Robert Motherwell: What Art Holds
Caws discusses the artist's paintings, drawings, and collages in relation to the wide variety of American and European literature, philosophy, and art which influenced Motherwell.\ Columbia University Press
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Caws discusses the artist's paintings, drawings, and collages in relation to the wide variety of American and European literature, philosophy, and art which influenced Motherwell.Library JournalIn a meandering, allusive text, Caws (comparative literature, CUNY) combines anecdotes from Motherwell's life with a wide variety of literary and artistic references to locate his place in the art movements of this century. This discussion is interspersed with Caws's responses to specific works or series by Motherwell. A chronology of the artist's life, photographs of him in his last years, transcripts of several interviews with him, and a generous selection of reproductions of his paintings and collages complete the volume. Some readers will find Caws's idiosyncratic prose puzzling, though others may find it quite compatible with Motherwell's abstract expressionistic spirit. Suitable for informed lay readers as well as scholars, this work is best suited to academic and special libraries.-Kathryn Wekselman, Univ. of Cincinnati
Preface and AcknowledgmentsPersonal Criticism and the Essay FormChronology: Living ArtAmerican from Here1Repetitions, Series, and Risks2Mallarme and His Swan, 19447Motherwell and the Surrealists in New York20Elegies for All of Us38Reconciliation Elegy: An American Epic57Dark Sounds70Speaking of Solitude73Hollowness, Postsymbolist Style78So Many Possibilities86The Open Series90For the Opens92Opening Onto Poetry: In Plato's Cave, 1972 - Les Caves, 1976111Collage and Box: Motherwell and Cornell119Collage, Lithographs, and the Mind123Looking126Easel and Studio: Giving and Sending128The History of a Violence134Giving134The Night Music Series141A Positive Misremembering144Anchors and Waterscapes149The Generosity of Prepositions159Holding and Linking161Writing on the Wall165Setting Sail from Provincetown166Five Interviews170Notes201Selected Bibliography213List of Illustrations215Index221
\ Library JournalIn a meandering, allusive text, Caws (comparative literature, CUNY) combines anecdotes from Motherwell's life with a wide variety of literary and artistic references to locate his place in the art movements of this century. This discussion is interspersed with Caws's responses to specific works or series by Motherwell. A chronology of the artist's life, photographs of him in his last years, transcripts of several interviews with him, and a generous selection of reproductions of his paintings and collages complete the volume. Some readers will find Caws's idiosyncratic prose puzzling, though others may find it quite compatible with Motherwell's abstract expressionistic spirit. Suitable for informed lay readers as well as scholars, this work is best suited to academic and special libraries.-Kathryn Wekselman, Univ. of Cincinnati\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsCaws (English, French, and comparative literature, City U. of New York Graduate School) has written what she calls a "personal criticism," in which she profiles one of the most renowned and prolific of the abstract expressionists, discussing his life, his work, and the man she knew personally. She discusses his paintings, drawings, and collages in relation to the variety of American and European literature and philosophy Motherwell saw as central to his art, and looks closely at some of his works in a series of critical meditations. Includes color plates, as well as numerous black-and- white reproductions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
