Bruno Munari

Munari opened this slim volume with a 1961 observation that wanting to understand a work of art is the greatest obstacle to understanding it. Written for viewers who find art hard going, the book gathers short poems in the form of brief theorems, lighthearted yet earnest in their attempt to clear the way. The selections come from poems composed between 1945 and 1960.

The poems take aim at familiar assumptions. They ask whether a painting's subject really matters, contrast a Raphael with a John Brown in a way that tests what counts as art, and defend realism against the scorn often directed at concrete art. They also question whether art must belong to a single nation, imagining a Turkish painter working in Poland, and they skewer the audiences who hold art up: dictators, the idle rich, sportsmen, gallery owners, critics, newspapers and the crowds at opening cocktails.