From Library Journal
By demonstrating the huge impact of mysticism and the occult on 20th-century artists from Gauguin to Pollack, Mondrian to O'Keefe, this work effectively refutes the popular fallacy that modernism is concerned solely with line, form, and color. Further, as it examines modernism's complex philosophical origins, it demonstrates that without such impact, abstract art as we know it would not have emerged at all. Seventeen essays, all by distinguished scholars, treat topics as diverse as synesthesia, theosophy, alchemy, hermeticism, Yoga, and Zen, and several overlooked or forgotten artists are given serious consideration. This work, the catalog for an exhibit mounted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, belongs in every serious art library.Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Art Dept., Goucher Coll., Towson, Md.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
