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Abstract Art: A Cultural History

By (author) Hilton Kramer

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Since its inception in Europe some 80 years ago, abstract art has had a profound influence on the ways we perceive the world. In this cultural history, Hilton Kramer looks at the entire sweep of the abstract art movement - a powerful movement, he submits, whose status in our cultural life has become increasingly problematic. From the work of Picasso, Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky and Miro, to Pollock and Stella, Kramer's historical and critical narrative explores the concrete meanings and powerful implications of an often misunderstood form. Kramer demonstrates that abstract art was never purely abstract, it was always ""about"" the ideas, problems and manners of contemporary life. As one of the principal artistic traditions of modern times, abstraction reflected the sea change in our culture, displacing highly realistic representations of nature with radically unconventional explorations of form, colour and light. Kramer places abstraction in its social and cultural context, including the extra-aesthetic factors which played a key role in determining what abstract art would be like from decade to decade. Tracing modern abstract art from its origins in a fascination with the occult and utopian spirituality, to its eventual merger with progressive and revolutionary ideologies, to the inner explorations of surrealism, automatism and expressionism, ""Abstract Art"" illuminates the relationship between high art and the battle of ideas in the 20th century.