The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Crowther, Paul

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Description: The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

BOOKThe Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Paul Crowther

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15420

Recent theory has tended to understand the meaning of art primarily as a function of original contexts of production and reception or in its relation to fashionable notions of gender, multiculturalism, and "scopic regimes." These approaches, however, fail to negotiate adequately art’s transhistorical and transcultural significance, a shortcoming that is particularly serious in relation to twentieth-century works because it confines their significance to contexts that are regulated by the specialist interests of a narrow managerial class of curators, critics, and historians. In this important book, Paul Crowther provides a radical reinterpretation of key phases and figures in twentieth-century art, focusing on the way artists and critics negotiate philosophically significant ideas.

Crowther begins by discussing how and why form is significant. Using Derrida’s notion of "iterability"—a sign’s capacity to be used across different contexts—he links this possibility to key reciprocal cognitive relations that are the structural basis of self-consciousness. He then argues that while such relations are necessarily involved in any pictorial work, they are especially manifest in aesthetically valuable representation, and even more so in those twentieth-century works that radically transform or abandon conventional modes of representation. The involvement of key reciprocal relations gives such works a transhistorical and transcultural significance. To show this, Crowther investigates the theory and practice of important artists such as Malevich, Pollock, Mondrian, and Newman, and major tendencies such as Futurism, Surrealism, and Conceptual Art. By linking them to reciprocal relations, he is able to illuminate a language of twentieth-century art that cuts across those boundaries set out by such conventional notions as modern, avant-garde, and postmodern.

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Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date December 1997 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300072419

EISBN 9780300233551

Illustrations 50 b/w illus.

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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Contents

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Contents

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15421

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Preface

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

This is the third book in a series addressing the interrelations of art, philosophy, experience, and history. The other works are my Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism, and Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness, both Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993. The...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15422

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Introduction

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

There are as many meanings to twentieth-century art as there are contexts of production, reception and dissemination. In this work, however, I shall argue that there is a specific dimension of meaning which is fundamental. This is not a fashionable view. One reason why it is not is due to the hegemony of the ‘New Art History’. At the time of its...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-5

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15423

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyFormalism (Art)Modernism (Aesthetics)

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1. Iterability, Pictorial Representation and Beyond

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

To understand the key achievements of twentieth-century art it is first necessary to understand some of the philosophical ramifications of pictorial representation. This is both an exciting and difficult task – exciting because such representation embodies relations which are fundamental to self-consciousness, and difficult because of the broad philosophical...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.9-31

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15424

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyModernism (Aesthetics)Art criticism--History--20th century

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2. The Structure of Cubism

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

There is a large literature on the interpretation of Cubism, much of which invokes philosophers such as Kant, Bergson and Nietzsche. I have explored this literature in ‘Cubism, Kant, and Ideology’, Word and Image, 2: 3, 1987, pp. 195–201. See also Lynn...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.32-48

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15425

Chapter subject tags:CubismArt, Modern--20th century--Philosophy

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3. From Duration to Modernity: Bergson and Italian Futurism

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Few art movements have suffered more from stereotypical presentation than Italian Futurism, and Marinetti’s bombastic propaganda has succeeded too well in declaring the Futurist obsessions with speed, violence and Modernity. But, of course, there is much more to the movement than that. The obsession with speed, violence and Modernity is not simply pursued for...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.51-70

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15426

Chapter subject tags:Futurism (Art)--ItalyBoccioni, Umberto, 1882–1916Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyMarinetti, F. T., 1876-1944. Manifeste du futurisme. English

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4. Malevich, Philosophy and Non-Objectivity

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Of all twentieth-century artists’ writings on art, those of Malevich are the most difficult to comprehend. The most easily accessible authoritative work is Charlotte Douglas, Malevich, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994. Someting of the diversity of interpretative...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.71-86

