20th century American artist
A01=Michael Schreyach
abstract expressionism
art scholarship
Author_Michael Schreyach
Category=AGA
Category=AGB
close reading painting
contemporary
criticism
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fourteen Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani
interpretations
metaphysical
modernism
New York School
painter
Product details
- ISBN 9780520379510
- Weight: 953g
- Dimensions: 178 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 06 Jun 2023
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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An original and ambitious approach to understanding the creative achievements of one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century.
Totality offers a deeply researched and thoughtful account of the art of Barnett Newman (1905–1970). While Newman’s paintings are widely regarded as among the most significant statements of abstract expressionism—and emblematic of modernism at midcentury—they pose distinct challenges to formal description and historical evaluation. With this book, Michael Schreyach guides readers toward a transformed understanding of Newman’s profound body of work.
Through a sequence of close readings, Schreyach examines six key terms—symbol, surface, self-evidence, space, standpoint, and scale—that illuminate the meaning of Newman’s claims for the “metaphysical” content of his art. Totality progresses from the meticulous analysis of the technical structure and visual appearance of specific works to critical and archivally documented arguments about Newman’s intentions. The result is an altogether original interpretation of the artist’s enterprise, as surprising as it is nuanced.
Totality offers a deeply researched and thoughtful account of the art of Barnett Newman (1905–1970). While Newman’s paintings are widely regarded as among the most significant statements of abstract expressionism—and emblematic of modernism at midcentury—they pose distinct challenges to formal description and historical evaluation. With this book, Michael Schreyach guides readers toward a transformed understanding of Newman’s profound body of work.
Through a sequence of close readings, Schreyach examines six key terms—symbol, surface, self-evidence, space, standpoint, and scale—that illuminate the meaning of Newman’s claims for the “metaphysical” content of his art. Totality progresses from the meticulous analysis of the technical structure and visual appearance of specific works to critical and archivally documented arguments about Newman’s intentions. The result is an altogether original interpretation of the artist’s enterprise, as surprising as it is nuanced.
Michael Schreyach is Professor of Art History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of Pollock’s Modernism.
