IST 605: History of Abstract Art

Boldly developing the central traditions of American modernist abstraction, Lawrence Carroll's paintings engage with a fundamental issue of aesthetic theory, the nature of the medium of painting, in highly original, frequently extraordinarily successful ways. Aesthetic Theory, Abstract Art, and Lawrence Carroll explains how he understands the medium of painting; shows what his art says about the identity of painting as an art; discusses the place of his paintings in the development of abstraction; and, finally, offers an interpretation of his art. The first monograph devoted to him, this philosophical commentary employs the resources of analytic aesthetics. Art historians trace the development of art, explaining how what came earlier yields to what comes later. Taking for granted that the artifacts they describe are artworks, art historians place them within the history of art. Philosophical art writers define art, explain why it has a history and identify its meaning. Pursuing that goal, Aesthetic Theory, Abstract Art, and Lawrence Carroll roams freely across art history, focused at some points on the story of old master painting and sometimes on the history of modernism, but looking also to contemporary art, in order to provide the fullest possible philosophical perspective on Carroll's work.

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.

Marion Nicoll (1909-1985) is a widely acknowledged and important founder of Alberta art and certainly one of a dedicated few that brought abstraction into practice in the province. Her life and career is a story of determination, of dedication to her vision regardless of professional or personal challenges. Nicoll became the first woman instructor hired at the Provincial Institute of Art and Technology (now the Alberta College of Art and Design) - and although limited to teaching craft and design, she became a significant mentor for generations of artists.

Why have some great modern artists-including Picasso-produced their most important work early in their careers while others-like Cézanne-have done theirs late in life? In a work that brings new insights, and new dimensions, to the history of modern art, David Galenson examines the careers of more than 100 modern painters to disclose a fascinating relationship between age and artistic creativity. Galenson's analysis of the careers of figures such as Monet, Seurat, Matisse, Pollock, and Jasper Johns reveals two very different methods by which artists have made innovations, each associated with a very different pattern of discovery over the life cycle. Experimental innovators, like Cézanne, work by trial and error, and arrive at their most important contributions gradually. In contrast, Picasso and other conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas. Consequently, experimental innovators usually make their discoveries late in their lives, whereas conceptual innovators typically peak at an early age. A novel contribution to the history of modern art, both in method and in substance, Painting outside the Lines offers an enlightening glimpse into the relationship between the working methods and the life cycles of modern artists. The book's explicit use of simple but powerful quantitative techniques allows for systematic generalization about large numbers of artists-and illuminates significant but little understood features of the history of modern art. Pointing to a new and richer understanding of that history, from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism and beyond, Galenson's work also has broad implications for future attempts to understand the nature of human creativity in general.

Shirley Gorelick (1924-2000) was an American artist who evolved a distinctive realist technique that allowed her to create penetrating psychological portraiture, often on a large scale. This profusely illustrated book is the first in-depth study of Gorelick's oeuvre. Her development is traced from the early influences of Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism to her artistic maturity as a painter of compelling realist works. Gorelick's creative achievements are revisited and illuminated through interviews, artist's statements, press releases, published reviews, and detailed discussions of her major themes and important works.Shirley Gorelick's acrylic paintings, silverpoint drawings, and intaglio prints were exhibited widely in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her work was lauded by reviewers in the New York Times, Newsday, Soho Weekly News, Long Island Press, Arts Magazine, Feminist Art Journal, and Womanart. In 1979, Ellen Lubell aptly declared that Shirley Gorelick "deserves consideration with the leading figure painters of the day." She was also an early member of SOHO 20 Gallery (est. 1973), the second artist-run, all-women exhibition space in New York City, and was among the founders of Central Hall Artists Gallery (est. 1973) in Port Washington, New York, the first cooperative of its kind on Long Island.