Ornament and abstraction: the dialogue between non-Western, modern and contemporary art

Abstract

"This book is an in-depth study of this major theme in 20th century art history. It begins with the innovative pictorial conception of Philipp Otto Runge, whose early 19th century paintings featured the last genuine form in the history of ornament, the arabesque. The arabesque had an influence via Symbolism (Maurice Denis, Paul Gauguin) and Art Nouveau (Henry van de Velde, Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann) on painting's move towards abstraction (Vasily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Adolf Hoelzel), which resulted on the one hand in a non-figurative, geometric structure of lines (Mondrian), and on the other, in the swirls of Matisse and Jackson Pollock. Side by side with the "royal way" of Cubism, arabesque abstraction therefore opens up a second doorway to the world of non-figurative art." "Significant influences also result from the modern artists' preoccupation with the ornamentation found in distant cultures, such as Matisse with the Orient and Oceania, Ad Reinhardt with Asian culture, and American painting with pre-Columbian ornament (Josef Albers, Barnett Newman). Referring also to Minimalism, new media, digital technology, the Renaissance and the Rococo, the book celebrates the impact of ornament on abstract art, as well as showcasing a remarkable array of masterpieces."--Jacket.

Contents

3. Munich: the dissection of the Arabesque and its transplantation into abstraction -- 4. Vienna: the birth of abstraction through the spirit of the ornament -- 5. Invading the wall: De Stijl and conceptual art -- 6. Ornament and paradise or the triumph of the surface -- 7. The war of signs: peace in ornament. The ornament as a bridge between cultures. Rationalisation in the service of tradition: ornamental and serial forms in modern art / Hans Zitko -- Point and line to raster: on the genealogy of computer graphics / Claus Pias -- Islamic ornament and Western abstraction: some critical remarks on an elective affinity -- The exhibition in ten chapters -- 1. Prologue East-West: bans on images from Moses via Muhammed to Malevich and Rothko -- 2. In the beginning was the ornament: from the Arabesque to Modernism's abstract line. 8. The picture becomes ornament: Frank Stella and the ornament from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century -- 9. The ornamentalisation of modernism: painting in the eighties and nineties -- 10. The (digital) mass ornament -- List of exhibited works -- Bibliography -- Quotation Credits -- Photo Credits -- The Authors. Foreword / Markus Bruderlin -- Preface / Ernst Beyeler -- Introduction: ornament and abstraction / Markus Bruderlin -- Stilfragen 1893 / Alois Riegl -- The Arabesque and the Islamic view of the world / Annemarie Schimmel -- The Constructive ornament: Vienna's contribution to abstraction / Dieter Bogner -- Ornamentation and recollection: Matisse, Kandinsky and Mondrian / Philippe Buttner -- The Quick meaning: ornament and non-Western art / Samuel Herzog.