Word: abstractions
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Like most people here, I think the world taken as a whole is a sad place, where suffering and lack of freedom far outweigh happiness and liberty. I think that sadness is deeply rooted in the present structure of things, but not in the nature of things; in the abstract, it does not have to be. But if the world is in need of the most major sorts of changes, I do not really think I will see them come about; I think with a few minor changes, the sadness is likely to persist, and whatever reforms have happened...
...there is an eminence grise among living American artists, that man is Clyfford Still. The history of abstract expressionism, the movement that did most to coalesce the once frail identity of American art, is unimaginable without his vast Wagnerian canvases. But 15 years have passed since Still quit Manhattan in disgust for a ten-acre farm in Westminster, Md., and during that time his execrations of the "arrogant farce" of the art world-its neuroses, its museums, its critics, and their failure to come to grips with his work-have not ceased to be heard. He is the Coriolanus...
...cubist affinities then-a painting like PH-591, which dates from 1936-37, with its sinuous line meandering among black planes, is like a Braque made with an ax-but it also shows the common root of interest in biomorphic and mythical imagery shared by Rothko, Newman and other abstract expressionists, out of which would grow Still's passion for the sublime...
Among speed skaters, Sheila Young, 25, of Birmingham, Mich., has covered the 500-meter sprint less than a second off the world record. When she is not skating, Sheila can be found cycling, sculpting abstract forms in stone, or reading Kurt Vonnegut and mystical German Novelist Hermann Hesse. "Hesse," she says, "has made me appreciate the beauty of little things...
Lengthier dissertations by the Schecters range in subject matter from genetics to abstract art to the plight of Soviet Jews. Sometimes these digressions are too wide, the narrative too rambling. Despite the authors' obvious care to avoid repetition, the book could have used a slight pruning. But good writing is clearly a family trait, as are the zest, humor and sensitivity that make An American Family this young year's best-informed and most unusual travel book...