Written between 1907 and 1913, and first published in Prague in 1923, this book by one of the founders of abstraction is a major contribution to 20th-century art theory. It is divided into three parts: a general overview of the history of art, based on the concern for forms; an analysis of the language of art and its meaning; and speculative arguments on what makes up a creative individual. Kupka was part of the late-19th-century philosophical milieu in Vienna exploring the world through the combined influences of phenomenology and physiological research. He sought to apply ideas from this milieu to an enquiry into artistic sensation and the ability of the artist to render that sensation into a meaningful object. Asserting that the artist has a particular kind of sensibility resulting from a particular physiological order, he explores what this is and how - with that ordered sensibility - art is produced. The basis of all creativity, says Kupka, is in the confrontation of the representational and the abstract; the artistic temperament is that which is able to transform the one into the other. This translation has been made from the 1989 Paris edition.
- ISBN10 0853237824
- ISBN13 9780853237822
- Publish Date 1 May 2002
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 24 November 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Liverpool University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 304
- Language English