Out of Eden: Essays on Modern Art - Softcover

Di Piero, W. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520084322 ISBN 13: 9780520084322

Publisher: University of California Press, 1993

Synopsis

Out of Eden presents the rigorous investigations and musings of a poet-essayist on the ways in which modern artists have confronted and transfigured the realist tradition of representation. Di Piero pursues his theme with an autobiographical force and immediacy. He fixes his attention on painters and photographers as disparate as Cezanne, Boccioni, Pollock, Warhol, Edward Weston, and Robert Frank. There is indeed a satisfying sweep to this collection: Matisse, Giacometti, Morandi, Bacon, the Tuscan Macchiaioli of the late nineteenth century, the Futurists of the early modern period, and the American pop painters.

Di Piero's analysis of modern images also probes the relation between new kinds of image making and transcendence. The author argues that Matisse and Giacometti, for example, continued to exercise the religious imagination even in a desacralized age. And because Di Piero believes that the visual arts and poetry live intimate, coordinate lives, his essays speak of the relation of poetry to forms in art.

About this title

About the Author

W. S. Di Piero is a poet, essayist and frequent contributor to TriQuarterly, The New Criterion, Threepenny Review, and other periodicals. His previous books include The Restorers (1992), The Dog Star (1990), Memory and Enthusiasm (1989) and several translations. He lives in California.

From the Back Cover

"The writing is superb, the insights come with astonishing and rich rapidity, and the moral and intellectual intelligence behind them strikes me as unflinchingly honest and scrupulous."—Reginald Gibbons, Editor, TriQuarterly

From the Inside Flap

"The writing is superb, the insights come with astonishing and rich rapidity, and the moral and intellectual intelligence behind them strikes me as unflinchingly honest and scrupulous."—Reginald Gibbons, Editor, TriQuarterly

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520084322
• ISBN 13: 9780520084322
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 269