In "On the Humanity of Abstract Painting," Schapiro systematically dismantles the criticism of abstraction as cold, detached, and inartistic. Instead, he proves that this art form is capable of great expressive and intellectual power, endowed with lyricism and grace. He proposes new ways of viewing and thinking about abstraction, in the end establishes it as "an obvious and necessary enrichment of our lives.".

With "Mondrian: Order and Randomness in Abstract Painting," Schapiro analyses many of the painter's most important works, from The Red Mill to Broadway Boogie-Woogie. He articulates the subtleties of Mondrian's formal strategies and his innate lyricism.

He proceeds to map Mondrian's relation to his predecessors, and shows that this archetypal abstractionist was in fact indebted to the formal compositional strategies of such leading late nineteenth century artists as Degas, Monet, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec.