“At first glance the irregular shapes and geometric patterns of abstract art could appear difficult for the human brain to interpret. Art exhibitions like this one at the Saatchi Gallery in London, ...

FOR half a century art critics have undertaken to address not a sophisticated minority like the readers of literary magazines, but the mass of unbelievers to whom twentieth-century art is a mystery or ...

In his preface to Abstract Art: A Global History—arriving this month from Thames & Hudson—Joseph Low (“Pepe”) Karmel, a professor of art history at New York University, writes that the goal of the ...

It is hard to tell if abstract painting actually got worse [after the 1960s], if it merely stagnated, or if it simply looked bad in comparison to the hopes its own accomplishments had raised. —Frank ...

Humans are visual creatures. Objects we call “beautiful” or “aesthetic” are a crucial part of our humanity. Even the oldest known examples of rock and cave art served aesthetic rather than utilitarian ...