The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art

by Lipsey, Roger

• ISBN13: 9780486432946
• ISBN10: 0486432947
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-20
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

This compelling history examines the spiritual content of 20th-century art. Focusing on the works of such renowned painters as Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Matisse, and Brancusi, the author interprets each creation within the context of its conception. Letters, diaries, and interviews provide insights into the artists' views. 121 black-and-white illustrations.

Author Biography

Roger Lipsey holds a PhD in art history from New York University. He is the publisher of Parabola magazine and director of the Society for Myth and Tradition.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Preface and Acknowledgments	xxi
1 Introduction	1	(20)
What Is the Spiritual?	6	(5)
What Is the Spiritual in Art?	11	(5)
Eyes for Art	16	(5)
2 Abstraction: A Religious Art-Sometimes	21	(8)
3 Early Guides	29	(11)
Paul Cézanne: The Master of Us All	30	(2)
The First Alternative Culture: Theosophy and Anthroposophy	32	(34)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky	32	(5)
Rudolf Steiner	37	(3)
4 Wassily Kandinsky in the Years of On the Spiritual in Art	40	(11)
5 Cubism	51	(15)
6 Piet Mondrian: The Universal Towers Above Us	66	(24)
Mondrian's Ideas	66	(12)
Mondrian's Art	78	(12)
7 Orphism: Giving All to the Sun	90	(17)
Robert Delaunay: Let Us Seek to See	90	(8)
František Kupka: The Realm of Rhythms and Signs	98	(9)
8 Marcel Duchamp: Burning Up All Aesthetics	107	(10)
9 Chance	117	(12)
10 The Russian Avant-Garde: Idea and Ideology	129	(45)
Kasimir Malevich: A Single Bare and Frameless Icon of Our Times	131	(22)
Constructivism: Intellectual-Material Production	153	(15)
The Unseen Victor: Heroic Realism	168	(2)
Russians Abroad, and an Afterword	170	(4)
11 Paul Klee: Closer to the Center	174	(19)
Paul Klee's Lecture	174	(6)
Joys of the Apprentice, Sorrows of the Journeyman	180	(4)
Paul Klee's Art	184	(9)
12 The Bauhaus: Part Shooting Gallery, Part "Metaphysicum Abstractum"	193	(15)
13 Kandinsky at the Bauhaus: A Block of Ice with a Flame Inside	208	(17)
14 Constantin Brancusi: Negating the Labyrinth	225	(22)
The Life and Art	226	(14)
Brancusi's Thought: The Laws of Craiova	240	(7)
15 Henri Matisse: In the Studio with Three Floors	247	(25)
Matisse's Thought: Beneath the Succession of Moments	248	(9)
Matisse's Art: Happy Those Who Sing	257	(15)
16 The Mediterranean Ethos: Fill the Cup and Again Cry	272	(27)
Matisse	275	(2)
Picasso	277	(9)
Moore	286	(10)
The Future of the Past	296	(3)
17 American Epiphany	299	(36)
Jackson Pollock: We're on Our Own, Goddamit!	302	(5)
Mark Rothko: They Are Not Pictures	307	(13)
Morris Louis: Veils	320	(6)
Ad Reinhardt: Late Afternoon Absorbent Twilight	326	(9)
18 Isamu Noguchi: To Comfort Us with the Reality of Our Being	335	(21)
Great Good Fortune	337	(9)
Only Stones	346	(7)
The Invocation Is Still to God	353	(3)
19 Modest Masters	356	(25)
Ben Nicholson: Abstract Art-Powerful, Unlimited	356	(5)
Giorgio Morandi: A Meditation on Visibility	361	(5)
Julius Bissier: Falling into One's Own Essence	366	(7)
Georgia O'Keeffe: Cutting Sharply to the Center	373	(5)
Et Al.	378	(3)
20 The Photographers	381	(24)
21 Seekers and Brats: Art in Recent Years	405	(30)
22 The Marketplace and the Studio	435	(9)
The Laws of the Marketplace	436	(2)
The Laws of the Studio	438	(2)
Walk of Life and Career	440	(4)
23 Enlightened Patronage: Dag Hammarskjöld at the UN	444	(17)
24 Burning in the Light: Art and Teachings in Our Time	461	(14)
Two Streams	461	(7)
The Craft Tradition	468	(3)
The Duty to Deal in Essentials	471	(4)
Notes	475	(22)
Acknowledgments to Publishers	497	(2)
Bibliography	499	(12)
Index	511