Elements of Abstraction

by Brandon Taylor, Alan Fowler

The artists featured include Gillian Ayres, Ian Davenport, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Howard Hodgkin, Callum Innes, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, Victor Passmore and others. Abstract art has puzzled and stimulated viewers since the origins of modern art. Today it continues to offer sensations of unparalleled pleasure and complexity; both seeming to simplify nature's appearances while at the same time revealing structures arising from the artists' own analysis of visual phenomena. Many of the forms of abstract art are based on geometrical, musical, biological or cosmic rhythms. Such values are rarely examined in books and exhibitions today, though public curiosity about abstract art has seldom been higher. This publication aims to re-open the debate on how abstract art exists, and why.

88 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2006

About the author

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Brandon Taylor is Professor in the History of Art, University of Southampton. His other publications include Art and Literature Under the Bolsheviks, Art for the Nation: Exhibitions and the London Public, and Art Today.