I can't remember where I heard about "The Age of Insight", but I do remember going to my library's catalog immediately and looking it up. I think I may have actually shouted for joy when I saw it was there and available. Kandel's book looks at art and psychology in turn-of-the-century Vienna--specifically the development of the work of Freud, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele and how they played off each other, combined with what we know about how our brains work, how we see, and how we interpret what we see. It's a union of art history, psychology and neuroscience. And that, my friends, is right up my alley. How violently my hopes were dashed. I found so many unconvincing and troubling statements and bad art history interpretations after just a casual flip through the book's art images and captions as well as in the first 40 or so pages of the text that I gave up. Dr. Kandel may know his neuroscience (I don't even know about that--I didn't get that far), but he does not know history or art history well enough or broadly enough to make this a worthwhile read. For instance, his brief, flippant summary of the Enlightenment was completely off base, as if he had read Voltaire's "Candide" and somehow missed that it was satire. And his suggestion that Caravaggio's "Judith" was virginal and squeamish is the only such time I've heard that interpretation, and flies in the face of the actual image even if you know nothing of the prostitute who posed for it or the scoundrel of the artist who produced it. After practically every sentence I wanted to scream, "Stop begging the question and just come out with your Nobel-worthy insight already!". But to no avail. I had such high hopes for this book--especially after seeing that Nobel Prize touted on the cover--I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I was totally let down. |
