Page 32 - Studio International - December 1969

For impassioned I believe it is Baudelaire's notion that good art scientist, makes him arrogant with a false
criticism has to have all three qualities and all sense of power. The biologist or the chemist is
at the same time. We know it is possible to be
constantly demonstrating his respect for the
criticism partial without being passionate; or political, difficulties involved in the act of isolating an
in the best sense of the term, without being element out of a complex matrix, even with
either partial or passionate. But if one is truly all of the sophisticated machinery he has
Barnett Newman passionate, one is all three. One cannot be today.

passionate without being specific about the The 'scientific' art critic, on the other hand, in
object of one's passion so that one is auto- the name of 'method', does not hesitate to use
THIS ESSAY IS A REVISED VERSION OF MR matically partial. And true passion, by its very every crude weapon to kill the in-vivo quality
NEWMAN'S PAPER READ AT THE nature, by its sheer existence, is a political of a work of art. And instead of isolating its
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF ARTISTS, threat against the Philistine and the bourgeois. uniqueness, he tears it to shreds. He thinks
CRITICS, AND ART HISTORIANS HONOURING Let's face it. 'Scientific', didactic criticism, in that he can be excused because he pays lip
BAUDELAIRE AS AN ART CRITIC HELD IN PARIS itself, and practised for itself; is fundamentally service to the inadequacy of his method and his
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ASSOCIATION a bourgeois activity. tools by always admitting that it is much better
POUR LA LIBERTE DE LA CULTURE, I wish to plead for passionate criticism be- to feel the work of art, but, in the same breath,
JANUARY 1968. cause it is the only criticism and because a he says that to express his feelings would be
bond between artist and critic is created by the sentimental, repetitive, a bore. He then pro-
passionate in each. Anyone involved in art ceeds on his objective way as if that could be
criticism who is not passionate is guilty of any less boring.
moral cowardice. That writer who practices He is a bore because he is saying that all
dispassionate, 'scientific', objective, descrip- works of art evoke in him the same sensation
tive, analytical, formal criticism openly de- and that all human sensations and human
clares that he is eliminating himself from his feelings are single and always the same. What
own act, that it is his intention to hide, that could be a more boring and humiliating atti-
I suppose it is as presumptuous for a painter to the work of art is a thing out there, unrelated tude towards life and art! What he does not
tell art critics what criticism is or what kind of to him. Such a critic, hiding behind the façade understand is that each work of art produces
criticism they ought to write as it is for a of no-bias, non-involvement and thus dis- its own unique sensation and requires a
critic to tell a painter what painting is and engaged, claims he does it in order to avoid unique response.
what to paint. However, the inherent natures the pitfalls of excitement and human error, This constant hiding behind the facade of
of the two activities are such that the painter that he is approaching the work of art in the scientific method, while paying obeisance to its
can be excused. When a painter talks about name of a higher truth. Self-ordained, he insufficiency, produces not art criticism, but
art criticism or about critics, he becomes at promises with this high-minded attitude that art hypocriticism.
that moment, by that act alone, ipso facto, he will bring to the work of art—ultimate jus- What is worse, the 'scientific' art critic must
a critic. The very purpose of this paper is to tice. The irony is that he never does because know that science is an intuitive activity that
celebrate such an event: the transformation he always finds the work needs more analysis, gives insight into the unknown, and in which
that Baudelaire, the poet, made when he be- more objectivity, more research. And since it logic and method are only useful grammars.
gan going to exhibitions at the Salon to is all done in cold blood, without passion, the It is, therefore, amazing that, seemingly skilled
become Baudelaire, the art critic. The con- `scientific' critic always manages to escape. in method, he remains unaware that he is en-
verse, however, is not true. No matter how Sitting on Olympus, this critic comes down meshed in a logical, not to mention phenom-
much the critic may persevere in telling artists from his mountain again and again to explain, enological, trap. He thinks that since he
what painting is, what and how the painter to teach, but never to say. His desire is to practices a descriptive methodology he is
should paint, the critic never becomes a establish his priesthood so that he can practice making science—achieving scientific truth.
painter. He is always the outsider. This is be- the cult of art-sacrifice, carving up whatever Even if science were method, it does not fol-
cause the painter and the critic are involved in he sees in the name of this higher truth, the low that method is and can produce science.
doing two irreconcilable things. lofty 'truth' of scientific method. By com- Instead of scientific truth about a work of art,
Since I am emulating Baudelaire, I suppose I parison, scientists are the essence of humility we end up with so much fuss, by 'logical'
have the artist's advantage and should feel and timidity. Every biologist, for example, grammarians.
exultant. Yet I do not relish this new role of strives to maintain at all costs the in-vivo Enough of this. I do not wish to defend pas-
critic. situation of his specimen, no matter how ob- sionate criticism through scientific proof or
It seems to me that there is or at least that jective his attitude. He has more respect for a disproof. What I wish to do is to plead for
there could be a bond between the painter and living amoeba than the 'scientific' critic has for passionate criticism for the sake of the pas-
the critic even though the things they do are a living work of art. The biologist knows, for sionate itself. Just as passion reveals the artist,
not reconcilable. It is this bond that I wish to example, that even if he discovers that some- so does it reveal the critic. And it is in this
explore. It exists in Baudelaire's credo for a thing is true for dogs, it is not necessarily true way that the critic can approach closer to the
critic, and I wish to make a plea for that credo. for humans. Yet this art critic makes compar- painter. To write passionately, the critic must
Baudelaire has said that criticism should be able verbal transfers concerning a visual, non- invent, or, to use a more accurate word, he
partial, passionate, political. But, for the most verbal activity with the greatest of ease. must create his criticism so that it reveals a
part, these qualities are disappearing in pres- The word critic comes from the Greek and it work of art, through the critic's feelings. But
ent-day criticism. Today, criticism is becom- means to separate. In art criticism, I suppose more than that, it reveals the critic himself. In
ing neutral, dispassionate, 'scientific'. It is the problem is to separate the good from the that sense, art criticism becomes a parallel
political only among these art critics them- bad. The biologist or the chemist, before he work of art. As Baudelaire said, 'The best
selves, in their eagerness to cater to, rather can proceed, also is involved in a problem- of account-of the picture-may be a sonnet or an
than to destroy, the bourgeoisie. Today, of separation, not of good or bad, but still a elegy.' If it cannot be a poem, let the criticism
course, the new name for the bourgeoisie is problem of separation, of isolating his speci- at least be poetic.
— the 'modern technical world of communica- men. Yet this act of separating things, instead My own instinct tells me that the didactic
tion'. of making the critic humble, as it does the critic who practises a 'scientific' formal method