Barnett Newman and Heideggerian Philosophy [Hardcover]

Viewers who have acknowledged the demands that Newmans art places on them cannot fail, when they become readers of this book, to appreciate Claude Cernuschis accomplishment in?philosophically?interpreting?the artists works and ideas. Reaching beyond the disciplinary boundaries of art history narrowly construed, Cernuschi provides a rewarding assessment of the Heideggerian resonance of Newmans thought, and ultimately clears a path to a greater understanding of the meaning and significance of his art.With the scrupulous attention to detail and brisk writing style that characterizes Claude Cernuschi's work, his new study probes intriguing correspondences between Martin Heidegger's articulation of philosophical principles and Barnett Newman's articulation of aesthetic experience. Cernuschi demonstrates that the two thinkers shared numerous concepts and metaphors. To follow him through the maze of his investigation is to observe philosophy becoming aesthetics and aesthetics becoming philosophy. This fascinating convergence may well have pleased both Heidegger and Newman.This book investigates the writings and works of the American Abstract Expressionist artist Barnett Newman in light of ideas articulated by one of Germanys most important and influential philosophers: Martin Heidegger. At the intersection of art history and philosophy, an interdisciplinary approach is proposed whereby the motivations underlying Newmans artistic production, and the specific meanings of his paintings, become more amenable to reading and elucidation.As a major member of the New York School, Barnett Newman is celebrated for his radical explorations of color and scale and, as a precursor to the Minimalist movement, for his significant contribution to the development of twentieth-century American art. But if his reputation and place in history have grown progressively more secure, the work he produced remains highly resistant to interpretation. His paintings are rigorously abstract, and hlC\