The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969

by Clement Greenberg, John O'Brian (Editor)

Clement Greenberg is widely recognized as the most influential and articulate champion of modernism during its American ascendency after World War II, the period largely covered by these highly acclaimed volumes of The Collected Essays and Criticism . Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals presents Greenberg's writings from the period between 1950 and 1956, while Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance gathers essays and criticism of the years 1957 to 1969. The 120 works range from little-known pieces originally appearing Vogue and Harper's Bazaar to such celebrated essays as "The Plight of Our Culture" (1953), "Modernist Painting" (1960), and "Post Painterly Abstraction" (1964). Preserved in their original form, these writings allow readers to witness the development and direction of Greenberg's criticism, from his advocacy of abstract expressionism to his enthusiasm for color-field painting.

With the inclusion of critical exchanges between Greenberg and F. R. Leavis, Fairfield Porter, Thomas B. Hess, Herbert Read, Max Kozloff, and Robert Goldwater, these volumes are essential sources in the ongoing debate over modern art. For each volume, John O'Brian has furnished an introduction, a selected bibliography, and a brief summary of events that places the criticism in its artistic and historical context.

Genres: Art, Art History, Philosophy, Essays

341 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 1993

About the author

American essayist, known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most influential voice of modernism in the art world for twenty-five years following World War II, particularly in the United States, art critic, cultural philosopher, aesthetician Clement Greenberg was a force to be reckoned with, a man who never held back in asserting his sharp, compelling well-formulated opinions, particularly on topics touching modern art.

This collection entitled “Modernism with a Vengeance” contains over sixty entries – essays, reviews, letters, interviews – taken from the years 1957-1969, each and every piece providing anyone interested in art and culture with much to ponder. To whet a reader’s artistic palate, here are quotes along with my comments on two essays I found especially provocative:

The Case for Abstract Art
“Many people say that the kind of art our age produces is one of the major symptoms of what’s wrong with the age. The disintegration and, finally, the disappearance of recognizable images in painting and sculpture, like the obscurity in advanced literature, are supposed to reflect a disintegration of values in society itself.”

Of course Greenberg is alluding to nonrepresentational, abstract art of painters like Pollock and Mondrian and people who find such art to be not only degenerate but downright crazy or sick or even silly. The author counters in several ways, including how modern art has been under constant attack ever since the time of the Impressionists. When I myself hear modern art attacked in this way, I keep in mind how Hitler and the Nazis organized their infamous 1937 ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibit, where artists such as Chagall, Grosz, Kandinsky, Klee, Marc and Nolde were put on display for public ridicule.

“I think a poor life is lived by anyone who doesn’t regularly take time out to stand and gaze, or sit and listen, or touch, or smell, or brood, without any further end in mind, simply for the satisfaction gotten from that which is gazed at, listened to, touched, smelled, or brooded upon.”

Greenberg spent a significant part of his life, an hour or two or three every day, standing and gazing at art. He simply could not tolerate people passing judgment on paintings who refused to make a serious commitment to visit museums and galleries.

Sidebar: One insightful Greenberg observation: when listening to music or reading literature one is always, on some level, anticipating the next musical phrase or the next page in the book; with abstract art, there is no ‘next’, it is all right there, a viewer has to stick with it, gazing deeper and deeper. Personal note: I think all art, particularly abstract art, suffers from reproductions in books and magazines, that is, many people will judge a six foot canvas by a six inch photo.

The Identity of Art
“In the long run there are only two kinds of art: the good and the bad. This difference cuts across all other differences in art.”

This reminds me of Eduardo Galeano recounting a story about communist intellectuals pressing a Brazilian artist for a definition of art. His reply, “All I know is this: art is art, or it’s shit.” When we think of a painter of portraits we frequently think of an artist like Rembrandt or Vermeer, but recall how the vast majority of portraits during the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries were painted by mediocre artists commissioned by nobility or the wealthy, commissioned not so much for love of art but for that love that never fades - love of self.

