To students of Leo Bronstein, this second edition of a classic text, first published in 1953, is a welcome and long-awaited event. To those unfamiliar with Bronstein's work, Fragments of life, Metaphysics and Art will be a fascinating introduction to the philosophic and aesthetic concerns of a subtle and supremely sensitive artistic mind. A series of imaginary letters from various individuals--prisoner, soldier, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher--the book challenges the man-made distinction between spirit and ...
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To students of Leo Bronstein, this second edition of a classic text, first published in 1953, is a welcome and long-awaited event. To those unfamiliar with Bronstein's work, Fragments of life, Metaphysics and Art will be a fascinating introduction to the philosophic and aesthetic concerns of a subtle and supremely sensitive artistic mind. A series of imaginary letters from various individuals--prisoner, soldier, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher--the book challenges the man-made distinction between spirit and matter, yet embraces the two-fold pattern of history and consciousness. Through a -fissure or tear in the accustomed, - as one letter puts it, one sees the relationships of the fragment to the whole. Each of the writers yearns for the whole and seeks to find it in the fragment that has meaning for him. And it is chiefly in art that Leo Bronstein finds both the fragment and the whole of life, -material and moral, - to be seized and probed and prized. Indeed, in synthesizing the ideas expressed therein, Bronstein presents a brief but brilliantly illustrated history of the worlds of Western art. This work, a book -of space- conceived amid the horrors of the Second World War, remains remarkably, unexpectedly, illuminatively contemporary. Prior to the contentious debates on multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural studies, Leo Bronstein's approach to life, metaphysics, and art was absolutely interdisciplinary, pluralistic in its themes and insights. A scholar who foresaw the globalization of our concerns, he provides the tools for an empathic understanding of the contributions of a myriad of cultures to the constellation of what has become a global consciousness. The great Arthur Upham Pope, this century's foremost authority on the history and culture of Persia and Chancellor of the Asia Institute, termed Bronstein -original, penetrating, and poetic.- -He spoke, - says Meyer Schapiro, -with the confidence of a man who, when he referred to freedom and art, spoke like a prophet--without making predictions.-
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Seller's Description:
Very good(-) in poor jacket. Frontispiece and other black-and-white illustrations. 218 pages, tall slim 8vo, green cloth (gently edge-worn), dust wrapper (very worn and torn). New York: The Bond Wheelwright Company, 1953. A very good(-) copy in a poor dust wrapper.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. Size: 8vo 8"-9" tall; Sturdy, attractive, tightly bound, internally clean hardcover copy, with unbruised tips, neat and tidy paste-downs; not ex-library, with neither highlighting nor underlining. Bound in a greenish buckram cloth, with gilt lettering to spine, rubbed. Laid in is the remains of the former dust jacket, in three pieces. Frontispiece and other black-and-white illustrations. bound in a tall, slim octavo format. A probing work of art historical value by the noted critic and art historian, Leo Bronstein. xii + 217 [1] pp. Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. First edition. Small quarto. 218pp. About fine in very good dustwrapper with small chips and a few tears. From the library of the artists Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn, with an estate label designed by their son, Jonathan Shahn. Inscribed by the author to Ben Shahn: "For Ben Shahn, the Giver of a New Time and a New Pride, thankfully, Leó Bronstein. Cambridge, Evening, March the 7th, 1957."
