DOCSLIB.ORG

Reconsidering the Reasons for Clement Greenberg's Formalist

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Reconsidering the Reasons for Clement Greenberg's Formalist The Intransigent Critic: Reconsidering the reasons for Clement Greenberg’s formalist stance from the early 1930s to the early 1970s © Sheila Christofides A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Postgraduate Board, Student Guild University of New South Wales September, 2004 ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the reasons for Greenberg’s aesthetic intransigence – that is, his adherence to a formalist/purist stance, and his refusal to countenance non-purist twentieth- century avant-garde trends evident in the art he ignored or denigrated, and in the art he promoted. The most substantial body of work challenged is Cold War revisionism (exemplified by the scholarship of Francis Frascina, Serge Guilbaut, and John O’Brian) which casts Greenberg as a politically expedient party to the imperialist agendas of various CIA-funded organisations. The major conclusions reached are that: Greenberg’s aesthetic intransigence was driven by a similarly intransigent ethico-political position, and that his critical method reflected patterns of argumentation set up in ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ (1939). This essay, and Greenberg’s ethico-political position, derived, not least, from his direct encounter with American Nazism and anti-Semitism which led him to realise that America (with what he saw as its decadence, cultural apathy, and low-level mass taste) was as vulnerable to the threat of totalitarianism as Europe and Russia. Reflecting this fear, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ had juxtaposed a stagnant, impure culture with a vigorous avant- garde culture of impeccable vintage – in the process infusing politics into a formalist, historical conception of modernism Greenberg first devised in the early 1930s and then augmented, during 1938-9, with Hans Hofmann’s theories and others. Thus established, this rudimentary paradigm for Greenberg’s art writing was elaborated upon and made canonical in ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’ (1940), and entrenched after the war concurrent with the entrenchment of his ethico-political position. In the face of a Stalinist/capitalist war of wills, continuing anti-Semitism, and what Greenberg perceived as increasing decadence, he continued to argue for a serious, professionally-skilled (predominantly abstract) art, which would be resistant to the ersatz, yet not dehumanized by excluding the natural. By promoting this as the only genuine avant-garde art (while ignoring or denigrating playful, humorous and anarchic avant-garde tendencies), and by reiterating in the 1950s his pre-war Marxist sympathies, Greenberg was effectively demonstrating his continued hope for a utopian culture (luxuriant, formal, informed and socialist) first visualised in the late 1930s. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due: To the College of Fine Arts, Sydney, for a research grant received in 2001. To my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Alan Krell, and co-supervisor, Dr. Graham Forsyth (Associate Dean, Academic), for their invaluable advice, for their encouragement and help, for opening up the possibility of researching to this level, and for their efforts in appointing examiners. Special thanks to Alan for his careful reading of, and comments upon, chapters in progress and his close criticism of the final draft – and also to Graham for his help in 2001 with the grant application, and his comments on work in progress and the final draft. Thanks also to the examiners for their welcome remarks, and to Douglas McKeough (Research Administration / Student Centre Coordinator) for his help and advice. To Kapil Jariwala for sharing his reflections on Greenberg and for putting me in touch with John McClean. To John McClean for his reflections on Greenberg and for sending me Karen Wilkin’s address. To Karen Wilkin for putting me in touch with William Phillips and Martin Greenberg. To Martin Greenberg for his reflections on his brother. And not least to Lynne Swarts for sharing her insights into Judaism, particularly the significance of history and memory to that religion. To Brenda Stace-Chat, Penelope Wardle and Kay White for their support and patient listening to aspects of this project. To Dawn Baker, Roland Chat, Sandra Curry, Marion Flynn, Victoria King (who commented on the introduction), Sister Rosamund, Cheng-Lian Sim and others for their kind support in various ways during the course of this research. Very special thanks to my family, Andrew and Eleanor Christofides, for their tolerance, support, and encouragement – and to the smallest member, Kelly, for her canine companionship. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction……….……………………….…………………………… 1 Overview……………………………..….………………………. 3 Notes ………………………………………………………..…… 9 Chapter One: Aesthetic Intransigence Criticism……………………………….………………………… 10 Oversights and resounding silence...……………………………. 20 Notes…………………………………………………….….