@techreport{NBERw11501, title = "Toward Abstraction: Ranking European Painters of the Early Twentieth Century", author = "David W. Galenson", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "11501", year = "2005", month = "August", URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w11501", abstract = {Paris was the undisputed capital of modern art in the nineteenth century, but during the early twentieth century major innovations began to occur elsewhere in Europe. This paper examines the careers of the artists who led such movements as Italian Futurism, German Expressionism, Holland's De Stijl, and Russia's Suprematism. Quantitative analysis reveals the conceptual basis of the art of Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Kazimir Malevich, and Edvard Munch, and the experimental basis of the innovations of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian. That the invention of abstract art was made nearly simultaneously by the conceptual Malevich and the experimental Kandinsky and Mondrian emphasizes the importance of both deductive and inductive approaches in the history of modern art.}, }