BOOK REVIEW
‘Jed Perl is using extraordinary and utterly gorgeous words, what made my head spin around like a sunflower on a sunny day.’
Synopsis: Jed Perl is one of the most widely acclaimed art critics in the world.
In his book, we are able to accompany him on his thought-provoking voyage about understanding and defending arts, let they be visual, musical, or literary. He guides us through the interplay of authority and freedom and shows us how essential it is in the process of making art. He is also helping us visualize his thought process through many various famous artists such as; Mozart, Picasso, Aretha Franklin, Jane Austen, and the list goes on. The book brings up how politics and culture (like cancel culture) can force or mend the meaning of a piece of art or the artist. Includes the history and the present of art and also gives a glimpse into the future if the reader is careful enough to spot it.
Structure: It is a short and small (a tiny bit smaller than A5) nonfiction book with 146 pages excluding the part of acknowledgments and notes. It has 6 chapters, each has an average length of 20-28 pages. The narrator is Jed Perl himself, ergo we are reading the book through his creative and elegant pair of fancy sunglasses. I would like to say that the cover art for Authority and Freedom is a masterpiece by itself and I’m convinced that it has a secret meaning to it. Or no and I’m just being tricked by the artist.
Jed Perl has a reader-friendly approach to his narration. Hence, I was able to understand him without having an academic nervous breakdown as I know nothing about art.
He was also kind enough to present a handful of versatile examples with famous artists that I, myself was at least familiar with.
My take on it: Art has nothing to do with what you or I think. It exists within its own boundaries.Although it is a small book it took me twice as much time to finish it because I had to re-read it from halfway back. I started to read it like any other book but it took me way too long to realize that I actually have to stop and look up the presented artistic examples in order to understand better what Jed Perl was trying to explain.
So if you haven’t read this book yet but you would like to I would highly recommend having at least your phone beside you to be able to search on the web for them.
It was definitely a game-changer for me. Obviously, if you know everything about art you will be probably fine as the majority of the examples are basic knowledge even to someone like me, but you never know. Maybe you will find a detail that you would have missed if you don’t look at it once more after reading about it.
I wish I could be able to write a review that gets at least to the ankle of the book (if the book would be a statue and my review would be another statue) but I am just a regular reader who loves to read nonfiction and teach herself about anything that she is interested in. I love nonfiction books I always did, because I found self-learning as one of the best tools to fight creative loneliness and boredom.
I did find myself agreeing with him, when I could fully understand the concept. Especially about how art has its own ‘destiny’ and that does not particularly have to be associated with political or cultural aspects. I also found it helpful as well as a wannabe author myself who currently suffers from writer’s block. It felt like I have been given permission to write, think, and more importantly feel free about the adventures and tales in my head. I did gain a little bit of confidence, my shoulders became a little bit less hunched when I sit down to write. Probably this has nothing to do with the purpose of this book but it is a lovely easter egg and I’m very grateful to be able to read it.
Highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in history and the future of arts and who would like to embark on a neverending journey of wandering about it.
Have a wonderful and peaceful day with loads of books and thank you for reading this far.
Take care,
– NOLITETHOUGHTS –
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