Main entry:

Riley, Charles A.

Title & Author:

The saints of modern art : the ascetic ideal in contemporary painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, literature, and philosophy / Charles A. Riley II.

Publication:

Hanover : University Press of New England, ©1998.

Description:

xv, 353 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-340) and index.
The ascetic ideal in contemporary painting. The habit of perfection : Piet Mondrian -- The floating world : Joan Miró -- Written in white : Mark Tobey -- Pilgrimage to the sublime : Barnett Newman -- A mind of winter : Jasper Johns -- Instant apotheosis : Robert Mapplethorpe -- The priestess of perfection : Agnes Martin -- Travelling the ellipse : Robert Mangold -- Sense and sensibility : Brice Marden -- The prison house of abstraction : Peter Halley -- Effacing the grid : Nancy Haynes -- White light : Mark Milloff -- Pursuing the line : Theresa Chong. Asceticism and sculpture. The solitude of objects : Alberto Giacometti -- Drawing in air : David Smith -- Caught in the web : Eva Hesse -- An art of meditation : Isamu Noguchi -- Present perfect : Donald Judd -- Virtue like jade : Yu Yu Yang -- The noiseless, patient sculptor : Mark di Suvero.
The art of public withdrawal : Bruce Nauman. Asceticism and architecture. The prophet : Frank Lloyd Wright -- The priest : Mies van der Rohe -- The mandarin : I.M. Pei -- Our glassy essence : a few contemporary architects. Asceticism in music and the dance. The ascetic as dandy : Claude Debussy -- The voice of angels : Olivier Messiaen -- Musician of silence : John Cage -- Complexity and contradiction : Elliott Carter -- The master craftsman : Steve Reich -- The lawmaker : Philip Glass -- The last puritan : Glenn Gould -- Asceticism in the dance -- The taskmaster : George Balanchine -- Silent redemption : Doris Humphrey -- The wizard of solitude : Merce Cunningham -- Our lady of pain : Pina Bausch. Asceticism in literature and philosophy.
The comfortable hermit : Søren Kierkegaard -- Elected silence : Gerard Manley Hopkins -- The poet of purity : Stéphane Mallarmé -- Delicious recoil : Marcel Proust and Walter Pater -- Sages in the holy fire : W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot -- A world of cinders : T.E. Hulme -- The sensible ascetic : William James -- The habit of indifference : Samuel Beckett -- Metaphysics in retreat : Martin Heidegger -- Baroque of the void : Robert Musil -- Corrected out of existence : Thomas Bernhard -- The freedom of nothingness : Jean-Paul Sartre -- Blood on snow : Simone Weil -- An effaced order : Michel Foucault -- The poet as pilgrim : Seamus Heaney -- How perfect is it : Walter Abish.

Summary:

This suite of brief and lively essays, based largely on interviews and studio visits, explores what Charles A. Riley II calls "one of the most vital (and misunderstood) creative forces in modern art, architecture, music, dance, literature, and philosophy: the pursuit of perfection." Riley examines many contemporary figures who exemplify the ascetic impulse in their work and life. These artists examined through the lens of asceticism, serve as focal points in Riley's consideration of cultural issues such as the role of spirituality in contemporary art, the interaction of Western and Asian traditions, and the relationship between the artists' lives and work.

ISBN:

0874517656 (cl ; alk. paper)
9780874517651 (cl ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Asceticism in art.
Arts, Modern 20th century.
Ascétisme dans l'art.
Arts 20e siècle.
Arts, Modern.
Askese
Künste
Kunst
Heiliger
Kunstbeoefening.
Ascetisme.
Fine Arts - General.
Art, Architecture & Applied Arts.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 197084
Call No.: ID NX650.A73.R55; ID:98-B370
Status: Available