Always Looking: Essays on Art

The previously uncollected art writings of the prolific and award-winning novelist and critic Updike, who died in 2009, are compiled in this handsome volume. The essays explore works by artists including Monet, Klimt, Degas, Miró, Magritte; the major movements of Impressionism, Surrealism, Pop art, and Minimalism; and the habits and tastes of the collectors who shape our understanding of fine art’s place in American culture. The reviews, most of which appeared in the New York Review of Books and the New Republic, continue the analytical approach employed in the celebrated collections Just Looking (1989) and Still Looking (2005) by unspooling like narrations of a museum ramble with Updike at your side. Through Updike’s lens of novelistic psychology, some of the best-known biographies of 19th and 20th century art history take on a wholly original cast. Our guide is eternally curious; informal but well-informed; adept at describing color, line, or brushstroke without falling back on jargon or metaphor. Whether he’s transported by a Monet landscape or thrown off-balance by Richard Serra’s torqued elliptical sculptures, Updike is always honest about how he is personally affected by the artwork. As the final document of Updike’s sensitive and passionate approach to art, this book reinforces the late writer’s great lesson: that we should always be looking. Illus. Agent: The Wylie Agency. (Nov.)