Metaphysical thought has been excluded from much of the discourse on modern art, especially abstract painting. By connecting ideas about faith with the initiators of abstract painting, Joseph Masheck reveals how an underlying religiosity informed some of our most important abstract painters.
Covering Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and El Lissitzky, Masheck shows how ‘revealed religion’ has been an underlying but fundamental determinant of the thinking and practice of abstract painting from its originators down to the present. He contextualizes their art within some of the historical moments of the early 20th century, including the Russian revolution and the Stalinist period, and explores the appeal of certain themes, such as the Passion of Christ.
A radical new theorization of the influence of religion over visual art, Faith in Art asks why metaphysics has been eliminated from the discussion where it might have something to say. This is a new way of thinking about a hundred years of abstract painting.
Author(s): Joseph Masheck
Series: Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 237
City: London
Cover
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 An Orthodox Kandinsky
Background
Concerning the Spiritual in Art and a Russian Shadow Text
“On the Question of Form”
“Reminiscences” and a Russian Shadow Text
Point and Line to Plane
Iconic Inheritance
Appendix: A Thematic of Annunciation
2 A Protestant Mondrian
Background
Approaching the Classic Phase
Justification and the World to Come
Herman Bavinck and the Kingdom
Continuity and Afterlife of the Classic Phase
A Calvinist Trope in Light of Mondrian
Appendix: Beyond Iconography
3 A Catholic Malevich
Background
The Eastern Root of Suprematism
The Western Root of Suprematism
Letter to a Jewish Friend
God Is Not Cast Down: Art, Church, Factory
A Note on “Suprematism”
4 A Jewish Lissitzky
Background
An Old Synagogue in Modern Time
Books “For all, all children”
Revolutionary Works
Religio-Utopianism
The Last Suprematist “Victory”
Theory in 1925
A Quasi-Liturgical Exhibition Space
Government Work
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
