Philip Guston’s Absurd and the Sisyphean Affirmation in the Battle for Existentialism
type: CreativeWork
description: Abstract Philip Guston’s Absurd and the Sisyphean Affirmation of the Battle for Existentialism – By Jason Blacklock This dissertation offers an Existentialist interpretation of the life and work of Philip Guston. Discourse regarding avant-garde New York School artists and their knowledge and manipulation of Existentialism has an illustrious rollcall. Dore Ashton and Harold Rosenberg, amongst others have added their powers of exegesis to contemporary work by Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Amongst this canon of America’s great twentieth century Abstract-Expressionists Philip Guston’s work is often noted, but rarely aligned fully with Existentialist and particularly Absurdist values. I propose that Absurdism can be linked to Guston’s work in three ways. First, by reviewing his biography I suggests that he was exposed to fundamental traumas early on. Second, close visual analysis of his paintings will be used here to identify Absurdist concerns. In these sections I am adopting the Absurdist terminology in order to describe and interpret his visual output. Third, I will make also some tentative links between the paintings and his actual knowledge of philosophy. This will be underpinned by Guston’s readings and associations throughout his social and political life. His involvement with Muralism and the WPA during the Great Depression, and connection to Modern Man discourse following the Second World War. This covers Guston’s entanglement with Primitive and Aesthetic forces, in the Nietzschean sense as a guiding factor in Guston works; these forces are particularly manifest in Guston’s New York School and abstract period and culminate in his return to figurative works. The divergence between the two theories posited by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, and their interpretation by New York School artists is key. Camus’ liberal cultural leftism i.e. rebellion in the face of a stony-faced establishment, and Sartre direct action in communication with soc…
abstract: Abstract Philip Guston’s Absurd and the Sisyphean Affirmation of the Battle for Existentialism – By Jason Blacklock This dissertation offers an Existentialist interpretation of the life and work of Philip Guston. Discourse regarding avant-garde New York School artists and their knowledge and manipulation of Existentialism has an illustrious rollcall. Dore Ashton and Harold Rosenberg, amongst others have added their powers of exegesis to contemporary work by Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Amongst this canon of America’s great twentieth century Abstract-Expressionists Philip Guston’s work is often noted, but rarely aligned fully with Existentialist and particularly Absurdist values. I propose that Absurdism can be linked to Guston’s work in three ways. First, by reviewing his biography I suggests that he was exposed to fundamental traumas early on. Second, close visual analysis of his paintings will be used here to identify Absurdist concerns. In these sections I am adopting the Absurdist terminology in order to describe and interpret his visual output. Third, I will make also some tentative links between the paintings and his actual knowledge of philosophy. This will be underpinned by Guston’s readings and associations throughout his social and political life. His involvement with Muralism and the WPA during the Great Depression, and connection to Modern Man discourse following the Second World War. This covers Guston’s entanglement with Primitive and Aesthetic forces, in the Nietzschean sense as a guiding factor in Guston works; these forces are particularly manifest in Guston’s New York School and abstract period and culminate in his return to figurative works. The divergence between the two theories posited by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, and their interpretation by New York School artists is key. Camus’ liberal cultural leftism i.e. rebellion in the face of a stony-faced establishment, and Sartre direct action in communication with soc…
author: Blacklock, Jason
language: eng
keywords: Art History, Absurdist, Social History, Biographical, Existential
date published: 2021-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:48:43Z
provider: University of Plymouth
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Plymouth