Page 14 - Studio International - December 1974

it. In both the 'High Modern' essay and the logic, this same interaction is capable of the escapist 'Gothic, transcendental, romantic,
Morris Louis catalogue, he celebrates Louis's producing insights otherwise unavailable. He subjective' art which had dominated English,
achievement of 'a style that was personal by was, it is ritually noted, the first to recognize German and American culture for the previous
virtue of its very autonomy' (respectively, p.7 and celebrate Pollock. Interestingly, it is just century and a half (p. 24). The relevance
and p.8). He indulges in much specious here that we can discover the source of Fried consists in a 'coping' with industrial society, not
reasoning, and much quoting of Michael Fried, and Elderfield's apotheosizing of Louis. a rejection or a celebration of it. Thus:
to deny the obvious contradiction in this claim. In his review of Pollock's second one-man '[Despite its] Gothic quality, Pollock's art is
As well, he struggles to ward off its implication show (Art of This Century Gallery, New York, still an attempt to cope with urban life; it
that Louis had a rather bland personality, that March—April 1945) Greenberg noted: 'The only dwells entirely in the lonely jungle of
he is recommending self-effacement (or self- optimism in his smoky, turbulent paintings immediate sensations, impulses and notions,
assertion only within a safe framework). His comes from his own manifest faith in the and is therefore positivist and concrete' (p. 26).
contortions on this score are worth a closer efficacy, for him personally, of his art'. [7] Similarly, David Smith's sculpture 'reflects
look. A year later, reviewing the next one-man show American industrialism and engineering by its
Louis's 'very imagination', we are told, was at the same gallery, this point is given an denial of weight and its emphasis on direction
'radically abstract'. No gaps between art and important twist: 'Pollock submits himself to a and trajectory rather than locus' (ibid.).
life for him; he didn't need to express his habit of discipline derived from Cubism ... Both artists, Greenberg continues, almost
personality because it and his art were one: Thus Pollock's superiority to his contemporaries uniquely approach 'the most advanced view of
'It is as though all of Louis's life were equally in this country lies in his ability to create a the world obtaining at the time', that is,
private — and, by the same token, equally genuinely violent and extravagant art without 'Balance, largeness, precision, contempt for
accessible to painting' (Fried on Louis cited losing stylistic control. His emotion starts out nature in all its particularity'. In this, they
approvingly). Matisse is conjured up — his pictorially' (my italics). [8] Greenberg is exemplify a much-needed 'sensibility', one
(utterly bourgeois) life is acclaimed as the attempting to pinpoint here a quality of typified by Hans Hofmann: 'We need men of
central spirit, the pervasive quality of feeling, of emotionality which is 'aesthetic', an 'art the world not too much amazed by experience,
his art. In contrast, Pollock's 'ultimate failure' emotion', from its genesis in Pollock's creative not too much at loss in the face of current events,
is located in his wrestling with the 'literalness process. The typical discipleship of Fried and not at all over-powered by their own feelings'
and specificity of urgent personal feeling and Elderfield is to affirm the principle, but ascribe (p. 28).
