The Rhetoric of Purity: Essentialist Theory and the Advent of Abstract Painting

by Mark A. Cheetham

Book Overview

In The Rhetoric of Purity, Mark Cheetham explores the historical and theoretical relations between early abstract painting in Europe and the notion of purity. For Gauguin, Serusier, Mondrian and Kandinsky - the pioneering abstractionists whose written and visual works Cheetham discusses in detail - purity is the crucial quality that painting must possess. Purity, however, was itself only a password for what Cheetham defines as an 'essentialist' philosophy...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 052147759X
• ISBN13: 9780521477598
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.5" x 9.9"