The Painted Word

By: Tom Wolfe

Narrated by: Harold N. Cropp

Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

No one skewers the popular movements of American culture like Tom Wolfe. In 1975, he turned his satirical pen to the pretensions of the contemporary art world - a world of social climbing, elitist posturing, and ingeniously absurd self-justifying theorizing. From the fuliginous flatness of the 50s to the pop op minimal 60s, right on through the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t 70s, Tom Wolfe debunks the great American myth of modern art in an incandescent, hilarious, and devastating blast.

©1975 Tom Wolfe (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

excellent

Id reccomend this book to artists, art students, and anyone who has ever stood in front of a painting and thought "I just dont get it." It's funny, succinct, and I'd honestly listen to Mr. Cropp read a telephone book. Its short so I'd just pay the $10 rather than using a credit if I were you.

As an art theorist this encapsulates the modernist and post modernist thought to a T

Having read the texts Mr Wolfe references I can say that he hits it spot on. Anyone following art theory writing and its current trend can vouch for it. His comments shine a light on the basic ideas and the writers who cast such a towering shadow over the art world and continue to do so in the universities to this day.

Modern Art makes More Sense after this Book

What did you love best about The Painted Word?

Modern art is art because of the ideas it represents, rather than aesthetics. In fact, the lack of aesthetics is of primary importance in many forms of modern art. This lack of emphasis on the visual aspect of modern visual art may be the factor that differentiates modern art from its predecessors.

Not at all what I expected

I was expecting a fast paced Wolfe work and got an art lecture. I now know more about something that I really did not neet to have confirmed...modern art is anything but "art."

A history in an eggshell

Extremely well read and written with humour art history book. Excellent listen for the road.

A joy to read and to listen

The sophistication of the book will elude many, but I have the education and attention to find the points he makes exquisite fun. The intellectual independence Wolfe often displays is often avoided by reducing the effort to fashion. This book examines fashion in a way that allows intellect to escape fashion and understand the voice of art rather than commerce. Commerce may decide what and how we value image, however, image must stand without that decision in intimate understanding. Wolfe seems to understand the predicament well.

Thomas Wolfe Never Fails

You can always count on T. Wolfe to strip away snobbery and pretensions. He won't let you down with this book. Enjoyable read. Helps if you are familiar with modern art.

Funny. Enlightening.

This is a clever listen. I listened twice in one week I enjoyed it so much. It’s really funny, and smart.

A needed corrective to Modernist hubris

Wolfe in classic form vivisects the pretentious of the 20th century art world with razor sharp wit.

Entertaining, iconoclastic and enlightening.

I read this book when it first came out and decided to listen to it as a way of reading it again. I highly recommend it. The reader is excellent. The material is informative and as applicable now as when it was first published.