Modernism According to Clement Greenberg

Modernism picks up many of modernity’s philosophical trajectories as its guidance. Hazarding general definition of modernity we see an emphasis on the individual radically suspended in a dualistic and progressively rational, industrialized, urbanized and anti-historical society. Combining these factors with a profound sense of optimism in this new age of self-awareness, coupled with social upheaval produced a strange cocktail of utopian aspirations and existential despair. Cued by modernity, modernism cast off the perceived constraints of tradition, allowing solitary individuals and loosely connected tribes of like-minded others to pursue their personal visions, thus creating a staggering growth of artistic veins and ventures of innovation.[1] This perpetual evolution or revolution of creative discovery becomes one of the traditional (though now often contested)[2] hallmarks of modernism.[3]
For Clement Greenberg the essence of modernity, high art and summation for the artistic task meant a pervasive self-criticism or methodological doubt in order to eliminate that which might be borrowed from another media or previous form.[4] This in turn would secure an authentic or purity of artistic expression, its value and survival. This meant, according to Greenberg, that painting pursue that which belongs primarily to it alone: color, shape and most integrally the two-dimensionality of the surface.
Surface transformation in painting has been at the center of modernism’s developments. The painting surface which once functioned like a transparent window transporting the viewer beyond the image or surface itself[5] in modernism now impedes vision at the surface. It is not a rejection of space but a redefinition of it that is coupled with a progressive simplification and abstraction. Greenberg felt that traditional painting had sought an illusionary three-dimensional space whereas modernist painting reversed this impetus drawing an increased awareness and attention to the canvas surface.[6] The Renaissance tradition of scientific or linear perspective masterly imaged in Raphael’s School of Athens (1510-1511) is radically altered and essentially reversed through a series of artistic evolutions.
This tradition’s early beginnings can be seen in Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe (1863) by altering the scale of the rear bather combined with the shallow modeling the pictoral begins its continued collapse in modernity.[7] Just over a decade later, Monet’s radically tilted landscaped plain Boulevard des Capucines, Paris (1873) brings the depth closer to the surface. Seurat, while maintaining an illusionary depth of space, utilized pointillism to heighten the importance of the surface. Matisse’s work Open Window, Collioure utilized large and complimentary colors next to each other to reverse “the Renaissance notion of the picture as a window…canceling the illusion of deep space.”[8] The Fauves influence of large unmodeled color fields would remain a key component of Matisse’s work as obviously evident in Dance (1910) and The Red Studio (1911).
Braque and Picasso’s cubism draws upon Cezanne’s flat planes inventions thus abstracting their subject and reducing optical penetration to scans of the surface. Within synthetic cubism, both masters heightened interest in the surface by creating collage and papier colle respectively. Cubism attempted to balance “abstraction and illusion,” three-dimensionality condensed into a flat two dimensional surface.[9]
This continued evolution toward abstraction only heightened the importance of the image surface, replacing the significance of content for form of expression and experience. The holistic pouring method of Pollock, the flat color-fields of Newman and Rothko, as well as Reinhardt and Motherwell all brought a pure non-objectivity to coalesce with the surface. For Greenberg, this was the conceptual heart of modernism which was best evidenced in innovations and skepticism of the Abstract Expressionists and their successors who had progressively purged superfluous conventions to arrive at an autonomous and non-figurative art.[10] Thus through the progression of modernism, the optical illusion of looking through the image gave way to a progressively flattened[11] image where optics and surface converge in aesthetic experience.

[1] There is a strong irony within Modernism where it becomes a tradition of no tradition where old traditions were cast off in favor of newly created ones. This seems to suggest the reactionary cycle of the avant-garde.
[2] Pam Meecham and Julie Sheldon, Modern Art: A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2005), 31.
[3] According to Meecham, originality in modern theory is necessarily conjoined with authenticity and Greenberg’s sense of autonomy (Meecham, 13).
[4] Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting.” In Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1982), 5.
[5] Sam Hunter, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler, Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography (New York: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005), 10.
[6] Gail Day and Chris Riding, “The Critical Terrain of ‘High Modernism’” in Varieties of Modernism, ed. Paul Wood, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 193.
[7] Hunter, 16.
[8] Hunter, 105.
[9] Hunter, 148.
[10] Gaiger, XX-XXI.
[11] Greenberg notes that Modernist painting cannot ever be entirely flat because from the first mark made on the canvas destroys its virtual flatness. Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting.” In Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1982), 8.

