In the past, an artist’s stature was most often related to their technical ability. A formal portrait was expected to be a true and faithful likeness, and landscapes had to be recognisable in all of their particulars. However, with the advent of photography and abstraction, many artists ceased to make such ‘true’ likenesses in favour of more immediate expression - leading critics to deride expressive works as nothing more than child’s play!

In Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That best-selling art historian Susie Hodge examines 100 works of modern art that have attracted critical hostility – from Cy Twombly’s scribbled Olympia (1957) to the apparently careless mess of Tracey Emin’s My Bed (1998) – and explains how, far from being negligible novelties, they are inspired and logical extensions of the artistic ideas of their time.

Hodge places each work in its cultural context to present an unforgettable vision of modern art and an understanding of how modern art differs from the realistic works of earlier centuries.

Author: Susie Hodge
Paperback
224 pages
14.5 x 20.4cm