Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public ... (ISBN 0300057415)

Painting for 'The Public':
I had to do a presentation on this book for a university class on collecting and collectors (that was a real class, and a good one) and ended up really liking this book. It's not necessarily something you'd read for fun, but for anyone who's interested in the history of art in relation to the public it's a very complete and well written work. The book creates a context for eighteenth century art; an art that brought together social mores, classical convention and public demand and yet still remained aesthetically appealing. It does analyze art, but it's not so much an examination of the style of a period as it is a survey of how the presentation of art to the public has changed - and how that presentation has changed art. How did artists go from paid portraiture to public exhibitions? What are the origins of charity in the art world? How did The Public, as a whole, begin to dictate art? Solkin covers these questions in a surprisingly accessible style. For the modern retelling, that is to say, how art has been appropriated in the modern public mind please read Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word. These books really complement each other.