Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art. Clement Greenberg More Quotes by Clement Greenberg More Quotes From Clement Greenberg Nothing could be further from the authentic art of our time than the idea of a rupture of continuity. Art is - among other things - continuity, and unthinkable without it. Clement Greenberg reality ideas art The precondition for kitsch, is the availability of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends. It draws its lifeblood, so to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience Clement Greenberg kitsch availability discovery It's as though aesthetic value, quality, could be preserved only by concentrating on 'absolute' or 'autonomous' art: thus on visual art... that held and moved and stirred the beholder as sheer decoration could not. Clement Greenberg beholder quality art Complete honesty has nothing to do with 'purity' or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure in heart. Clement Greenberg honesty truth heart Art solves nothing, either for the artist himself or for those who receive his art. Clement Greenberg solve artist art Part of the triumph of modernist poetry is, indeed, to have demonstrated the great extent to which verse can do without explicit meaning and yet not sacrifice anything essential to its effect as art. Here, as before, successful art can be depended upon to explain itself. Clement Greenberg sacrifice successful art A large picture can give us images of things, but a relatively small one can best re-create the instantaneous unity of nature as a view - the unity of which the eyes take in at a single glance. Clement Greenberg nature eye views Kitsch is deceptive. It has many different levels, and some of them are high enough to be dangerous to the naive seeker of true light. Clement Greenberg levels different light I myself happen to find, on the basis of experience and nothing else, that photography can be a high art. Clement Greenberg bases photography art I don't get into 'becauses.' When you come into a studio you see a number of works. My habit is to go to the one I like most. If you start to say, 'because,' you get into art jargon. Clement Greenberg jargon numbers art The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fidelity. Clement Greenberg cezanne effort evolution Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. And this new sense of sin only contributes further to the enervation of leisure, for the rich as well as the poor. The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved. Clement Greenberg carrying-on leisure culture For every good art critic there may be ten great artists. Clement Greenberg very-good may art Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have anything to say and take to performing instead of stating. Clement Greenberg composer recognition artist The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms. Clement Greenberg creating artist trying One is also reminded of how, in art, the tortoise so often overtakes the hare. Clement Greenberg tortoises recognition art Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. Clement Greenberg accepted sin enough Art criticism, I would say, is about the most ungrateful form of 'elevated' writing I know of. It may also be one of the most challenging.. if only because so few people have done it well enough to be remembered.. but I'm not sure the challenge is worth it. Clement Greenberg writing people art