The True, the Good, and the Beautiful Christian

I ran into this article a while back, and with my appreciation for Stackhouse's work I thought I would repost CT's article.

"The True, the Good, and the Beautiful Christian"
Beauty is making a comeback in science and theology. Will it find its place in the lives of believers?
John G. Stackhouse Jr | January 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 1
You can find this article on Christianity Today's website.

The very idea of beauty makes many sophisticates cringe nowadays. It seems utterly out of touch with postmodern ambiguity, since the notion of beauty implies absolute standards widely agreed upon that address an objective reality: "That is beautiful." Even the Encyclopaedia Britannica (not renowned for its postmodern skepticism) affirms that "almost anything might be seen as beautiful by someone or from some point of view." Yet, despite the difficulty of defining beauty, the concept nonetheless is making a comeback. And it is doing so in at least two realms we normally do not associate with beauty: theology and science.Roman Catholic author Thomas Dubay discusses these ideas at length in The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet (Ignatius, 1999). Borrowing heavily from theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dubay seeks to awaken his readers to the presence of beauty in the world, especially as seen through the lenses of science and theology.

Dubay notes that many scientists judge a theory at least in part by aesthetic criteria. James Watson, for instance, who helped discover the double helix of DNA, suggested that "a structure this pretty just had to exist." Physicists Werner Heisenberg, Richard Feynman, and Murray Gell-Mann insisted that the elegance of their equations pointed to the truth of their theories. Likewise in theology, Dubay continues, beauty—whether the beauty of the earth, of human artifacts, of saints (as "paragons of virtue"), or of God himself—can move us to grateful recognition that God reveals himself in beauty.

Here the Enlightenment meets Romanticism. We need to be accurate, comprehensive, and logically rigorous to properly perceive the way things are. But we should also pay attention to the aesthetic qualities of both things and the theories that describe them. Since the world itself is beautiful, a beautiful theory that describes it is more likely to be correct. Unfortunately, Dubay does not help us to see exactly how beauty and truth are related. Indeed, he occasionally confuses the objectively beautiful and true with his own tastes and convictions—as when he dispenses with all rock music as ugly, or when he champions papal supremacy as the beautiful center of beautiful ecclesiastical unity.

Dubay's strength lies in celebrating beauty, and he joyfully catalogues examples from the natural world and from the lives of the saints. He turns ultimately to the beauty of God and divine things, and concludes his long meditation in an unembarrassed "Afterglow" (as he names his last chapter). We would do well to follow him in such a doxological tour of the beautiful. Still, Dubay fails to provide the promised apologetic, showing how beauty points beyond itself to its Model and Source.

From Beauty to Social Justice. Harvard professor Elaine Scarry, in her brief On Beauty and Being Just (Princeton University Press, 1999), gives us more to consider. Scarry's unusual project is to show that the sincere and genuine apprehension of beauty helps us become more just. She celebrates beauty for its own sake, to be sure, warning us that "the absence of beauty is a profound form of deprivation." But she goes on to show that beauty can lead us to justice in several ways.

First, beauty displaces the observer from the center of things, even from the center of his own life. One can, of course, merely ingest beauty as a pleasant commodity, chewing on it selfishly. But Scarry maintains that when we encounter beauty, we tend to welcome beauty and give way to it. Thus in consenting to beauty's commanding presence—its "glory," we might say—we displace our self-centeredness. Such a willingness to "step aside" for beauty can displace our egos. It can also dispose us next to displace our egos for others—including the needy.

Second, beauty prompts us both to retain it and to propagate it. We want to remember a beautiful sky, so we paint it. We want to retain the image of a beautiful face, so we photograph it. We want to treasure a beautiful moment, so we write a poem about it. Beauty calls us to extend it, to be generous, to spread the wealth. Again, we might simply propagate beauty for our own satisfaction. But the impulse to multiply beauty instead can prompt us to share with others.

Third, beauty awakens us to pay attention to things and people we tend to ignore. A spectacular waterfall gives us fresh appreciation of even tiny movements of water on a windowpane or on a drinking glass. Likewise, this quality of "distribution" can prompt us to do justice, as the dramatically beautiful reminds us to pay attention to things less obviously beautiful but still worthy of care. Yes, to admire the beauty of a particularly lovely face might cause us to despise all others. Then again, sustained attention to beauty can educate and sensitize our eyes to note the gracefulness of another person's smile, the curve of her neck, the sparkle in his eyes, in ways we had not appreciated before. This person is a human being we notice, and not just an object to be manipulated or an obstacle to be avoided.