…… 34 Chapter Two: Early Correspondence and Seminal Essays First formalism, first views………...……………………………. 39 ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ and ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’….... 60 Notes…………………...………………………………………… 66 Chapter Three: The Partisan Review Circle Partisan Review, Dwight Macdonald and Leon Trotsky...……... 71 Brechtian, Eliotic Trotskyism…………………………..….…….. 89 Ignazio Silone …………...……………………………..….…….. 99 Notes ………………...…………………………………...……… 111 Chapter Four: Irving Babbitt and Gotthold Lessing…………………... 116 Notes ……….…………………………………………..………. 127 Chapter Five: ‘Jewishness’ Anti-Semitism……...……………………………………………. 128 Thierry de Duve, Susan Noyes Platt and Robert Storr …….….… 132 Hitler and Yeats ………...………………………………..……… 141 Notes…………………..………………………………………… 160 Chapter Six: A Culture in Plight A wartime perspective …………………...……………..……….. 167 A postwar world-view ……………………...…………..……….. 178 The persistent spectre of anti-Semitism…………………………. 201 Notes…..………………. ……………………………...………... 212 Chapter Seven: Cold War Revisionism Serge Guilbaut ………………..……………………..………….. 220 John O’Brian…………...…………….………………………….. 239 Notes ………………………..…………………………...……… 250 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS, cont. Page Chapter Eight: Culture and Politics Modern culture – a mixed blessing………………...……………. 254 Inveterate Marxism………………………………………………. 263 Notes……………………...……………………………………… 278 Chapter Nine: Seriousness, The Centre of Gravity Isolation and play…………………...…………………………… 284 The importance of work…………………………………………. 295 Notes……………..……………………………………………… 313 Chapter Ten: End of Utopia Francis Frascina…………………………………..……………… 317 Rosenberg earns art a bad name……….…………………..…….. 326 Notes….…………………………………………………………. 334 Conclusion………………………………………….………………….. 339 Notes…………………………..……………………...…………. 350 Bibliography Cited material……………………………………………………. 352 Selected uncited material………………...……………………… 367 Appendix……………………………………………………………….. 374 Notes…………………………………………………………….. 385 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AGK Clement Greenberg, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ in: Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments 1939-1944, ed. John O’Brian, University of Chicago Press, 1986, 5-22 (first published in Partisan Review, Fall 1939) TNL Clement Greenberg, ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’, in: Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Volume I: Perceptions and Judgments 1939-1944, ed. John O’Brian, University of Chicago Press, 1986, 23-38 (first published in Partisan Review, July-August 1940) O’Brian, Vol. 1 Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments: 1939-1944, ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1986 O’Brian, Vol. 2 Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Volume 2: Arrogant Purpose: 1945-1949, ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1986 O’Brian, Vol. 3 Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals: 1950-1956, ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1993 O’Brian, Vol. 4 Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance: 1957-1969, ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1993 O’Brian, John O’Brian, ‘Introduction’, in: Clement Greenberg: The Collected ‘Introduction’ Essays and Criticism: Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments: (Vol. 1) 1939-1944, ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1986, xvii-xxv O’Brian, John O’Brian, ‘Introduction’, in: Clement Greenberg: The Collected ‘Introduction’ Essays and Criticism: Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals: 1950-1956, (Vol. 3) ed. John O’Brian, The University of Chicago Press, 1993, xv-xxxiii 1 INTRODUCTION The importance of Clement Greenberg’s two essays ‘Avant Garde and Kitsch’1 and ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’2 (the first written in 1939 on the verge of World War Two, and the second in 1940) are, as T.J. Clark once indicated, that they staked out the ground for his later practice as a critic and set down ‘the main lines of a theory and history of culture since 1850’.3 By this Clark would not have meant that these were the only lines, simply that this was Greenberg’s version of modernism. Indeed, it is a point of significance to this thesis that his writings excluded some of modernism’s most exciting developments – particularly those related to varying extents with the art of performance. This very narrowness predetermined that it would only be a matter of time before Greenberg’s theories would be directly challenged by the ascendance of art practices he had, for the most part, ignored, or that his role as a critic would be superceded by writers taking a more inclusive approach. As it happened each eventuated. Not with a bang, but by degrees until, by the mid 1960s, Greenbergian
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Art of Fernando Botero
