Art Blog - Art In History

This post is another in my series on the origins of modern art, and my last, at least for a while: I'm not sure who is listening. I hope the title at least is intriguing. I could easily have called it "Modern Art and the Problem of Style", but this title seems sexier! The problem with a sexy title is of course the letdown. What is the innocence whose loss I see as a major impetus toward modern art? It is the innocence of the artist of his place in the history of art. The villain is historical awareness, and the consequent impossibility of producing art "innocently", without the burden of an everpresent knowledge of one's artistic past. This became a huge concern in the 19th century in Europe… Continue reading… 5 comments

The moment at the beginning of the 20th century when artists made the lead to pure non-representational art is a fascinating one. It is the culmination of a number of trends over the previous 100-200 years, each interesting in itself, and together creating a uniquely self-aware moment in art. First, I would like to register my complaint about the term "abstract", which has come to be applied indiscriminately to non-representational art. The term describes very well the process which led up to the leap, but is misleading when applied to "pure abstraction". Abstraction implies a process of generalizing and simplifying from the specific; it presumes a reality from which essentials are being drawn… Continue reading… 4 comments

So at last I am getting to Delacroix, as promised several weeks ago. Though in fact, I am going to feature Delacroix and his great rival Ingres, inheritor of the Mantle of David as the defender of classical orthodoxy. As I've said before, I think the art of this period is vastly enriched by its context in history, both social and aesthetic. I've called the period the "second French revolution"; in fact, in Paris at least, it was a period of continual upheaval. The Parisian populace took to the streets at the least provocation, tearing up the coblestones and bringing the city to a halt. Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the people" marks the major uprising in 1830. In fact, so ungovernable was the city that in mid century Housmann was commissioned to build the great Parisian avenues..… Continue reading… 1 comment