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Comments

• [1] Andrew Sichel from Manhattan, NYC April 28, 2008 - 02:09PM

  Dear Leonard Lopate,

  I very much enjoyed your interview with Dr. Ena Heller. In your discussion of abstraction in medieval art, it is worth noting that the ban on

  representational depiction in Islamic art stems from the same idea that God is so immense that it may not be depicted representationally.

  Using the word "abstraction" to identify the shapes and colors in works historically preceding

  Modernism leads the listener into a commonconfusion which has permeated art making and viewing today.

  The painters who invented what we call abstraction including Malevich, Mondrian and

  the Abstract Expressionists were as all extremely well educated in Art History. They were in fact going back to sources such as Medieval Art or famously in Pollack's case Native American sand painting

  knowing the ryhmmes and reasons of the earlier works. Modern Abstraction took from Medieval, Eastern, and other multi-cultural sources this idea of representing the unrepresentable- for American Abstraction the motivation was to develop an Esperanto for Painting. (All the American Abstract Expressionists were extremely left wing. The envisioned an art which would

  be accessible to all cultures in the spirit of the Photography Book, "The Family of Man".

  Andrew Sichel MFA

  
  
• [2] Ed Helmrich from Larchmont, NY April 29, 2008 - 08:19AM

  Excellent program, one note: the Crosses on early Medieval Bibles were not an exercise in "magic" but a legitimate exercise in prayer and devotion. In Christianity, as in other religions, sacred objects can be blessed and they then in some degree carry the presence of God with them. Unbaptized children, theologically (we think of aborted children today) were commended to the love and mercy of God by putting a Cross on the family Bible in their memory. (Imagine if someone said that a Jewish prayer based on magic.)