In the 19th century there was a statue that was probably more famous than the Mona Lisa is today. It was the piece of art most visitors wanted to see when they toured Europe. It was written about everywhere and everyone who was at all educated knew about it. It was called the Venus de' Medici and today most of us have never heard of it. When she learned this, Rochelle Gurstein decided to research the history of what makes a classic work of art and how that label could be "written in water" - subject to change as tastes change.
I was interested in this question and I appreciated all the examples Gurstein gave. I certainly learned much about art history, and specifically about the history of art criticism. I did find the book a bit long, though. Gurstein quotes extensively from books by art experts through the ages and sometimes the language of those excerpts was a little hard for a modern reader to follow. It certainly didn't make for light reading. This is an excellent book for those who are seriously interested in this topic.

This is an exploration of where in art history the idea of a piece of classic art as an inspiration and a model for current and future artists came from. It focuses its attention most particularly on the art of Renaissance Italy and its subsequent discovery and rediscovery over the centuries. It looks at what this dominating model gives to the art world but also what it takes away. If I'm honest, I found this hard going. It's very scholarly and very long. In terms of my own interest in art it was also rather frustrating, in that it focuses on a group of men, writing about other men and building a case for gatekeeping the idea of perfection in art to a small band of wealthy, connected men. The author's findings were not particularly surprising to me but that may be to do with the way that I was taught to think about art. I'm sure if your interests are in the classical canon and you wanted to interrogate its rise and fall, this would be excellent.

Let me first say that I read the ARC of this book from #NetGalley, not the physical copy of this book. As a consequence, this has significantly impacted my engagement with this text.

Given that I received a proof copy of the eBook for this text, I elected to read only selected sections of this book. I found it challenging to read this book for that reason. However, what I did read was engaging, so much so that I plan to get a physical copy of the book to examine the art that accompanies the text.

From the selections I did read, I enjoyed diving deeper into the narratives behind the art and artists selected for examination. Reading the introduction and the chapter on Art as a Substitute for Religion in the proof copy was engaging enough to inspire me to seek out a physical copy of this book.

That may not be the endorsement the publishers are looking for, but given who dry nonfiction scholarly research can be, I think it speaks volumes about this publication.