Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Caldwell, Charles M

Titel

Abstract Expressionism as Incidental Iconoclasm: Barnett Newman and the Economy of the Icon

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In religious terms, the “economy of the icon” describes a process whereby a specific form of art (the religious icon) can serve as a tool to both explain and mediate between such apparently dichotomous concepts as the secular and the sacred, or the spiritual and the physical. My thesis explores the way in which the abstract expressionist work of the twentieth-century American artist Barnett Newman (1905-1970), British artist Eric Gill (1882-1940) and Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949) illuminate the underlying challenge of employing the “economy of the icon” in dialogue between the religious and the art communities where non-narrative art purports to treat of narrative-specific religious ideas. A review of the metaphysical character of religious narratives and resulting iconoclasm illustrate the complexity of the conflict. The thesis concludes with a summary of the problems, as well as the possibilities, of “the economy of the icon” as a way forward in the conversation between the religious community and the modern art community.