Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. List of Illustrations ix
4. Acknowledgments xi
5. Introduction: The Many Origins of Abstract Art 1
6. 1: Apocalypse Now: Heinrich Von Kleist’s Sublime Deframing of Caspar David Friedrich’s Der Mönch Am Meer (1810) 22
7. 2: The Kleistian Sublime Is Now: Kazimir Malevich, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman 55
8. 3: The Clouding of Perception: Seeing The (Un)Real Potential for Abstraction in the Poetry and Science of Goethe’s Clouds (1821) 99
9. 4: In the Service of Clouds or Optical Illusion?: Romanticism, Pointillism, and Impressionism 138
10. 5: Driven to Distraction and from Abstraction: The Birth and Death of Abstract Art in Gottfried Keller’s Der Grüne Heinrich (1854/55, 1879/80) 174
11. 6: Inside the Mind and Outside the Margins: The Unruly Lines of Paul Klee, André Masson, and Cy Twombly 207
12. Epilogue: Laocoön and His Sisters: The Future of Literature and Art 243
13. Bibliography 259
14. Index 285