Finally, beauty demonstrates symmetry, fitness, proportion, and other harmonies that have clear connections, and not mere analogies, to justice. Thus, we use the same word—fair—to describe someone who is comely and someone who is just. Indeed, Scarry says that beauty calls for justice as a twin seeking its counterpart.
One might wonder if Scarry is a starry-eyed romantic. Many who have a keen aesthetic sense show little moral sense. Doesn't she know about the scandalous lives of artists, from Liszt to Picasso? Has she not seen Amadeus or Pollock?
Scarry knows that beauty does not always lead to justice and that we often manipulate beauty for our own ends—in cynical advertising, pornography, disguise, and so on. She also notes that some scientific theories are so elegant that one can hold onto them too long in the face of conflicting evidence. The idea that the orbits of the planets are all perfect circles, rather than wildly varying ellipses, is a case in point.

What Scarry points out are the often overlooked connections between beauty and justice, and the opportunities to be moved by them. Whether we gratefully receive those opportunities, of course, is up to us. Scarry only occasionally discusses religion, but there is much in this little book to prompt Christian spiritual reflection. For one thing, it reminds us that we typically understand the gods, and our God, not only as powerful, good, wise, and eternal, but also as beautiful. Moreover, God's beauty calls us to worship, the act above all acts that "radically decenters" us (as Scarry says) while yet giving us transports of delight. Indeed, all of what Scarry says about beauty can be said superlatively about God.
The Good, the True, and the Evangelical.

Evangelicals already prize truth and goodness. Our tradition emphasizes honesty and charity. We practice doctrinal fidelity, straightforward evangelism, and plainspoken preaching. We are to love our neighbors, care for the poor, educate the ignorant, and give medicine to the ill—as well as live moral lives. These are the ideals we aspire to. Thus church buildings of evangelicals tend toward the utilitarian; we try to make the most of the space and furnishings for multiple uses. Few congregations make beautiful architecture and furnishings a priority. Indeed, we tend to be suspicious of anything grand or ornate, or of fine craftsmanship that draws attention to itself. But why? Perhaps it is because of our prior commitment to truth and goodness. We may feel that spending attention and money on beauty would obscure the clear lines of truth and goodness. Perhaps we feel in our bones something of the Puritans' suspicion of the distracting and obfuscating elaborations of the Roman Church.

Many of us lack even an adequate vocabulary by which to make beauty part of our shared life. For every hymn or contemporary song that celebrates beauty, whether "For the Beauty of the Earth" or "O Lord, You're Beautiful," there are ten that celebrate God's truthfulness, power, and holiness. (Ironically, evangelicalism's love of music, and therefore its genuine love of this expression of beauty, shines through the hymns and songs that praise quite different attributes of God.)
How much of this evangelical ambivalence is defensible, especially in the light of God's own beauty and the beauty of his Earth? Scripture recognizes beauty from beginning to end—from the opening hymns that celebrate God's goodness in creation, through its matchless Psalms, to the vision of the New Jerusalem as a splendid architectural wonder.

We evangelicals often practice a "war-time ethic," in which we sacrifice things that would be good in peacetime but seem inappropriate in a time of crisis. There's no point, we believe, in rearranging the flowers sliding off tables as the Titanic slopes down. Why "prettify" a church when the money could be spent on evangelism or relief for the poor? Yet Jesus confronted this sort of situation and praised the extravagant offering of expensive perfume as perfectly appropriate (John 12). Do we yet know how to integrate this teaching with our other gospel priorities of truth-telling and need-meeting? The connection, I believe, lies here: Beauty is part of Jesus' kingdom. In brief, we should give proper place to beauty—by creating and enjoying it, even writing a theology of it—as an integral part of the "war effort." Beauty is not mere ornamentation that we dutifully defer until the coming of the New Jerusalem. It is an essential part of our gospel, which must be manifest now as we bear witness to kingdom life. Beyond what Dubay and Scarry suggest, this is the true linkage of truth, goodness, and beauty: the full-orbed shalom of the kingdom of God.
Therefore, if we neglect beauty in our homes, in our churches, and in the education of our children, we will be cultivating, and propagating, a deficient religion: the heresy of an un-beautiful Christianity. To preach, and live, the whole counsel of God, including the beautiful—this is the best apologetic we can offer.

