Art and Culture: Critical Essays

This book contains a very important essay on the art and aesthetics, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." In it, Greenberg traces artistic development in the industrial age, and labels commercial art products turned out for the newly affluent masses kitsch. He extolls the virtues of modernism and the avant-garde and the only art for connoisseurs worthy of the term art. I don't necessarily agree with the perspective, but it was extremely influential in the mid to late twentieth century art scene. Typical of the period, the philosophy leverages Marxist class analysis, which isn't necessarily the wrong approach given the sociological fact of rising incomes and more leisure time as a consequence of industrialization in the US and Western Europe in the period. I am more forgiving in terms of defining art for two reasons: (1) art does not necessarily have to be either novel or achieve of teleological goal to still be art, (2) the modernism he extolls had some great artists, but it eventually exhausted itself.

These essays are essential reading for anyone truly interested in better understanding and appreciating "Art." Greenberg's knowledge and opinions are incredibly insightful and well informed. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subjects, their origins and influences, techniques and styles. These essays are indispensable as a basis for developing a deeper understanding of artists (painters, poets, writers and sculpturers) in the modern world.

so far so good, as advertised, satisfied customer, thanks.

One may agree or disagree with Clement Greenberg's ideas, such as the importance of the medium (paint, canvas) over the content (subject matter), the fact that avant-garde art is by essence elitist and preoccupies itself with itself (art for art's sake), as a reaction against the ever invading and nefarious presence of kitsch (art for the masses), or the idea that what matters is the end-product, the work of art itself, as an object, with physical characteristics (what he calls "the resistance of the medium"). Yet, what remains from these seminal essays is an original definition of modernism, a vision of American art from the 1950's that was to shape much of what was to be created in New York in the following decade, and words that turn art criticism into an art in its own right.

Greenberg is the best writer on Modern art. The longer essays are indispensable information. They can be read over and over again.

excellent information, but difficult read for someone with no background.

Very good selection of essays giving an overview of Clement Greenberg's thoughts and philosophy.

Clement Greenberg, who died in 1994, is still considered by many to have been the greatest American art critic of the 20th Century. Even today his work continues to be discussed, supported and attacked by many of the cognoscenti of the art world. "Art and Culture" is a collection of his essays that he edited for publication in 1961. The book is divided into five parts: culture in general; art in Paris; art in general; art in the United States; and literature. Most of the essays are quite short and eminently readable. In an essay on T.S. Eliot, Greenberg praised the critical skills of the poet, noting that Eliot speaks of the facts of a work rather than an interpretation, and this was the same approach that Greenberg took. Greenberg's basic thesis was that the essential quality of painting that distinguished it from other arts was the surface of the work, and that modern painting was moving more and more from looking into the depth of the image to a concern with the plane of the painting, citing among other things, the abandonment of perspective, cubism's attempt to reduce the subject to a single plane, and the disappearance of shading which gives depth to a picture. For those who have never considered this thesis, applying it to styles from cubism to abstract expressionism to color field painting should certainly provides new insights into such work. Even if one doesn't agree with Greenberg's thesis, his writing is so clear and easy to follow that it is worth reading just for his style. After the convoluted writing of critics like Michael Fried, it is a relief to find that thought about art need not be obscure. The essays include short pieces on artists from Renoir and Cezanne to Hans Hoffman and Milton Avery. There are also longer essays like the famous "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" that stirred up lengthy and famous continuing discussions by critics and art historians, like T.J. Clark's "Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art." It may be that the battle ground has shifted in art criticism with the return to more representational forms of painting and post-modernism's attack on the purpose of art itself, but an understanding of these current skirmishes in the culture wars will certainly benefit from an understanding of modernism in painting, and no one has done that more clearly or succinctly than Clement Greenberg.

本書は、アメリカを代表する美術批評家Clement Greenberg（1909-1994）の論文集。初版は1961年。 Greenbergはスイスの美術史家Heinrich Wölfflin（1864 - 1945）に影響を受けて、作品の物語性や現実再現性ではなく形式・形態の分析を通じて作品を解釈するフォーマリズム批評を展開したことで知られている。たとえば本書所収の論文 “The Later Monet”（1956）は、それまで評価の低かった晩年のモネを、抽象絵画にいたる絵画の発展段階のなかに位置づけることで再評価したことで有名だ。 また本書には、Greenbergの代表的論文 “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” （1939）も収録されている。ハイ・アートと大衆文化という二項対立で説明される彼の図式は、マルクス主義時代に書かれたこの論文に顕著に現れており、転向後も続くことになる。 本書は、書籍としては唯一Greenbergの意思で出版されたでものであり、その点でも貴重である。そのほかにもアートだけでなく文学批評も含まれている。 以下は目次。 Culture in General 1. Avant-Garde and Kitsch 2. The Plight of Culture Art in Paris 3. The Later Monet 4. Renoir 5. Cezanne 6. Picasso at Seventy-Five 7. Collage 8. Georges Rouault 9. Braque 10. Marc Chagall 11. Master Leger 12. Jacques Lipchitz 13. Kandinsky 14. Soutine 15. The School of Paris: 1946 16. Contribution to a Symposium Art in General 17. “Primitive” Painting 18. Abstract, Representation, and so forth 19. Partisan Review “Art Chronicle”: 1952 20. The crisis of the Easel Picture 21. Modernist Sculpture, Its Pictorial Past 22. Wyndham Lewis Against Abstract Art 23. Byzantine Parallels 24. On the Role Nature in Modernist Painting 25. Thomas Eakins 26. John Martin 27. Winslow Homer 28. Hans Hofmann 29.Milton Avery 30.David Smith 31.“American-Type” Painting 32.The Late Thirties in New York Literature 33.T.S. Eliot: A book Review 34.A Victorian Novel 35.Bertolot Brecht’s Poetry 36.Kafka’s Jewishness

Classic book much used for research. Speedily delivered.

Bargain price. Quick delivery.

An important critic but the language he uses is a little obtuse and his Marxism more than a little dated but overall interesting from a historic point of view.