    36 The Art of Fernando Botero ART The Art of Fernando Botero By Sarah Moody useums are afraid to show works that “Mreveal the truth.” So claimed Professor Peter Selz in a lecture inspired by the exhibition of Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s “Abu Ghraib” series organized by the Center for Latin American Studies last spring. The University of California, Berkeley was the fi rst public institution in the United States to show the powerful series. The approximately 100 drawings and oil paintings resulted from Botero’s shock and rage at what had happened at that Iraqi prison. As part of a series of talks related to the exhibit, Selz examined Botero’s development as an artist in relation to topics of violence and considered the importance of the paintings today. York. New Gallery, Image courtesy of Marlborough Botero. © Fernando Professor Selz began with a discussion of Botero’s artistic development. After winning second prize in the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1952, Botero used his winnings to travel to Europe to study the Old Masters. He began in Spain, copying the work of El Greco, Velázquez and Goya. In Florence, he studied the location of generously- proportioned, verisimilar bodies in real spaces, focusing especially on the work of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca “Pear” by Fernando Botero, 1976. and the sensuality of Rubens. Botero then visited the Sistine ceiling in Rome before traveling to Mexico and turning not always approach the originals almost deranged expression in place to the famous muralists Diego Rivera reverentially. According to Selz, Botero of the original’s calm smile.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruth Wolf - Rehfeldt
    RUTH WOLF - REHFELDT PRESS SELECTION ARTFORUM OCTOBER / NOV 2020 for American culture as Black culture, telling open secrets about lives REVIEWS rendered both highly visible and unseen. In “Segregation in the South,” 1956, the first of two series featured in the show, Parks chronicled the racially divided Deep South. We see a family dressed in their elegant best—hats and dresses and starched white shirts—at a Nashville bus station under a sign reading colored BUENOS AIRES life in captivity; the work is timely in a moment characterized by pre- waiting room. Elsewhere, children dressed in fire-engine-red outfits ventative isolation and an urgent need for the social reinsertion of those queue for ice cream under the colored sign. An old white woman who’ve been imprisoned. Florencia Levy’s Tierra de ciervos (Deer “Pensar todo de nuevo” serves them. The store’s brick wall is painted blinding white. Color Land), 2017, is represented by a photograph of an artificial lake of ROLF ART whispers its punishing difference, with the injustice repeated so often— radioactive waste in northern China. Suspected of espionage, the art- white only, lots for colored—that it almost vanishes. The proliferation of online viewing rooms and live streaming since the ist was arrested for taking the picture; the second part of the work, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama, another work global spread of Covid-19 has challenged us to rethink the time and accessible through a QR code, is made up of shaky footage of her from the series, shows an elderly couple sitting together on a velveteen space of the exhibition.
    [Show full text]
  • Formalism Post- Formalism
    FORMALISM POST- FORMALISM nonsite.org is an online, open access, peer-reviewed quarterly journal of scholarship in the arts and humanities 7 affiliated with Emory College of Arts and Sciences. 2014 all rights reserved. ISSN 2164-1668 EDITORIAL BOARD Bridget Alsdorf Ruth Leys James Welling Jennifer Ashton Walter Benn Michaels Todd Cronan Charles Palermo Lisa Chinn, editorial assistant Rachael DeLue Robert Pippin Michael Fried Adolph Reed, Jr. Oren Izenberg Victoria H.F. Scott Brian Kane Kenneth Warren SUBMISSIONS ARTICLES: SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Please direct all Letters to the Editors, Comments on Articles and Posts, Questions about Submissions to [email protected]. Potential contributors should send submissions electronically via nonsite.submishmash.com/Submit. Applicants for the B-Side Modernism/Danowski Library Fellowship should consult the full proposal guidelines before submitting their applications directly to the nonsite.org submission manager. Please include a title page with the author’s name, title and current affiliation, plus an up-to-date e-mail address to which edited text and correspondence will be sent. Please also provide an abstract of 100-150 words and up to five keywords or tags for searching online (preferably not words already used in the title). Please do not submit a manuscript that is under consideration elsewhere. 1 ARTICLES: MANUSCRIPT FORMAT Accepted essays should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents (either .doc or .rtf), although .pdf documents are acceptable for initial submissions.. Double-space manuscripts throughout; include page numbers and one-inch margins. All notes should be formatted as endnotes. Style and format should be consistent with The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Discovering the Contemporary
