Reading Order
Art Reading Order
Art (1994, English translation 1996) by Yasmina Reza is the most commercially successful European play of the late twentieth century — three friends: Serge, who has paid 200,000 francs for a contemporary painting that is entirely white ('with fine white diagonal stripes'); Marc, who thinks Serge is an idiot for buying it; and Yvan, who is trying desperately to avoid saying what he thinks. The play is organized around the question of what art is, what friendship is, and what the relationship is between aesthetic judgment and personal loyalty: does Marc's contempt for the painting reveal a contempt for Serge? Does Serge's purchase reveal a desire to become someone Marc is not? The play won the Molière Award in France and the Olivier Award and the Tony Award in English translation; Christopher Hampton's English translation is considered the definitive version. The play runs approximately ninety minutes without an intermission and has been produced in over fifty countries.
Where to start
Art (1994) — Christopher Hampton's English translation. Best Reza reading order: Art → Conversations After a Burial → Life x 3 → The God of Carnage
Complete Art Book List
- 1Buy
Art
Yasmina Reza·1994·The most commercially successful European play of the late twentieth century — Serge, Marc, Yvan, and the white painting. Won the Molière Award, the Olivier Award, and the Tony Award. The most-performed play in Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s; Christopher Hampton's English translation is considered the definitive version - 2Buy
The God of Carnage
Yasmina Reza·2006·The companion Reza play — two sets of middle-class parents who meet to discuss the fact that one of their sons has injured the other, and the gradual collapse of civilized behavior. The God of Carnage and Art are companion investigations of the same Reza theme: the way that close relationships (friendship; marriage) conceal competitive violence that emerges when a specific trigger releases it - 3Buy
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee·1962·The companion in the tradition of the play about the violence concealed in close relationships — George and Martha's night of games. Both Art and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are organized around an evening of escalating confrontation in which the ostensible subject (the painting; the imaginary son) is the vehicle for the real conflict about what the friends/married couple mean to each other - 4Buy
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro·1989·Ishiguro's companion in the tradition of the British literary investigation of what we invest our dignity in and what it costs us when that investment proves mistaken — Stevens the butler and his service to Lord Darlington. Art and The Remains of the Day are companion investigations of what happens when the thing we have invested our sense of self in (the painting; the service) is shown to have been a mistake - 5Buy
A Simple Story
Marcel Aymé·1947·Aymé's French companion in the tradition of the literary investigation of the social dynamics of close male friendship — the three friends and the way their relationships shift over time. Art and A Simple Story are companion French investigations of the same social situation: three close male friends whose friendship is organized around assumptions about status and taste that are revealed, through a specific event, to be contested - 6Buy
The Stone
Marius von Mayenburg·2008·Von Mayenburg's companion in the tradition of the European play about the secrets concealed in close relationships — the family and their house in Dresden across three generations. The Stone and Art are companion European plays about the way that close relationships conceal histories of compromise and violence that emerge when specific triggers release them - 7Buy
A Room with a View
E.M. Forster·1908·Forster's companion in the literary tradition of the investigation of the relationship between aesthetic judgment and personal authenticity — Lucy Honeychurch's choices. Both Art and A Room with a View are organized around the question of whether aesthetic judgment reveals something true about the person who makes it, or whether it is merely the performance of a class position - 8Buy
Sunday in the Park with George
Stephen Sondheim·1984·Sondheim's companion in the theatrical tradition of the investigation of the relationship between artistic creation and human connection — the two Georges (Georges Seurat and his descendant George). Sunday in the Park with George and Art are companion theatrical investigations of the question of what art is for: whether its value lies in the formal achievement or in the human connection it makes possible
Art — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the white painting in Art by Yasmina Reza?
The white painting that Serge buys for 200,000 francs (around £12,000 in 1994 terms) is explicitly based on contemporary minimalist and conceptual art — the kind of painting that requires institutional context and art-world knowledge to appreciate, and that to the uninitiated eye appears to be simply a blank or nearly blank surface. Reza never names the painting's artist (keeping it fictional), but describes it as 'five foot by four, white, with fine white diagonal stripes.' The painting functions in the play as a trigger and a test: Marc's contempt for it reveals his contempt for Serge's pretensions (his desire to enter a world of sophisticated cultural consumption that Marc thinks is fraudulent); Serge's purchase reveals his desire to define himself as someone with refined taste (and his sensitivity to anyone who questions that self-definition); and Yvan's attempt to avoid saying what he thinks reveals his incapacity for confrontation and his desperate desire to keep both friends happy. The play is not really about whether the painting is good: it is about what the painting reveals about the three friends' relationship to each other and to the social world they inhabit. Reza uses the painting as a contemporary equivalent of the McGuffin: the object whose value is entirely determined by what people are prepared to invest in it, and whose revelation of those investments is the play's real subject.
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