John Stackhouse Jr. is the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, and editor of No Other Gods Before Me? Evangelicals Encounter the World's Religions (Baker, 2001).

art needs no justification

“Art needs no justification” or so claimed H.R. Rookmaaker¹ in his book with the same title. Yet our Western Culture, more specifically our American Evangelical culture, has inherited and continues to place a much depreciated value on the arts. Historically, the church was the primary proprietor of the arts, but this has through a number of developments, devolved into a tacit tolerance of the arts outside of the church. Rookmaaker’s and others claims² that “art needs no justification” is theologically sound, but the statement swims up a 400 year old stream of thought. This declaration, may even find implicit approval within clergy and congregations, but is often ignored as superfluous within our liturgies. Apparently, by the deficient state of the arts in Evangelical society, some justification needs to be made.

While some churches are slowly awakening to the necessity of artistic integration, few are doing it, and even fewer are doing it well. It seems that if we might judge a movement by the availability of books, forums, conferences and the like on a given topic, there is a young growth toward the Church’s re-investment, or at least a dialogue and partnership in and with the arts. It seems this growth of interest may have begun in the mid to late 1960’s through various groups and theologians. Within the last century, but before the 60’s, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and a group of Dutch Neo-Calvinist’s including Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck are the most well-known theologians who wrestled implicitly and explicitly with the arts, beauty, and culture on semi-frequent to continual basis. In the late 60’s, Roger Hazelton published several works on the necessity of addressing the arts. Following, into the 1970’s another group of Reformed theologians rose to prominence: Calvin Seerveld, H.R. Rookmaaker, and Francis Schaeffer. In the 1980’s LeLand Ryken and especially Nicholas Wolterstorff became known for their works in the field. Spanning 70’s, 80’s and into the 90’s John and Jane Dillenberger worked and published often on the topic: John from largely a historical and theological perspective, while his wife Jane worked as a art historian addressing the spiritual potential and content in secular works. Contemporary theologians such as Jeremy Begbie and William Dyrness seem to be leading the way in a Trinitarian theology in and through the arts. Other discussions on Theological Aesthetics are being raised by Frank Burch Brown, Trevor Hart, Richard Viladesau, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar (through written across 3 decades his work now is gaining a great reputation as the master work in the field). Many others are also working in theologies and philosophies of culture and theologies of cultural forms (especially popular culture of film, music, and television). This apparent re-vitalized interest in culture and the arts seems to be spreading, not only across denominational lines, but also as a constituent member in the contemporary, as current, worship movement.

Should we see this as a Spirit revealed deficiency in our Liturgy and Worship and/or a reflection of our visually dominated and driven culture…among perhaps another 100 other reasons. Regardless of the value judgments we place on these interpretations and their implementation into our Liturgy, the visual nature of secular society coupled with the growth of worship and the experience driven post-modern culture forces us as the Church to address these discussions with openness and theological integrity.

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¹ H.R. Rookmaaker, Art Needs No Justification, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP 1978).

² Others that make the same statement include Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, (Downers Grove IL: IVP 1973); Franky Schaefer, Addicted to Mediocrity: 20^th Century Christians and the Arts, (Wheaton IL: Crossway Books, 1981).

Ways of Seeing

John Berger, the art theorist, has referred to photography is a” way of seeing.” “The photographers way of seeing is reflected in his [or her] choice of subject.”[1] Berger adds “our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing.”[2] Photography, literally means “light writing” or perhaps more accurately “light drawing.”[3] Photographers essential work is with light, angles, focus, and distance to bring about a convincing composition to include what they feel should, and should not, be in the frame. Each photograph that is taken is just one of an infinite number of angles and f-stops centering on careful and creative compositions balanced by the skill of managing the mechanism. A photographer cultivates a keen vision of the world as seen through the lens of the camera.

Margaret Miles, in her Image As Insight, reminds us that religion too has often been described as a “way of seeing”[4] not just with actual eyesight, but with insight. A vision that peers beyond the common surface and into the depths of existence. This movement from eyesight to insight “implies perceiving a quality of the sensible word, a numinosity, a ‘certain slant of light,’ in which other human beings, the natural world, and objects appear in their full beauty, transformed.”[5]

Both photography and religion have been described as “ways of seeing.” For Peter Berger, photography is concerned with the creative compositions of light and matter, texture and shadow, angles and f-stops. Yet for Margaret Miles, religion uses the same eyesight as insight into the Light beyond, behind, or within the matter itself.

Perhaps there is a similar thread of awareness between the photographer and the religious person…always looking for beauty.

[1] Berger, 10.
[2] Berger, 10.
[3] Preble, 153.
[4] Miles, 2.
[5] Miles, 2.