the impersonal, and in that sense abstract, its fulfilment to a later figure, someone closer The image of Matisse, as representative of a
demands of painting itself' (Fried again). By to their own generation and needs, i.e. Louis. 'civilized' French response to these problems, is
submerging his 'literal and specific' personal The significance of Greenberg's claim is that evoked in the last sentence — later to be echoed
feelings, by transforming them into 'impersonal' it remains the origin and basis of all subsequent faithfully by Fried and Elderfield, as we have
feelings (sic) exclusively and entirely concerned modernist-formalist lip-service to 'feeling'. seen. [11] Indeed, the list of qualities beginning
with the 'safe-guarding', the 'self-containment', But what sort of claim is it? In one sense, it is with 'balance' are not only characterological,
of 'art itself', Louis took an emotional step depressingly familiar: a revival of Clive Bell's they also predict the formal structure of
forward from Pollock which blends into his (by now, properly discredited) 'aesthetic paintings, e.g. Louis's (on the modernist
'surpassing' of Pollock in formal innovation emotion'. True to form, this emotion later interpretation). As well, the 'sensibility'
(by reconciling figural drawing with all-overness). becomes accessible only to those capable of described is the one Fried and Elderfield later
This triumphant resolution of all the terms of perceiving 'significant form' (possessed of a attribute to Louis. It is the source of Elderfield's
modernism set the terms of painting's gaining 'good eye', in Greenbergian jargon). Of course, praise of 'an essentially lyric sensibility', with its
its 'full autonomy'. 'significant form' (the 'goodness of good art') 'feeling of self-containment and internal
Elderfield here provides us with some is itself registered as present in (sic) an artwork equilibrium', of a non-expressionist 'existence
textbook examples of circular argument and only when an 'aesthetic emotion' is had by the which is independent of our, the spectator's,
self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet the historicistic qualified perceiver. [9] Another vacuous circle. presence' (High Modern', p.6-7). Finally, Fried
self-satisfaction doesn't terminate painting — oh The notion that Pollock's paintings somehow and Elderfield repeat and exaggerate Greenberg's
no, within this autonomy one can continue to emerge out of an 'art emotion' takes on an even reservations about Pollock's 'Gothicness'.
work, exploring its terms, subjecting it to 'risk', more strange character when set in its original In our exposition of Greenberg's 1947 call
etc. context: the view of culture which Greenberg for a 'civilized' sensibility, we have seen nothing
In the face of such celebrations of growth was endeavouring to establish at the time. In his so far that is remarkable or original — i.e. it is a
within conformity, small wonder that Leo well-known 1939 essay 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch', generalizing classicism which he seems to want.
Steinberg was driven to analogies with the he had attributed the dynamic, content and The sensibility becomes original, but fatally
behaviour of executives within corporations. [6] continuance of culture as such to the avant- contradictory, when he specifies it as to actual
Parallels with the institutional stages of garde; noted that the avant-garde was becoming artworks. As art, he asserts, this new world-view
enthusiast religions also suggest themselves. increasingly self-referring and isolated from the must 'come from Cubism'. He doesn't say why.
The ethical instruction is perfectly clear: define elite within the 'ruling class' to which it had Perhaps, given his 1946 remarks about Pollock,
yourself in terms of art so completely, always been indissoluably bound; and despaired he understands Cubism to provide a model of
exclusively and thoroughly that you lose of the continuance of both the avant-garde and good discipline for the young artist (new version
yourself but (maybe) achieve 'great art'. 'Art' is culture, seeing kitsch (mass culture) as its of 'drawing from the cast'?). Certainly he
given (revealed); its nature, history and current inevitable replacement. Eight years later, doesn't put Cubism forward as a relevant
permissable problems are set. 'Achievement' is however, just after his critical response to response to industrialism, nor could he. And
also fixed, at least in form — it is that which is Pollock's early one-man shows cited above, there would be a contradiction if he were to
recognized as such by powerful members of the Greenberg was seeking a different, non-avant- recommend the Matisse example as well, that
formalist-modernist academy (i.e. electors). garde basis for a genuine art of the times. This artist notably failing to make much of the
It is sometimes said in defence of Clement appears most clearly in an essay for a British efforts of his Cubist compeers. Maybe he simply
Greenberg's criticism that, while his art history audience, "The Present Prospects of American wanted to increase the range of the new
is appalling, his art theory an embarrassment Painting and Sculpture", for Horizon American art's French pedigree. Anyway, the
and his taste somewhat limited, and that, while magazine. [10] 'must come from Cubism' hardly squares with
the interaction between these warring elements The new art must, first of all, be relevant to efforts to find a non-avant-garde basis for art.
generates amusing contortions of sense and industrial society. It must contrast utterly to Further, 'the best art of our time' (that of

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