Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of PaintingThe 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. |
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abstract expressionism achievement acknowledgment Adorno aesthetic Anthony Caro anthropomorphism appear art's Arthur Danto artistic artworks aura autonomous beauty become body canvas Cavell Cavell's Chaim Soutine Cindy Sherman claim Clark Clement Greenberg cliché cognitive color concept condition context continuing conventions critical critique culture Danto dead disenchantment Duchamp's embodied emphatically empirical ernism essay experience Film Stills Frank Stella Fried Fried's Greenberg Hegel Hegelian hence Hooch horror human idea ideal Joseph Cornell Kant Kant's logic mask material matter meaning medium ment Michael Fried mimesis modern art modernist art modernist painting nature negation nonetheless object Objecthood painterly painting's philosophy photographic piece of wax Pollock pornography possibility practice rational readymade realism reflective judgment relation repetition representation Robert Ryman Ryman sculpture sense sensuous particularity Sherman's skepticism social Soutine Soutine's space stakes Stanley Cavell sublime symbolic thesis things thought tion traditional transcendental University Press visual