Signs of Being: A study of the religious significance of the art of Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothk

Signs of Being, a Study of the Religious Significance of the Art of Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, by Patrick Negri, S.S.S., considers the work of the above-named artists in the context of their stated intentions, their artistic milieu, namely, the creative ferment of New York city in the forties and fifties of the present century, and in the light of the theology of the visual arts advanced by Paul Tillich.;Chapter One deals with the signs employed by the artists to convey their intentions. Chapter Two considers the subjects which they declared to be important and which are contained even in their most abstract works. Chapter Three compares statements made by the artists with Paul Tillich's attempt to enunciate a theology of the visual arts and concludes that, while the artists eschewed mimesis as well as traditional religious iconography, they nevertheless produced art of profound religious significance. Chapter Four is an overview of more than four decades of critical acceptance granted to the artists' works, with an emphasis on their spiritual quality, a quality perceived by critics from various walks of life who approach their works from diverse points of view. Chapter Five, the concluding chapter, is a description of a number of the artists' paintings (illustrated in black and white) selected by the author and discussed in the light of the foregoing considerations. Thus, it is seen that, by touching the deepest reaches of our human questioning, Newman, Pollock and Rothko have created signs of being, that is, visual expressions of the dilemmas, hopes and joys of our human existence which, by their artistic integrity, bring us into contact with the depth content of our world and prompt reflections on the nature of our ultimate destiny.