Odyseje abstrakcji. Kilka uwag o abstrakcji i duchowości
The Odyssey of Abstraction. Some remarks on the abstraction and spirituality

Summary/Abstract: Kostołowski analyzes the forms of abstract art in the context of spirituality and the sacred. Before 1914, at the beginning of relations between abstraction and spirituality, Wilhelm Worringer’s polar system of ‘abstraction and empathy’ and esoteric texts (Hilma af Klint) were the most important source of inspiration. When more and more artists became interested in abstract geometric art in the period between the world wars, there was a conflict involving materialist-oriented artists and the artists interested in spirituality. Unism and structuralism were located in the border are of those two trends. A different path was chosen by some abstract expressionists who were interested in mythical and metaphysical and by the outsiders from different countries who were interested in esoteric phenomena. Jean-François Lyotard considered loftiness of the modernist artist as the valve of the sacred. Hybrid art of our era returns to abstraction, and also to spiritual abstract art.

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