<DIV>One of the most thorough examination of one of twentieth-century's most influential artist by the eminent French critic Pierre Restany.<B><B>"The aim of this book," Restany begins, "is to situate fire in Yves Klein's work from the triple perspectives of mythic projection, ritual symbology, and artistic practice." No one embraced color more radically than the French conceptual artist and "painter of the Void" Yves Klein (1928-1962) who, by leaping into the empty space of his blue monochromes, broke with every tradition of painting in ways that have yet to be fully appreciated. Inspired by his study of the Japanese Kata (the abstract movements in Judo), Rosicrucian cosmogony, alchemy, and mysticism, and the phenomenological and structuralist philosophies that emerged during his lifetime (particularly the writings of Gaston Bachelard), Fire became central to Klein's quest for the Immaterial. <B><B>With a new introduction by Klaus Ottmann.</DIV>