    of formalist distance upon which modernists had relied for understanding the world. Critics increasingly pointed to a correspondence between the formal properties of 1960s art and the nature of the radically changing world that sur- rounded them. In fact formalism, the commitment to prior- itizing formal qualities of a work of art over its content, was being transformed in these years into a means of discovering content. Leo Steinberg described Rauschenberg’s work as “flat- bed painting,” one of the lasting critical metaphors invented 1 in response to the art of the immediate post-World War II Discovering the Contemporary period.5 The collisions across the surface of Rosenquist’s painting and the collection of materials on Rauschenberg’s surfaces were being viewed as models for a new form of realism, one that captured the relationships between people and things in the world outside the studio. The lesson that formal analysis could lead back into, rather than away from, content, often with very specific social significance, would be central to the creation and reception of late-twentieth- century art. 1.2 Roy Lichtenstein, Golf Ball, 1962. Oil on canvas, 32 32" (81.3 1.1 James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964–65. Oil on canvas with aluminum, 10 86' (3.04 26.21 m). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 81.3 cm). Courtesy The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. New Movements and New Metaphors Purchase Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alex L. Hillman and Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (both by exchange). Acc. n.: 473.1996.a-w. Artists all over the world shared U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • To See Anew: Experiencing American Art in the 21St Century
    Initiatives in Art and Culture To See Anew: Experiencing American Art in the 21st Century 21ST ANNUAL AMERICAN ART CONFERENCE FRIDAY – SATURDAY, MAY 20 – 21, 2016 1851, after an original of 1851, The Greek Slave, The Greek Stuart Davis, Swing Landscape, 1938, oil on canvas, 86¾ x 172⅞ in. Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana. © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed Hiram Powers, Powers, Hiram Art University x 18¼ in. Yale 1844, marble, 65¼ x 21 Dann Fund. 1962.43, Olive Louise Gallery, by VAGA, New York, NY. Jonathan Boos. Jonathan Boos. 36 x 29 in. Private collection; photo: courtesy, canvas, Guy Pène du Bois, Country Wedding, Henry Peters Gray, The Wages of War, 1848, oil on 1929, oil on canvas, 48¼ x 76¼ in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Several Ladies and Gentlemen, 1873. 73.5. THE GRADUATE CENTER, THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK To See Anew: Experiencing American Art in the 21st Century 21ST ANNUAL AMERICAN ART CONFERENCE Heilbrun, 1922). Chanler. Robert Winthrop Ivan Narodny, (from: 1921 Chanler, Robert Winthrop New York: William New York: Avian Arabesque, Avian Arabesque, The Art of In this conference, Initiatives in Art and Culture considers iconic works by recognized masters, seeking to understand both why they were celebrated in their own time and why they retain their power today. At the same time, we explore the works of artists who did not retain the renown they enjoyed during their lifetimes and who fell into obscurity. But obscurity is not necessarily forever, and as cycles of taste have changed, these once-forgotten artists and their largely unknown works have re-surfaced to startle us today.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Arts in the Urban Environment in the German Democratic Republic: Formal, Theoretical and Functional Change, 1949–1980
    Visual arts in the urban environment in the German Democratic Republic: formal, theoretical and functional change, 1949–1980 Jessica Jenkins Submitted: January 2014 This text represents the submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in partial fulfilment of its requirements) at the Royal College of Art Copyright Statement This text represents the submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. This copy has been supplied for the purpose of research for private study, on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from this thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment. Author’s Declaration 1. During the period of registered study in which this thesis was prepared the author has not been registered for any other academic award or qualification. 2. The material included in this thesis has not been submitted wholly or in part for any academic award or qualification other than that for which it is now submitted. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the very many people and institutions who have supported me in this research. Firstly, thanks are due to my supervisors, Professor David Crowley and Professor Jeremy Aynsley at the Royal College of Art, for their expert guidance, moral support, and inspiration as incredibly knowledgeable and imaginative design historians. Without a generous AHRC doctoral award and an RCA bursary I would not have been been able to contemplate a project of this scope. Similarly, awards from the German History Society, the Design History Society, the German Historical Institute in Washington and the German Academic Exchange Service in London, as well as additional small bursaries from the AHRC have enabled me to extend my research both in time and geography.
