- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (18 Sep 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691048967
- ISBN-13: 978-0691048963
- Product Dimensions: 26.9 x 20 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 974,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
The Economist
[Golding] argues that the best abstract art is about something and that its meaning comes partly from the artist. The modernists he discusses were drenched in ideas, especially of better or hidden worlds.
Booklist
Golding's excellent work brings the reader from an artistic cloud of unknowing into expert mode with beauty and precision
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Golding's thesis is beyond debate: early modernist and abstract art in particular constituted essential spiritual statements. While this thesis is obvious, even if oft forgotten, Golding marshals and integrates a wealth of research in this splendid series of lectures. There are two minor problems with the book that bear mention. At turns Golding lacks the necessary critical posture. He discusses Barnett Newman at length, for example, and there can be no doubt that this artist supplies ample theoretical grist for Golding's mill. But Newman's actual painting ultimately cannot bear a fraction of his metaphysical intentions - an unfortunate fact and one that Golding fails to mention. Also, Goldman does not attempt to bring his book current. He would have done well to hold up contemporary painting against his finely focused history. In most respects this would reveal that abstraction has lost its way. However, a brief survey and analysis of the work of Helmut Federle, Astrid Colomar, Joseph Marioni, Agnes Martin, and Brice Marden would have demonstrated that there remain enriching artists who have remained on the path to the absolute.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Finely Integrated Research
22 July 2002
Format:Hardcover
Golding's thesis is beyond debate: early modernist and abstract art in particular constituted essential spiritual statements. While this thesis is obvious, even if oft forgotten, Golding marshals and integrates a wealth of research in this splendid series of lectures. There are two minor problems with the book that bear mention. At turns Golding lacks the necessary critical posture. He discusses Barnett Newman at length, for example, and there can be no doubt that this artist supplies ample theoretical grist for Golding's mill. But Newman's actual painting ultimately cannot bear a fraction of his metaphysical intentions - an unfortunate fact and one that Golding fails to mention. Also, Goldman does not attempt to bring his book current. He would have done well to hold up contemporary painting against his finely focused history. In most respects this would reveal that abstraction has lost its way. However, a brief survey and analysis of the work of Helmut Federle, Astrid Colomar, Joseph Marioni, Agnes Martin, and Brice Marden would have demonstrated that there remain enriching artists who have remained on the path to the absolute.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Thought provoking discussion by Golding about abstraction
16 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
Before I read this book, I didn't believe that abstract art had a spiritual content to it. I felt that it was too scientific. But reading this book has made me examine the art, and, also, to appreciate that this art does have a spiritualness to it.
This book delves into the art of Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Vasily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. There are individual chapters devoted to the first 4 painters names, and 2 chapters given to discuss Newman, Rothko, and Still as a group.
This book obviously can't do an in depth look at the painters featured, but it does impress upon the reader how each artist brought a spiritualness into his art, and how through that discovered his way of reaching the absolute in his art.
There is a mix of in color, and black and white, reproductions in the book. The works of the artists that proved to most influencial in abstraction are shown in color, while others--not so much of lesser importance, but not as perhaps influencial--are shown in black and white. Also, there are pictures from artists such as Picasso and Matisse, and others, featured to show how the abstraction artists used--or were inspired by-- different movements to find their way into abstraction.
The most interesting part of the book is the discussion of how spirituality is in the abstractionist art. For example, Mondrian was for many years a follower of Theosophy, and part of the Theosophy doctrine was that one is free of all oppression...and everything will be free of all oppression. Mondrian would later move on to seek different teachings, Golding states, but Theosophy gave him his first real direction into becoming an abstractionist.
This book is a good introduction for anyone not familiar with abstraction and its influence on modern art, as well as a having a wealth of information about the artists themselves.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Clear and engaging; great scholarship
10 Jun 2008
Format:Hardcover
I used this book while writing my undergraduate art history thesis. It proved to be invaluable--it's factual but very engaging, and I was quite inspired by some of Golding's arguments. There were many details mentioned in this book that I didn't find in other, more "definitive" books on these artists (such as the catalogues of major retrospectives). Though I used it for research, this collection of lectures-cum-essays would also make for good recreational reading for someone at least somewhat familiar with the history of abstraction in art, or interested in a close study. This is not, however, the best "picture book" or light introduction for a person more interested in enjoying the paintings than reading academic criticism.
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