Word: abstract
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...cities, like Olympia, that were run by tyrants. The fact that modern Greeks apparently want to believe it -- this being a time of superchauvinism in Greece, as in other Balkan countries -- means nothing, except in the scheme of simplistic politico-cultural fantasy. You might as well claim that Abstract Expressionism was "caused" by the election of Harry Truman. Nevertheless, such is the show's political motive, and it seems a poor pretext for taking great art and jetting it to America like so many get-well cards, for the sake of political...
Even when Hesse's work seems entirely abstract, it refers to bodily functions. Hang Up, 1966, looks at first like a trope about illusion and reality -- the big rectangular frame hanging on the wall with nothing in it, but with a loop of steel tube spilling onto the gallery floor and connecting the frame's top-left to its bottom-right corner. But again, there's a fleshy metaphor -- both tube and frame are wrapped in cloth, like bandaged parts of a patient, and the tube seems to be recirculating some kind of fluid. Blood? Lymph? Fantasies? Even in absence...
...abstract of everyday phrases? People...
...understanding of the Russian character must inevitably begin with the land, which covers roughly one-sixth of the globe. Historian Vasili Klyuchevsky speculated that the vast sweep of Russia's steppes and forests induced "a ghastly feeling of imperturbable calm and deep sleep, of loneliness conducive to abstract, sad musing without any clearly defined thought." Russians seem so overwhelmed by the sheer enormousness of their country that they would rather settle down by a warm stove, break out a bottle of vodka and muse about life than go out and plow a furrow toward the endlessly receding horizon. A leading...
...telling comes with Clinton's pledges to solve America's problems. Clinton's proposals may not be very different from those of other politicians, but because of the showing that accompanies them, the proposals appear to have sprung not from some abstract principle or expert's calculation but from his bond with us. The experience leaves us united in empathy for our sufferings and committed to the struggle to relieve them. It's like a 12-step program, minus appeals to a Higher Power...