Challenging the notion that abstraction is a development of the modern West, Paternosto reveals its deep roots as an indigenous American tradition and shows how that tradition reverberates in the work of twentieth-century artists such as Joaquin Torres Garcia, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, and Josef Albers. This section of the book, significantly expanded from the Spanish original, adds an important new chapter to the art history of the Americas. Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, The Stone and the Thread unveils the masterpieces of ancient Andean art that have been long secluded in anthropological and natural history museums.