Meyer Schapiro presents a comprehensive analysis of the Impressionist painters, integrating diverse contextual themes such as economics, politics, and literature to illuminate their works within their cultural settings. By examining both intricate details and overarching historical trends, he traces the movement's roots back to the eighteenth century and its influence on Abstract Expressionism. This insightful exploration positions Impressionism as a pivotal moment in the evolution of modern art, showcasing Schapiro's sensitivity and depth as a writer.
Exploring the intricate dynamics between text and imagery, the first essay delves into how illustrations can both complement and contradict the narratives they accompany, reflecting evolving ideas. The second, previously unpublished essay, focuses on medieval book art, revealing how artists innovatively integrated writing and images to convey profound messages. Schapiro's analysis extends to modern art, examining the interplay of script in works by Goya, Picasso, Homer, and Manet, showcasing the enduring significance of visual language across time.
This fourth volume of Professor Meyer Schapiro's Selected Papers contains his most important writings - some well-known and others previously unpublished - on the theory and philosophy of art
The renowned art historian Meyer Schapiro describes how Paul Cizanne invented a new method of painting, re-creating the world through strokes of color. This volume traces Cizanne's growth through a comprehensive consideration of his work and a careful analysis of individual paintings.
This fourth volume of Professor Meyer Schapiro's Selected Papers contains his most important writings--some well-known and others previously unpublished - on the theory and philosophy of art. Schapiro's highly lucid arguments, graceful prose, and extraordinary erudition guide readers through a rich variety of fields and issues: the roles in society of the artist and art, of the critic and criticism; the relationships between patron and artist, psychoanalysis and art, and philosophy and art. Adapting critical methods from such wide-ranging fields as anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, biology, and other sciences, Schapiro appraises fundamental semantic terms such as "organic style," "pictorial style", "field and vehicle," and "form and content"; he elucidates eclipsed intent in a well-known text by Freud on Leonardo da Vinci, in another by Heidegger on Vincent van Gogh. He reflects on the critical methodology of Bernard Berenson, and on the social philosophy of art in the writings of both Diderot and the nineteenth century French artist/historian Eugene Fromentin. Throughout all of his writings, Meyer Schapiro provides us with a means of ordering our past that is reasoned and passionate, methodical and inventive. In so doing, he revitalizes our faith in the unsurpassed importance of both critical thinking and creative independence.
Die Schriften Meyer Schapiros aus den Jahren 1931 bis 1963 sind berühmten, kunsthistorisch bedeutsamen Höhepunkten der romanischen Kunst gewidmet. Sie vereinigen umfangreiches und wertvolles Material zur Skulptur und Buchmalerei der Romanik in Spanien und Frankreich, in deren Mittelpunkt eine reich bebilderte Studie zu den Skulpturen der Abtei von Moissac in Südfrankreich steht – hochinteressant nicht nur für Kunsthistoriker, sondern auch für all jene, die mit Fragen der Ästhetik im weitesten Sinne, mit Ideengeschichte sowie mit Kunst- und Religionssoziologie befasst sind.
