Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting (Cultural Memory in the Present) [Paperback]

J. Bernstein (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cultural Memory in the Present | Publication Date: January 12, 2006

The aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yve-Alain Bois, and Thierry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.

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The aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yves-Alain Bois, and Theirry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollack, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.

About the Author

J. M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (January 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804748950
• ISBN-13: 978-0804748957
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,441,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adorno and painterly modernism, July 23, 2007

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C. McCall - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting (Cultural Memory in the Present) (Paperback)

This is a good book...IF one is at least somewhat familiar with Adorno's aesthetic theory and current debates in art theory and criticism (in particular, the works of T.J. Clark, Michael Fried, and Rosalind Krauss) as well as the work of the philosophers Stanley Cavell and Immanuel Kant.

Definitely not the place to begin if you aren't.

In this collection of related essays, Bernstein examines the role of modern art as it relates to the modern predicament as diagnosed by Adorno (i.e. alienation from society and from nature through reification). Within this context, Bernstein analyzes the work of artists such as Soutine, Pollock, Cindy Sherman and Anthony Caro.

Another caveat: If you don't share buy the claims made by Adorno in works such as _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ or _Aesthetic Theory_, then this book may not be for you. Bernstein working within this context rather than attempting to defend it.