Those Passions
On Art and Politics
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Thames & Hudson Ltd
Published:20th Feb '25
Should be back in stock very soon
The careful distillation of a lifetime’s writing by the internationally renowned art historian T. J. Clark, who addresses key issues of art’s relationship with politics: 'the decade's most stimulating art book' Financial Times
'The decade's most stimulating art book' Financial Times
A Guardian History Book of the Year
'For those, though, who relish brilliant analysis of painting – as well as former students of art history, like me, for whom, at university, Clark was a sort of god – Those Passions will be essential reading. Its finest essays engage in depth with painting’s subtle minutiae, observing and explaining how tiny touches can contribute to powerful overall effects. A bravura study of Henri Matisse’s Woman with a Hat (1905) is a case in point. ... Likewise, his scintillating exposition of The Lion Hunt (1855) by Eugène Delacroix – a detail from which, reproduced on a French poster which he bought in 1966, dominates his study' Sunday Telegraph
'A timely study of the connection between art and politics' Observer
The careful distillation of a lifetime’s writing by the internationally renowned art historian T.J. Clark, who addresses key issues of art’s relationship with politics.
Is art obliged to engage with politics? If so, how? By taking sides in political struggle; by singing the song of the barricade, the new nation, the bombed city? Or by giving form to the deeper patterns of experience – the raw materials of ‘society’ – from which any politics is made? Using case studies stretching across the centuries, from Hieronymus Bosch to Jacques-Louis David and the French Revolution, from Walter Benjamin to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Those Passions aims to show how modern art has responded to the chaos and danger of modern life.
In the book’s three sections – ‘Precursors’, ‘Moderns’ and ‘Modernities’ – internationally renowned art historian T. J. Clark unpicks the nature of capitalist society and its visual culture. He tries to understand the politics of appearance which is now our natural home – the twists and turns of consumerism, the arrival of the 24-hour image-world, the changing modes of symbolic production and the ongoing saturation of life by pictures and ‘data’ – and take stock of our guilty love affair with the imagery of violence, our attitude to the dream-world of advertising, the power and pathos of screen time.
Written over the course of twenty-five years, these radical, provocative essays rethink issues central to art-making and political life today.
'Vital for our times … an exhilarating essay collection summing up a lifetime’s thinking about painting and politics … His questioning voice carries the book, creating a mood of contemplative suspense, like a psychological thriller … a marathon of art history through a political lens, it is subtle, revelatory and broad-ranging … Clark’s faith that painting matters, reflects emotional and social experience, reads as nostalgic – yet vital – in today’s art world hollowed by money and hype … the decade’s most stimulating art book' - Financial Times
'Dazzling' - Book of the Week, Guardian
'[T.J. Clark] is today, without a visible rival, the living figure who speaks to the larger public. Thanks to him, the history of modernism has been rewritten … I know of no account which speaks to the present more satisfactorily than Those Passions' - David Carrier, Counterpunch
'Exciting and provocative' - John Banville, New Statesman
'A timely study of the connection between art and politics' - Observer
'For those, though, who relish brilliant analysis of painting – as well as former students of art history, like me, for whom, at university, Clark was a sort of god – Those Passions will be essential reading. Its finest essays engage in depth with painting’s subtle minutiae, observing and explaining how tiny touches can contribute to powerful overall effects. A bravura study of Henri Matisse’s Woman with a Hat (1905) is a case in point. ... Likewise, his scintillating exposition of The Lion Hunt (1855) by Eugène Delacroix – a detail from which, reproduced on a French poster which he bought in 1966, dominates his study' - Sunday Telegraph
'The historian T.J. Clark introduces a cast of provocateurs in this thoughtful work on the role of politics in art … For the most part, Clark assesses the ways in which artists have responded to the upheavals of their times, using examples that encompass Rembrandt’s self-portraits, Jacques-Louis David’s revolutionary verve, the anarchism of James Ensor and the Marxism of filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini' - Christie's
'Over the past 50 years, is there anyone who’s written with more breadth and cogency – yet with such a convivial tone – about the intersection of art and politics? About the inexhaustibility of modernity, the endless wonders of painting? Those Passions is a compendium of essays written between 1997 and 2023, covering everything from Hieronymus Bosch to ‘screen capitalism’. What makes Clark’s writing effective, and a pleasure to read, is how he permits himself to follow any association or insight he has along the way. His method preserves a sense of fluid subjectivity – and, by extension, honours the reader’s. Thought and writing are one' - Art Review
''Each of the essays - whose subjects vary from Hieronymus Bosch to Malevich and the October Revolution - is a treasure trove of unique observations, divagations, and elucidations on some of the most famous episodes in Western art' - Something Curated
'Using case studies stretching across centuries, the internationally renowned art historian TJ Clark navigates the politics of appearance in a capitalist society and how this impacts visual culture. Written over the course of 25 years and split into three parts – “Precursors”, “Moderns” and “Modernities” – the series of essays rethinks issues related to artmaking and the politics of today' - A Best Book of 2025, New Statesman
'A requiem for the entwinement of art and revolution' - A History Book of the Year, Guardian
ISBN: 9780500025260
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 1260g
384 pages