Shades--of painting at the limit

What is it that an artist paints in a painting? Working from paintings themselves rather than from philosophical theories, John Sallis shows how, through shades and limits, the painter renders visible the light that confers visibility on things. In his extended examination of three phases in the development of modern painting, Sallis focuses on the work of Claude Monet, Wassily Kandinsky, and Mimmo Paladino - three painters who, each in his own way, carry painting to the limit.

Attentive to the ways in which paintings disclose the visibility of the visible order, Shades reveals the excess by which painting is always more than mere depiction or figuration. Reproductions of all the works discussed are included.