Flanagan George A. Understand and Enjoy Modern Art

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967. — 368 p.This book shows you how to see modern art. In straightforward, plain language, George A. Flanagan takes you through the fascinating history of modern art, beginning with Cezanne and Van Gogh.
Mr. Flanagan clearly explains how the painters develop their intuitions on canvas, and why. When this is understood, the pictures themselves lose their mystery, and one begins to appreciate them as they should be appreciated. Modern painters, Mr. Flanagan shows, may be divided into two groups: those who regard their art primarily as design and those who regard their art primarily as self expression. The first group stems from Cezanne and continues through Picasso and the contemporary American abstractionists.
The second group starts with Van Gogh and continues through Matisse and the Surrealists. Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, Renoir, Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso, the Cubists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, and the American Abstract Expressionist painters of today are all discussed in illuminating detail with many illustrations and diagrams.
Through Mr. Flanagan s careful explanations, you learn just what makes a picture.
The painters become alive, and their paintings become interesting.
This book first appeared in 1951 as How to Understand Modern Art. For this edition, George A. Flanagan has added a new section on the Abstract Expressionists, the vigorous group of Americans who have become the leaders of world art today.