Toward Abstraction: Ranking European Painters of the Early Twentieth Century / David W. Galenson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Galenson, David W.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w11501.

NBER working paper series no. w11501

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Toward Abstraction

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2005.

Summary:

Paris was the undisputed capital of modern art in the nineteenth century, but during the early

twentieth century major innovations began to occur elsewhere in Europe. This paper examines the

careers of the artists who led such movements as Italian Futurism, German Expressionism, Holland's

De Stijl, and Russia's Suprematism. Quantitative analysis reveals the conceptual basis of the art of

Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Kazimir Malevich, and Edvard Munch, and the experimental

basis of the innovations of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian. That the invention of

abstract art was made nearly simultaneously by the conceptual Malevich and the experimental

Kandinsky and Mondrian emphasizes the importance of both deductive and inductive approaches

in the history of modern art.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2005.