    [Show full text]
  • Pop Surrealism: the Rise of Underground Art by Kirsten Anderson Ebook
    Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art by Kirsten Anderson ebook Ebook Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art currently available for review only, if you need complete ebook Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art please fill out registration form to access in our databases Download here >> Hardcover:::: 156 pages+++Publisher:::: Last Gasp; First Edition edition (September 1, 2004)+++Language:::: English+++ISBN-10:::: 0867196181+++ISBN-13:::: 978-0867196184+++Product Dimensions::::10.5 x 0.8 x 10.5 inches++++++ ISBN10 0867196181 ISBN13 978-0867196 Download here >> Description: First comprehensive survey of the Pop Surrealism/Lowbrow art movement. With its origins in 1960s hot rod culture and underground comics, Pop Surrealism has evolved into a vilified, vital, and exciting art movement. Includes: * informative essays by art luminaries Robert Williams, Carlo McCormick, and Larry Reid * a forward by Kirsten Anderson * images from twenty-three of the movments top artists including: Anthony Ausgang, Glenn Barr, Tim Biskup, Kalynn Campbell, The Clayton Brothers, Joe Coleman, Camille Rose Garcia, Alex Gross, Charles Krafft, Liz McGrath, Scott Musgrove, Niagara, The Pizz, Lisa Petrucci, Mark Ryden, Isabel Samaras, Todd Schorr, Shag, Robert Williams, and Eric White. Good resource that scratched the surface of the Pop Surrealist movement and dug a bit deeper - good starting point for anyone interested in the genre. Covers about two dozen artists. Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art in pdf books Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art Art The Rise of Pop Surrealism: Underground at least until I got to the last two stories. The one main negative I'd have is perhaps the order of things.
    [Show full text]
  • The Social and Environmental Turn in Late 20Th Century Art
    THE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL TURN IN LATE 20TH CENTURY ART: A CASE STUDY OF HELEN AND NEWTON HARRISON AFTER MODERNISM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE PROGRAM IN MODERN THOUGHT AND LITERATURE AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY LAURA CASSIDY ROGERS JUNE 2017 © 2017 by Laura Cassidy Rogers. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/gy939rt6115 Includes supplemental files: 1. (Rogers_Circular Dendrogram.pdf) 2. (Rogers_Table_1_Primary.pdf) 3. (Rogers_Table_2_Projects.pdf) 4. (Rogers_Table_3_Places.pdf) 5. (Rogers_Table_4_People.pdf) 6. (Rogers_Table_5_Institutions.pdf) 7. (Rogers_Table_6_Media.pdf) 8. (Rogers_Table_7_Topics.pdf) 9. (Rogers_Table_8_ExhibitionsPerformances.pdf) 10. (Rogers_Table_9_Acquisitions.pdf) ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Zephyr Frank, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Gail Wight I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Ursula Heise Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J.
