This conversation still bothers me because it represents a gulf between the kind of memories I have (and like to share) and those of people who are more connected to their phones than I am. I think it says something about a wariness of ‘fake news’ too.
This is the blurb for Net Loss, from Fishpond:
To explain what he means by ‘inner life’, Smee quotes Chekhov describing Gurov, a character from his story The Lady with the Dog. ‘He had two lives’ writes Chekhov,
Smee sets out to explore this idea that we all have an inner life with its own history of metamorphosis — rich, complex and often obscure, even to ourselves, but essential to who we are. He thinks this elusive inner self is under threat as companies shape our new reality with their powerful tools.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/11/29/net-loss-the-inner-life-in-the-digital-age-q... show less
Not long ago I had a conversation about my remarkable luck at the Louvre, when it just so happened that The Spouse and I were the only two people in the gallery that houses the Mona Lisa. ‘Did you take a photo?’ I was asked. There was mutual puzzlement. Hers was about show more why I didn’t, so that I could remember it and prove it happened, and mine because it was an unforgettable magical experience and my friends don’t need me to ‘prove’ my story. This conversation still bothers me because it represents a gulf between the kind of memories I have (and like to share) and those of people who are more connected to their phones than I am. I think it says something about a wariness of ‘fake news’ too.
This is the blurb for Net Loss, from Fishpond:
What is the inner life? And is it vanishing in the digital age?
Throughout history, artists and philosophers have cultivated the deep self, and seen value in solitude and reflection. But today, through social media, wall-to-wall marketing, reality television and the agitation of modern life, everything feels illuminated, made transparent. We feel bereft without our phones and their cameras and the feeling of instant connectivity. It gets hard to pick up a book, harder still to stay with it.
In this eloquent and profound essay, renowned critic Sebastian Smee brings to the surface the idea of inner life – the awareness one may feel in front of a great painting or while listening to extraordinary music by a window at dusk or in a forest at night. No nostalgic lament, this essay evokes what is valuable and worth cultivating – a connection to our true selves, and a feeling of agency in the mystery of our own lives. At the same time, such contemplation puts us in an intensely charged relationship with things, people or works of art that are outside us.
If we lose this power, Smee asks, what do we lose of ourselves?
To explain what he means by ‘inner life’, Smee quotes Chekhov describing Gurov, a character from his story The Lady with the Dog. ‘He had two lives’ writes Chekhov,
one open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people; and all that was false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself to conceal the truth — such, for instance, as his work in the bank, his discussions at the club … his presence with his wife at anniversary festivities — all that was open. And he judged of others by himself, not believing in what he saw, and always believing that every man had his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy and under the cover of night. (p.3)
Smee sets out to explore this idea that we all have an inner life with its own history of metamorphosis — rich, complex and often obscure, even to ourselves, but essential to who we are. He thinks this elusive inner self is under threat as companies shape our new reality with their powerful tools.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/11/29/net-loss-the-inner-life-in-the-digital-age-q... show less
This was a fascinating, wide-reaching look at the world which produced Impressionistic art. The real value of this book is the incredible way it weaves the everyday lives of authors, artists, and other key figures into the violent, bloody reality of the siege of Paris.
Anyone who loves classical art, classic French writing (like Hugo), and even those who enjoy a peak into the mundane world of the past will find this a valuable read. One of the best books I've read on this time in history.
Anyone who loves classical art, classic French writing (like Hugo), and even those who enjoy a peak into the mundane world of the past will find this a valuable read. One of the best books I've read on this time in history.
Amazing, disturbing, fleshy, luminous, brutally honest, occasionally cruel, and human, all too human. This book makes a very convincing argument that Lucian Freud (1922-2011) deserves to be remembered as one of the very greatest portrait painters - full stop.
Freud is also an interesting landscape painter. Who knew? This edition - one of the Taschen artist books - has many lavish reproductions. Many of the paintings discussed and shown in Smee's book are in private collections, and I had show more never before seen a number of them. show less
Freud is also an interesting landscape painter. Who knew? This edition - one of the Taschen artist books - has many lavish reproductions. Many of the paintings discussed and shown in Smee's book are in private collections, and I had show more never before seen a number of them. show less
*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
One of my favorite things to learn about is how art is made — I mean art in a broad sense, in terms of writing, painting, filmmaking, etc. I find it incredibly satisfying to learn about the lives of those who’ve created amazing pieces of work, and learn how their circumstances influenced those works. So, when I saw that this was available on NetGalley, of show more course I requested it.
Sebastian Smee does a wonderful job in going through the pairs of artists and giving brief summaries of their lives and how they were affected by each other. I love that this gives a brief glimpse into each of the artist’s works, so that we can see these constructions were not created out of a vacuum, but within the life of an actual person. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that, so it’s nice to learn something about each artist.
The writing itself is incredibly understandable and I felt that the stories were fast-paced but well fleshed out. I was engrossed almost the whole way through and never felt like I was missing any information about the artists, but the story didn’t feel drawn-out. The perfect balance.:)
What would have made this book a five was if we were given a brief description of the time period and how art was currently viewed in the culture before delving into the artists’ lives and how they were changing it. We get a lot of detail on what the artists do, but not necessarily why that was groundbreaking for their time — the only reason I was able to almost keep up was due to my vague memories of an art history class I once took. I think knowing the context of the time period would have been incredibly helpful for understanding the different artists and appreciating their new approaches to art.
My favorite section was definitely the Matisse and Picasso chapter, but I also think that those are the two artists I know the most about, so there might have been a bit of a bias when it came to that. I also think it was the least dysfunctional relationship that Smee explores (at least, it seemed that way to me), so that also might have been a factor.
If you’re interested in how art is created, or learning more about the lives of some famous artists, then I definitely recommend you pick this up. I greatly enjoyed it.
Originally posted on Going on to the Next. show less
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
One of my favorite things to learn about is how art is made — I mean art in a broad sense, in terms of writing, painting, filmmaking, etc. I find it incredibly satisfying to learn about the lives of those who’ve created amazing pieces of work, and learn how their circumstances influenced those works. So, when I saw that this was available on NetGalley, of show more course I requested it.
Sebastian Smee does a wonderful job in going through the pairs of artists and giving brief summaries of their lives and how they were affected by each other. I love that this gives a brief glimpse into each of the artist’s works, so that we can see these constructions were not created out of a vacuum, but within the life of an actual person. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that, so it’s nice to learn something about each artist.
The writing itself is incredibly understandable and I felt that the stories were fast-paced but well fleshed out. I was engrossed almost the whole way through and never felt like I was missing any information about the artists, but the story didn’t feel drawn-out. The perfect balance.:)
What would have made this book a five was if we were given a brief description of the time period and how art was currently viewed in the culture before delving into the artists’ lives and how they were changing it. We get a lot of detail on what the artists do, but not necessarily why that was groundbreaking for their time — the only reason I was able to almost keep up was due to my vague memories of an art history class I once took. I think knowing the context of the time period would have been incredibly helpful for understanding the different artists and appreciating their new approaches to art.
My favorite section was definitely the Matisse and Picasso chapter, but I also think that those are the two artists I know the most about, so there might have been a bit of a bias when it came to that. I also think it was the least dysfunctional relationship that Smee explores (at least, it seemed that way to me), so that also might have been a factor.
If you’re interested in how art is created, or learning more about the lives of some famous artists, then I definitely recommend you pick this up. I greatly enjoyed it.
Originally posted on Going on to the Next. show less
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- Works
- 17
- Members
- 711
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- Rating
- 3.9
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- ISBNs
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