Examines how and why religion matters in the history of modern
American art.
Andy Warhol is one of the best-known American artists of the twentieth
century. He was also an observant Catholic who carried a rosary, went to
mass regularly, kept a Bible by his bedside, and depicted religious
subjects throughout his career. Warhol was a spiritual modern: a modern
artist who appropriated religious images, beliefs, and practices to
create a distinctive style of American art.
Spiritual Moderns centers on four American artists who were both
modern and religious. Joseph Cornell, who showed with the Surrealists,
was a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Mark Tobey created
pioneering works of Abstract Expressionism and was a follower of the
Bahá'í Faith. Agnes Pelton was a Symbolist painter who embraced
metaphysical movements including New Thought, Theosophy, and Agni Yoga.
And Warhol, a leading figure in Pop art, was a lifelong Catholic.
Working with biographical materials, social history, affect theory, and
the tools of art history, Doss traces the linked subjects of art and
religion and proposes a revised interpretation of American modernism.
