This thesis analyses the work of three different theoreticians who wrote on the art of the Dutch artist Karel Appel – Willemijn Stokvis, Rudi Fuchs and Jean- François Lyotard. The following text focuses on the stylistic analysis each theoretician provides, a critical assesment of the basis of their theoretical frame and an evaluation of their findings. The thesis will investigate the causes for the pluralist nature of stylistic analyses of Appel's work and the relationship between his work and theory. The goal of this thesis is to highlight the differences in stylistic analyses, to interpret these differences in the context of understanding Appel's art and to propose a new stylistic analysis of the artist's work, based on critical reading of the aforementioned works.
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