    [Show full text]
  • Colorful Language: Morris Louis, Formalist
    © COPYRIGHT by Paul Vincent 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To UNC-G professor Dr. Richard Gantt and my mother, for their inspiration and encouragement. COLORFUL LANGUAGE: MORRIS LOUIS, FORMALIST CRITICISM, AND MASCULINITY IN POSTWAR AMERICA BY Paul Vincent ABSTRACT American art at mid-century went through a pivotal shift when the dominant gestural style of Abstract Expressionism was criticized for its expressive painterly qualities in the 1950s. By 1960, critics such as Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried were already championing Color Field painting for its controlled use of color and flattened abstract forms. Morris Louis, whose art typifies this latter style, and the criticism written about his work provides a crucial insight into the socio-cultural implications behind this stylistic shift. An analysis of the formalist writing Greenberg used to promote Louis’s work provides a better understanding of not only postwar American art but also the concepts of masculinity and gender hierarchy that factored into how it was discussed at the time. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend my thanks Dr. Helen Langa and Dr. Andrea Pearson for their wisdom, guidance, and patience through the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Juliet Bellow, Dr. Joanne Allen, and Mrs. Kathe Albrecht for their unwavering academic support. I am equally grateful to my peers, Neda Amouzadeh, Lily Sehn, Kathryn Fay, Caitlin Glosser, Can Gulan, Rachael Gustafson, Jill Oakley, Carol Brown, and Fanna Gebreyesus, for their indispensable assistance and kind words. My sincere appreciation goes to The Phillips Collection for allowing me the peace of mind that came with working within its walls and to Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Modernism Mummified Author(S): Daniel Bell Source: American Quarterly, Vol
    Modernism Mummified Author(s): Daniel Bell Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1, Special Issue: Modernist Culture in America (Spring, 1987), pp. 122-132 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712633 . Accessed: 27/03/2014 09:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 192.80.65.116 on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 09:37:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MODERNISM MUMMIFIED DANIEL BELL HarvardUniversity IN HIS INTRODUCTION TO THE IDEA OF THE MODERN,IRVING HOWE QUOTES THE famousremark of VirginiaWoolf, as everyonedoes sincehyperbole is arresting, that"on or aboutDecember 1910 humannature changed." Actually, Mrs. Woolf had writtenthat "human character changed." She was referring(in herfamous essay,"Mr. Bennettand Mrs. Brown,"written in 1924) to the changesin the positionof one's cook or of thepartners in marriage."All humanrelations have shifted-thosebetween masters and servants,husbands and wives,parents and children.And when human relations change there is at thesame time a changein religion,conduct, politics and literature."' Thissearch for a transfigurationinsensibility as thetouchstone of modernity has animatedother writers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Canonisation of Surrealism in the United States
    The canonisation of Surrealism in the United States Sandra Zalman In a pointed assessment of the first show of Surrealism in New York, in 1932, the New York Times art critic asked, ‘How much of the material now on view shall we esteem “art,” and how much should be enjoyed as laboratory roughage’?1 The question encompassed the problem Surrealism posed for art history because it essentially went unanswered. Even after the 1936 endorsement by the Museum of Modern Art in a show organized by its founding director Alfred Barr (1902-1981), Surrealism continued to have a vexed relationship with the canon of modern art. Above all, the enterprise of canonisation is ironic for Surrealism – the Surrealists were self-consciously aiming to overthrow the category of art, but simultaneously participating in a tradition of avant-gardism defined by such revolution.2 Framing his exhibition, Barr presented Surrealism as both the most recent avant-garde export, and also as a purposeful departure from the avant-garde’s experimentation in form. Instead, Barr stressed that Surrealism focused on an anti-rationalist approach to representation. Though Barr made a strong case to integrate Surrealism into the broader understanding of modernism in the 1930s, and Surrealism was generally accepted by American audiences as the next European avant-garde, by the 1950s formalist critics in the U.S. positioned Surrealism as a disorderly aberration in modernism’s quest for abstraction. Surrealism’s political goals and commercial manifestations (which Barr’s exhibition had implicitly sanctioned by including cartoons and advertisements) became more and more untenable for the movement’s acceptance into a modern art canon that was increasingly being formulated around an idea of the autonomous self-reflexive work of art.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Tourism and Heritage in Northern Portugal
    Cultural Tourism and Heritage in Northern Portugal Cultural Tourism and Heritage in Northern Portugal Edited by Clara Sarmento and Sara Cerqueira Pascoal Cultural Tourism and Heritage in Northern Portugal Edited by Clara Sarmento and Sara Cerqueira Pascoal This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Clara Sarmento, Sara Cerqueira Pascoal and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5449-X ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5449-8 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations ................................................................................... vii Introduction ............................................................................................... ix Part I. Cultural Routes on the City’s Walls Chapter One ................................................................................................ 3 Public Space Appropriation: Between Art and Delinquency António Oliveira Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 19 Paths of Re-Existence in Multiple-Cities: Porto and Bahia Occupying (Other) Colours and Expressions
    [Show full text]