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Art--Philosophy, Painting, Abstract, Painting, Modern--20th century, and Aesthetics

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to'spirit'as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist, in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.

Painting, Modern--20th century and Fauvism

Born at the dawn of the 20th century, Fauvism burst onto the artistic scene at the 1905 Salon d'Automne with great controversy by throwing bright, vibrant colours in the face of artistic convention. Fuelled by change, artists like Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck searched for a new chromatic language by using colour out of its habitual context. Freed from the strict technique advocated by the École des Beaux-Arts, they used blocky colours as their main resource, saturating their stunning paintings. The author invites us to experience this vivid artistic evolution that, although encompassing a short amount of time, left its mark on the path to modernity.

Painting, Modern--20th century--History

One of the most admired artists of the twentieth century, Max Ernst was a proponent of Dada and founder of surrealism, known for his strange, evocative paintings and drawings. In Prehistoric Future, Ralph Ubl approaches Ernst like no one else has, using theories of the unconscious—surrealist automatism, Freudian psychoanalysis, the concept of history as trauma—to examine how Ernst's construction of collage departs from other modern artists. Ubl shows that while Picasso, Braque, and Man Ray used scissors and glue to create collages, Ernst employed techniques he himself had forged—rubbing and scraping to bring images forth onto a sheet of paper or canvas to simulate how a screen image or memory comes into the mind's view. In addition, Ernst scoured the past for obsolete scientific illustrations and odd advertisements to illustrate the rapidity with which time passes and to simulate the apprehension generated when rapid flows of knowledge turn living culture into artifact. Ultimately, Ubl reveals, Ernst was interested in the construction and phenomenology of both collective and individual modern history and memory. Shedding new light on Ernst's working methods and the reasons that his pieces continue to imprint themselves in viewers'memories, Prehistoric Future is an innovative work of critical writing on a key figure of surrealism.

Mysticism and art--Canada, Painting, Modern--20th century, and Painting, Canadian

Twentieth-century art has usually been analysed in terms of intellectual aesthetic principles. But several important artists of this century were motivated less by aesthetic ideas than by spiritual values. Ann Davis considers the work of five of the most dynamic and innovative Canadian painters of the period: Bertram Brooker, Emily Carr, Lawren Harris, Jock Macdonald, and Fred Varley. She shows how these artists strove to work with mystical forms, those involved a transcendent, direct, selfless, unitive experience of God or ultimate reality. None of these artists was motivated solely by mystical concerns, but each was deeply interested in such matters. In focusing on those works, writings, as well as painting, which do reflect their fascination with spiritual issues, we are able to see how these artists tried, in very individual ways, to delineate their visions of eternal life.

Painting, Modern--20th century, Concrete poetry--History and criticism, Cubism and literature, and Art and literature

Like the earthquakes and explorations depicted on the covers of Gertrude Stein's notebooks, this study responds to artistic and linguistic fault lines and charts new territories. The author's concern is both with a general theoretical question – the relationship between painting and poetry, between the visual and the verbal – and with a specific period of artistic history – the early years of the twentieth century, when Cubism flourished. Rather than seeing any conflict or irreconcilable division between painting and poetry, Scobie proposes, as a model for their relation, the Derridean notion of'the supplement.'This relation is grounded in the pervasiveness of language, in the ways in which language surrounds, imbues, structures, and supplements both verbal and non-verbal images. Working from the double focus of theory and history, this book does not attempt to develop a consecutive argument, but rather navigates around its topics, adopting a slightly different approach in each chapter. It begins with a general theoretical discussion of the role of language in painting and in art history, then moves to a series of specific discussions of aspects of Cubism, considering the paintings of Georges Braque, and the writings of Gertrude Stein and Guillaume Apollinaire. It concludes with an examination of the experimental form of concrete poetry, including sound and visual poetry, especially the Cubist-influenced work of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Earthquakes and Explorations will interest those studying art history, literary criticism, and critical theory.

Art and literature--Great Britain, Painting, Modern--20th century--Themes, motives, and Art and literature--United States

What are poets looking at, looking for, when they walk into a room of pictures? Poets on Painters attempts to answer this question by bringing together, for the first time, essays by modern American and British poets about painting. The poets bring to their task a fresh eye and a freshened language, vivid with nuance and color and force.