Understanding Abstract Art

Understanding Abstract Art

"Abstract paintings are discussed here both from the point of view of their creators and from the point of view of the spectator. Then, the kind of question repeatedly asked about abstraction is asked and answered: By what standards can an abstract painting be judged? ; Does abstraction set out to disregard the public's expectations and wishes? If so, is it unique in this? ; Does the viewer contribute more to an appreciation of an abstract painting than to a more traditional work? ; Does any abstract painting have a message? If so, how does it express it? ; Is it necessary to know anything about the artist himself in order to fully appreciate his work? ; Does an abstract painting require more or less skill in its execution than a traditional work? ; Is there anything more to abstraction than novelty?" - back cover.

Pictures of Nothing

He delivered the lectures, edited and reproduced here with their illustrations, to overflowing crowds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the spring of 2003, just months before his death. With brilliance, passion, and humor, Varnedoe addresses the skeptical attitudes and misunderstandings that we often bring to our experience of abstract art. Resisting grand generalizations, he makes a deliberate and scholarly case for abstraction--showing us that more than just pure looking is necessary to understand the self-made symbolic language of abstract art. Proceeding decade by decade, he brings alive the history and biography that inform the art while also challenging the received wisdom about distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, and minimalism and pop.

Painting and Understanding Abstract Art