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15427

Chapter subject tags:Cubo-futurism (Art)Malevich, Kazimir Severinovich, 1878–1935Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyUspenskiĭ, P. D. (Petr Demʹi︠a︡novich), 1878-1947. Tertium organum. EnglishFourth dimensionSchopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860

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5. Dialectic and Surrealism: From Breton to Pollock

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Surrealism grew as a systematic response to the moral and social disasters of the First World War, and to the lack of positive social change after these disasters. It had one immediate cultural precedent, namely those complex tendencies focused in the Dadaist movement between 1916 and 1920. This movement is usually characterized in terms of its critical, destructive...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.87-128

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15428

Chapter subject tags:SurrealismDalí, Salvador, 1904–1989Magritte, René, 1898–1967Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyDadaismHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831Breton, André, 1896-1966Automatism (Art movement)

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6. The Dialectic of Abstract—Real in Mondrian

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Of all twentieth-century art, Mondrian’s work appears to be the most amenable to description in terms of purely formal transformation. After early figurative phases, familiarity with Cubism leads to gradual abstraction away from natural form. The major transition points are the pieces of 1913 and 1914 (with titles centring on ‘Composition’), the...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.129-148

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15429

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyMondrian, Piet, 1872–1944Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831

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7. Barnett Newman and the Sublime

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Barnett Newman’s work – with its superficial affirmation of the two-dimensionality of pictorial space – is so often taken as an exemplar of the formalist tendency in art that one wonders what other aspects to his work there could possibly be. That there are other aspects is shown by his frequent comments...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.149-163

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15430

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophySublime, The, in artAbstract Expressionism--United States

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8. Aesthetic Ideas versus Conceptual Art

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

In this book so far I have examined the interchange between philosophical ideas and the theory and practice of specific art movements and artists. I have also isolated the iterable surpluses which arise from this interchange. It is now time to gather together the salient points of the discussion. I shall also determine the exact sense in which the art discussed can...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.164-186

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15431

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyConceptual artModernism (Aesthetics)Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968Kosuth, JosephFinlay, Ian Hamilton

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9. Simulation and Postmodern Representation

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

In the first two parts of this book, I have argued that conventional representation and twentieth-century art constitute iterable visual codes. The former is latently informed by those reciprocal relations and capacities which constitute the existential subconscious, whilst the latter posits these more directly. Since at least the late 1960s, both codes have...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.189-202

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15432

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophySemioticsBaudrillard, Jean, 1929-2007Pop art--United States

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10. The Postmodern Iterable: Installation and Assemblage Art

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

Many post-modern artists have utilized particular philosophical ideas, but as in all times and places, contemporary artists also exist in a climate of ideas. Often a body of creative work will be shaped – consciously or not – by patterns of theory or a general sensibility that characterizes an epoch or society as a whole. There is a strong case for...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.203-214

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15433

Chapter subject tags:PostmodernismArt, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyParker, Cornelia, 1956-Installations (Art)Assemblage (Art)

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11. Leaving the Twentieth Century: A Future for Art

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

As we have seen throughout this book, what is semantically fundamental to radical twentieth-century tendencies is consistency between the artwork and the existential subconscious. This subconscious is organized by a principle of reciprocity which continues the basic interaction of body and world. The principle of reciprocity plays a role which parallels that of...

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.215-227

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.014

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15434

Chapter subject tags:PostmodernismInstallations (Art)Conceptual artNationalism in artArt, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyArt, East European--20th centuryOblak, Mojca, 1965-

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Conclusion

Paul Crowther

The Language of Twentieth-Century Art: A Conceptual History

In this book I have argued for the iterability of art, founded on a reciprocity between body and world. The thesis has been explored in relation to specific twentieth-century movements and artists and their philosophies. A brief restatement of my theme now will allow us to conclude with a consideration of some of its broader ramifications.

Author

Paul Crowther

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.228-234

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00150.015

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15435

Chapter subject tags:Art, Modern--20th century--PhilosophyArt criticism--History--20th centuryRothko, Mark, 1903–1970

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