Pierre Schneider's 'Petite histoire de l'infini en peinture' explores infinity in painting

Pierre Schneider's book 'Petite histoire de l'infini en peinture' examines painting's paradoxical ability to convey infinity within the finite form of an image. Schneider begins with the confrontation of figure and ground, tracing the fluctuating relationship between them from the biblical Deluge to Paleochristian imagery. He then moves through art history, referencing Giovanni Bellini, Delacroix, Hugo, Turner, Manet, Monet, and the metaphor of Noah's Ark as a figure lost in an infinite ocean, echoed by 19th-century shipwreck scenes like Géricault's 'The Raft of the Medusa'. Schneider argues that with the retreat of the waters—a metaphor for God's withdrawal—painters were 'condemned to work in the manner or in the place of God'. Previously, painters moved from figure to ground; now they go from ground to figures. Under this reversal, Schneider discusses Malevich, Mondrian, Newman, Matisse, and Dubuffet, concluding with Sugimoto and Warhol. The book is written in a highly literary style characteristic of Schneider.