The Books canon

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Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
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2 volumes
SortEditorial Year Title
Subject·Abstract art✕clear
Nonfiction

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Wassily Kandinsky
1910 · 96 pages

Color and line act on the soul directly, Kandinsky argues, the way music does, with nothing depicted. He handed abstract painting its justification, and a generation of European artists walked away from representation.

★ 6.5
Nonfiction · Art criticism

The Painted Word

Tom Wolfe
1975 · 106 pages

Modern painting had become an illustration of theory, Wolfe argued, invisible without the words. He named the three critics who ruled taste in New York, and the art world came after him howling.

★ 5.1