3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
discussion of the problems of the figure/abstract art, September 25, 2006
This review is from: Figure & Abstraction (Hardcover)
For less than five dollars,you get more than a hundred dollars of discussion of various artists who work abstract /figure. Diebenkorn, Stanley Spencer,Bacon,krazy Kat,Kline,Marsden Hartley,Jasper JohnsHe suggests that the post Abstract Expressionist artists were wise in fusing the figure and abstraction . His discussion of Diebenkorn is important in this context as the Ocean Park series demonstrates his unity and yet saved from academicism by his painting technique.One of the only books to deal with this problem . It is too bad that he hasn't written more about his last chapter ,painters such as William Bailey, Philip Pearlstein. He brings up history painting but Leon Golub didn't seem to see that he was a history painter until close to the end of his career.So Golub was left out of the discussion.After reading Paulson I came to agree with him that Hartley's most important paintings were his figures.His last paintings. Chapter one is ok but his best insights are about the figure/abstract school.
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