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Loading... Rackstraw Downesby Sanford Schwartz
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Rackstraw Downes paints down-to-earth, often gritty features of today's American environment in an unflinching and highly realistic style. This book is the first to provide a multifaceted picture of his work, its intellectual foundations, and its place in the history of art--from both outside commentators and Downes himself. Beautifully illustrated, with copious examples from thirty years of the artist's work, the book makes eminently clear why Downes is widely regarded as a "painter's painter." It showcases many of the artist's panoramic pictures--painted with a strong sense of place and a miniaturist's sense of scale. The images, which depict industrial parks, construction sites, housing projects, refineries, razor wire, and landfills, stimulate fresh thoughts about these supposedly unattractive sights. Bathed in the light of a precise time, the paintings resonate with a strikingly evocative quality. The three essays that accompany Downes's art provide rare insights into the way a painter thinks and works. Sanford Schwartz explores the relationships between the artist's personal and intellectual background and his oeuvre. Robert Storr situates Downes in the context of a number of highly prominent contemporary artists such as Chuck Close, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jasper Johns, Gerhard Richter, and Robert Smithson in a way that offers a new interpretation of Downes's work, while making clear its importance within twentieth-century art. Downes's own essay, "Turning the Head in Empirical Space," presents a direct, firsthand account of his working methods within a larger discussion on spatial paradigms of Renaissance and post-Renaissance modes of painting. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)759.13The arts Painting History, geographic treatment, biography United States and Canada United StatesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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There are illustrations throughout, one hundred colour plates and fifteen black and white images, most of the plates are full page or as near as possible in size, some cross the gutter fro doube page spreads, and they include a few close-up details - something essential in such a study where most of the originals pieces are of considerable size. The landscape format of the book is an obvious choice for an artist who paints almost exclusively very wide pictures.
The first two essays are informative and cover Rackstraw Downes' background and training, his contacts and influences, his work in the context of notable contemporary artists, and discuss his work if in somewhat reverential terms. The essay by Downes himself is very interesting as he considers his work in the present context and in relation to Renaissance and post-Renaissance art, and with illuminating perceptions on perspective drawing.
A beautiful well produced book, it has certainly changed my perception of the artist and added much to my understanding. (