NEW BOOK

Metaphysical thought has been excluded from much of the discourse on modern art, notably abstract painting. Exploring involvements in so-called “revealed religion” with the initiators of abstract painting, Joseph Masheck reveals how an underlying religiosity, much more than anything occult, informed some of our most important abstract painters from the start.

Covering Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and El Lissitzky, Masheck shows how much religion was an underlying but fundamental determinant of thought and practice in abstract painting from its very origins. He contextualizes the painters’ art within some of the historical moments of the early 20th century, including the Russian revolution and its aftermath, exploring the appeal of certain themes, such as the Russian icon, the theological import of “justification,” and the building up of a better world as a Judeo-Christian theological prospect.

A radical new theorization of the influence of religion as such in modern visual art, Faith in Art questions its longtime elimination from discussion because it might have something much more than personal to say. A new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of abstract painting.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. An Orthodox Kandinsky
2. A Protestant Mondrian
3. A Catholic Malevich
4. A Jewish Lissitzky
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Bibliography

AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE

Published Jul 13 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 240
ISBN 9781350216976
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 27 bw illus
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing