Aesthetic Thinking

Fred Orton's teaching and writing has always combined theoretical and formal - which to say structural - analysis with historical research and reflection. This collection of essays - rewritten studies of Paul Câezanne, Jasper Johns, the American cultural critic Harold Rosenberg and a new essay on Marx and Engels' notion of ideology - brings together some of his most decisive contributions to thinking about fine art practice and rethinking the theory and methods of the social history of art. More than ananthology, it offers a vivid demonstration of how theory can work to generate new interpretations and unsettle old ones--