Page 20 - Studio International - September 1973

becomes an incremental process that depends primitive 'conceptual' modes which, he claims, for example by Moholy-Nagy, who was
upon the accumulation of observation will always assert themselves unless probably the first artist to execute a series of
statements, individual discoveries and technical deliberately counteracted. (This assumption paintings by telephoning instructions to a
inventions. can be traced to a basic principle of gestalt manufacturer.
To accept this model of artistic progress, I psychology which states that perception tends The way in which Duchamp's ready-mades
shall argue, is to place representational art towards the production of simple forms.)11 subverted the notion of work (in the sense of
within a closed system (rather like a system in Gombrich's 'schema' is in some ways a variant manifest effort, or skill) has already been
thermodynamics where the process eventually of Loewy's `memory-picture'; but as a model described by Richard Wollheim: 'They force us
comes to a stop at a state of equilibrium); it of how art progresses, both end in low water to reconsider what it is to make a work of art,
does nothing towards explaining the way in once art makes itself abstract. Loewy showed or, to put it linguistically, what is the meaning
which art has progressed since then. All some anxiety about couching the criteria of of the word "work" in the phrase "work of
modernist, non-representational and post- artistic development exclusively in observational art" ?'14. The implication is that if art has
object art (since it is independent of the terms, however, perhaps because it suggested something to do with making things, these
demands of external reality) is doomed by this to him that there were ontological limits to the things are not material things made by skill in
formulation to remain a tantalizing loose end, direction in which painting could go, or that art the carrying out of a preconceived plan; they
a conspicuous aberration which can only be was an enterprise which constantly drew nearer are things of another kind, and made in some
explained by ad hoc causes and a separate to some goal set by nature in advance. He may other way.
interpretative framework. As an epistemological have recognized that the attainment of the goal That the art-object is only a by-product of
model for the growth of artistic knowledge, the of history would also mean the end of history, whatever happens in an art-work is an attitude
doctrine of artistic technique (which implies since he was prompted to write that 'the goal of that has since come to dominate the
that art is some kind of craft) simply cannot this development can never actually be reached, contemporary scene, so that Robert Morris
take us beyond the nineteenth century. since if it were, art itself would be brought to a could write in 1970 that 'the notion that work is
The early historians all thought in terms finish'.12 That is, if art were to continue along an irreversible process ending in a static
which took this teleology for granted. 'It is the same lines, it would eventually come to a icon-object no longer has much relevance'.
inherent in the very nature of these arts to dead end, or to some terminus where artists What matters is 'the detachment of art's energy
progress step by step from modest beginnings could do nothing but circle around without from the craft of tedious art production'.15 The
and finally to reach the summit of perfection,' 8 further progress. role of the artist now demands that he construct
wrote Vasari. 'The arts are approaching the Not all historians have described archaic art perceptual fields which offer a disorientating
stage of complete perfection in which they as an inept version of the art which followed it. experience to the perceiver.16 Art itself (and
exactly reproduce the truth of nature.'9 The The Viennese Alois Riegl, for instance, not the world) has become the focus of the
notion of progress hinged for so long upon the considered that the unnaturalistic character of artist's investigations, a situation which often
mastery of technical means in pursuit of a primitive art was not a consequence of a lack of entails linguistic and philosophical enquiry
given end that it was virtually unthinkable to skill but an expression of different intentions, rather than the creation of art objects.
consider the history of representation in any and a different world view; it expressed What I have been trying to point to is this.
sense other than as the sum of formal solutions modalities which testified to a different sort of The whole notion of art as a goal-directed
to a predetermined pictorial problem.'° relationship with the world and corresponded to process evolving towards skill in depicting
Once we are given a definition of changes in the psychic attitude of man. It is pictorial truth comes to a sticky end with the
representation as evolving towards 'pictorial senseless, in Riegl's opinion, to speak of onset of modernism. In general, modern art is
truth', it postulates a goal towards which the naturalistic and unnaturalistic styles; for there devoid of that special kind of purposiveness
historical process is moving, in which is meant can be no question of getting closer or farther which requires of imagery that it make sense
to reside the meaning and purpose of art. This away from nature, but only of adopting one or in terms of external observation. Since Cubism,
leads to a distinction between planning and another conception of nature. On this view, as we can no longer speak of an end-in-view for
execution, or between means and ends. Arnold Hauser has already observed, art history painting, or of a commitment to the finality of
Whatever happens is then thought of as is not concerned with various phases in the any form. Along with the descriptive function,
determined by some final stage to t e reached; attempt to reproduce nature, but with various the idea of truth — that is, of a description which
this makes the idea of progress depend on the conceptions of what is natural. In this way fits the facts — disappears from art together with
assumption that throughout history artists have Riegl was able to transform the concept of the disappearance of the goal of verisimilitude.
been working at the same problem and solving `nature' into something historical and relative.13 And, since there are no longer any objective
it better and better. We have thus been Both Loewy's and Gombrich's conception of standards (no criteria of verisimilitude) against
committed to an a priori concept of both nature art are still linked to the Renaissance ideal: that which to judge the results of artistic activity,
and, art. the arts were learned by reason and method, it is also assumed that we have been deprived of
Among historians who, as recently as 1900, and mastered by practice. Such a theory was any norms for progress. For against what
still defined the progress of art in this way — well enough until this century, when the standards can non-representational (or non-
that is, in terms of the struggle to master the traditional concept of the 'work of art' was morphological) art be tested for its truth or
problems of representing nature — was the called into question, along with its attendant falsehood ? In Popperian terms, what could the
German Emanuel Loewy (who, by the way, implication that the artist is a special kind of distinction between 'art' and 'pseudo-art'
was one of Gombrich's teachers). In his brief craftsman. The unassisted ready-mades of mean, and how can we ever demarcate between
but fascinating book 'The Rendering of Nature Marcel Duchamp and, more recently, them ? (In fact, Popper and Gombrich both
in Early Greek Art', Loewy described the provocative spectacles such as the empty believe there are no 'standards' in the world of
development of artistic forms in terms of exhibition room which Yves Klein arranged in contemporary art, since it lies outside the realm
mental images, or 'memory-pictures', which Paris, set precedents for a new concept of art as of testability.)
were unpractised and schematic at first and confrontation, or gesture. The various criteria As Gombrich himself put it, in the course of
embraced only the simplest forms; these were of 'work', craft and originality were all developments which began toward the end of
slowly transformed by the deliberate simultaneously challenged (for Duchamp, the the nineteenth century 'the whole comfortable
observation of nature. choice of a ready-made was a decision of visual idea of the imitation of nature disintegrated,
Gombrich makes a similar case for art as a and aesthetic indifference). The traditional leaving artists and critics perplexed'.17
long process leading away from these canons of style and quality were also challenged, Obviously it is more difficult for artists and

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