"The error made by too many partisans of non-decorative abstract art is to think that the kind of experience they get from it is different from the kind of experience they get from representational art – to think, in fact, that it is an utterly new kind of experience.”

Nihil sub sole novum. True, each painting or sculpture gives us a unique portal into the realm of the aesthetic, but aesthetic experience is aesthetic experience, as every philosopher of art has known since Alexander Baumgarten in the eighteenth century, the first philosopher to categorize experience as aesthetic.

“One cannot validly be for or against any particular body of art in toto. One can only be for good or superior art as against bad or inferior art. One is not for Chinese, or Western, or representational art as a whole, but only for what is good in it.”

Greenberg encourages us to hone our ability to ‘see’ by the following exercise: pick an artist you really enjoy. Look carefully at a number of that artist’s painting, if possible the originals, not copies. Determine which paintings especially resonate with you and which other paintings do not. Then carefully assess and evaluate what has caused the difference.

“Quality in art can be neither ascertained nor proved by logic or discourse. Experience alone rules in this area – and the experience, so to speak, of experience.”

Again, to come to know an artist and his or her painting, we have to use our eyes.; not reading, not discussing, not putting the painting into words, but looking very carefully as painting is ultimately a visual, sensual experience.

“Too many people simply refuse to make the effort of humility – as well as of patience – that is required to learn how to experience, or appreciate, art relevantly. Such people do not have the right to pronounce on any kind of art – much less about abstract art. Left to themselves, they would not be able to tell the difference in quality between a calendar picture by Petty and a nude by Rubens."

Thanks, Clement! That’s the way to tell it like it is. The bottom line – to appreciate the visual arts takes a serious commitment.

If this review has piqued an interest to watch Clement Greenberg in action in front of a live, and sometimes critical audience, here is a great Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk5Nz...

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my response to Greenberg, see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061016/schwabsky

[Josh Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite all the criticism I find his direct writing style very engaging and helpful in the interpretation of both classical and modern artists from a formal perspective.

[Curtis Anthony Bozif · Rating 5 out of 5]

All four volumes are great, but volume four is chock full of bangers.

[Mark]

I see a lot of reviews written here but it appears that some people didn't even pick the book up and read it, ..
or did they ever get to page 47?
Starting at page 47, Greenberg discusses how Peggy Guggenheim and Jackson Pollock's older brother, contacted Clement Greenberg to make a correction in one of his essays written for the Evergreen Review be in 1958. What Greenberg begins to discuss for the next five pages is his Jewish background, and the reason for building the Great Wall of China. This makes the modern day Christian Bibles look like children's fairy tale books.
Everyone should run, not walk to the nearest bookstore and get a copy of this and read it, as I was shocked when I came across this chapter at page 47 last night after having the book for 10 years. I never saw these five pages while in researching Modern Art in general, while I've been commissioned to produce the new modern artwork along the Pacific coast here for a local Art Gallery in Portland Oregon. This is a project that's been going for 20 years about saving the oceans and the Pacific coast states ocean waters. It's called The 7th Generation. There is a calling out to all artists at our local gallery of over hundreds in Portland Oregon, here, known as the Elisabeth Jones Art Center in the Pearl Art District of Portland Oregon. Local Washing-Oregon-California Artists are being asked to produce a 2ft by 4ft panel painting as a selected place along the Pacific coast of the three west coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California, now a twenty year art project. I've chosen the Bixby Canyon Bridge at Big Sur, with a starry night sky overhead, [see example in my current cover photo in Facebook,] as they certify and catalog the spot you've chosen to be painted, so as not to duplicate other artists earlier chosen spots. The finished works are due by April 18th, and it will be exhibited in the first Thursday art dates of May 2019, at the Elisabeth JonesvArt Center. The Works will then be taken to a California coastline location, possibly Huntington Beach, announced within the book and entry instructions, within Los Angeles, to set hundreds or possibly more of these 2' x 4' artworks up in a continuous 1 mile long Panorama of the Pacific Coastline, as depicted by each artist. Everyone in Washing-Oregon- and California is eligible to participate.