Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

I should explain the title. As Jeanette will explain within the pages, art not only /objects/ with our safe notions of what we consider to be good or normal to our perceptions, but also art is also an /object/ to be handled, manipulated, and explored by our souls, with all the effort we would put into whatever coporeal object our hands might hold and seek to understand.Having told you this, that the title encompasses so much of the book, does not mean that it does not need to be read now. Much the opposite. Though almost every essay comes back to these points, some essays deal with the subject in regards to a certain book, or just the act of creating art itself. As an artist, as any writer/painter/poet/? is, I found this to be a call to arms, in a way, inspiring me by assisting my mind in delineating exactly what I wish to create. If you are creative, read this collection.

What is our typical reaction upon completing an experience of a work of art -- be it reading a novel, listening to music, viewing a painting, or any other interaction. "Do I like it?" "What does it mean to me?" Am I entertained? Touched? Thrilled? Changed forever? Wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong, says the lonely voice of one Jeanette Winterson, author of a beautifully piercing set of essays collectively entitled `Art Objects' (the second word is read as a verb). Winterson makes many excellent points in this work, but for my money the best is her call to objectify art, especially the appreciation of art. A work of art is its own thing, and deserves to be taken on its own merits. If it fails at this, ok, but we need to stop seeing everything in art reflected through our own subjective prism; otherwise we risk lowering it to entertainment and diversion. We already have plenty of that; besides, art deserves better. This seems a fresh idea, but Winterson points out that it's actually quite old -- we've merely forgotten as we've been soaked with a century and a half of Victorian frumpiness. Most of history has taken art for what it is or could be; only in our self-possessed 20th century have we demanded that art come to us personally, not actually ventured ourselves out into the artistic universe, a strange and difficult land. Winterson's historical perspectives need more flesh, but she's chosen a good villain. At her toughest, Dickens and Trollope come in for some hard knocks. At her most generous, she extols us to keep reading Victorian literature; if only we would stop writing it as well. This would be some of the best art criticism I've read in years if it stopped there; fortunately, she presses on. If we can't subjectify art, how do we know it's worthy, good, revolutionary? We know already -- the answer is in us. Winterson points the way: look to the tools, the precision, the craft. Language is the writer's tool; how is it used? Examples are drawn from the aloof moderns -- Woolf, Stein, Eliot -- to great effect. New subject matter is not what they're after -- didn't Shakespeare pretty much exhaust every plot anyway? No, art aims higher: at new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing. I don't think Jeanette Winterson an optimist, though she ends on an up note. She rants aplenty. Art -- especially new work -- is hard, and society likes soft. Art is currently being shunted off to the wasteland of entertainment (been to a museum lately?), off to do battle with cinema, popular music, and the great Satan itself, television. And it is sure to lose. We are simply too much in love with nostalgia, with art that "works for us." So what are we -- those of us who claim to care -- to do? Ms. Winterson doesn't draw up a list of commandments, but I could venture a bold guess. Buy (yes, purchase) new art; voting with your wallet is one of the best ways to push work forward (see the Renai

As an artist, I have never read a more wonderous piece on looking at art than Ms. Winterson's in this book. If you think you don't know anything about art, there is no better place to start than here. If you are an artist in any field, it will bring tears to your eyes. Read it outloud to someone, anyone. I dare you to be able to complete reading it without being interupted by tears of joy. The entire book is illuminating. A must have in hard cover, it is a treasure. Then, happily, we have "Gut Symetries" to move on to afterwards. This woman is priceless.

Jeanette Winterson does it again! Painters, writers, thinkers, feminists, dreamers, surrealists, realists, philosophers, unite! This is a hardcore beautiful get-down-and-dirty analysis of art and writing and life. Come one and all. Intellectuals and slackers (as if the two don't intersect) come running! This is a rare gem.

In "Art Objects," Jeanette Winterson dishes up a feast of delectable essays on the nature of art and the artist. Such essays emphasize the importance of creation and innovation in today's society. With reference to some of the world's greatest writers and poets such as Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, she paints a beautiful picture of the role of art in every person's life, and how the appreciation of such art is often unacknowleged. With writing prowress paired with a passionate theme, Winterson ensures that her points are made well and absorbed by every reader