Description
Book SynopsisThe aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yve-Alain Bois, and Thierry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.
Table of Contents1 'ax1 Brick and Bread - Apotheoses o atter and Maning in rw Se nthencnt ( entury Philosophy and Parini: Descarts and Patctr de Hooch 19 2 Judiing Life: Kant, Clent Greenberg and Cr haim Sourinr e 6 SMode rnism as Philosophy: StanTy C aved, \nthon C aro, and C( hata Akcrman in78 4 Aporia o Ihk Sensible-Art, Obleccthood, and Atih iropomonrphiism: Michae Fried Frank Swtelai and M\mnim alisim 5 The DLatl of Sensuous Particilars: T . Clark and Absirt ac Exprssi ionismin 44 6 Social Signs, Natural Bodies: i. J Clark aid Jackson Pollock 16 7 Rcadivmades n Monochromes, Etc.: Nonminalis and the Paradox of Modernism ( hicrry de Duve and Mlarce Dultlcamp ) 194 8 Frecdom from Nature? Reflecti on the End(s) ofArr: Arthur Danto, Y xes-A ain Bo,i and Robert Rvman 9 The Horror of Noiidenity Cind S her mani Iragic Modernism 2r'3
