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    Arrival of Modernism

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    Fasra Chiong
    Modernism emerged in the late 19th century and led to a radical change in the conception of art's function, moving from realistic depictions to emphasizing the medium itself. Clement Greenberg's 1960 essay defined modern art as using the inherent aspects of a discipline, like painting's flat surface, to critique the discipline. This definition was applied to Abstract Expressionism and justified non-representational art. Later theorists expanded on Greenberg's definition, and his views remain important to understanding 20th century art movements, which increasingly critiqued and incorporated popular culture into art.

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    Arrival of Modernism

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    Fasra Chiong
    20 views2 pages
    Modernism emerged in the late 19th century and led to a radical change in the conception of art's function, moving from realistic depictions to emphasizing the medium itself. Clement Greenberg's 1960 essay defined modern art as using the inherent aspects of a discipline, like painting's flat surface, to critique the discipline. This definition was applied to Abstract Expressionism and justified non-representational art. Later theorists expanded on Greenberg's definition, and his views remain important to understanding 20th century art movements, which increasingly critiqued and incorporated popular culture into art.

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    Modernism emerged in the late 19th century and led to a radical change in the conception of art's function, moving from realistic depictions to emphasizing the medium itself. Clement Greenberg's 1960 essay defined modern art as using the inherent aspects of a discipline, like painting's flat surface, to critique the discipline. This definition was applied to Abstract Expressionism and justified non-representational art. Later theorists expanded on Greenberg's definition, and his views remain important to understanding 20th century art movements, which increasingly critiqued and incorporated popular culture into art.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    20 views2 pages

    Arrival of Modernism

    Uploaded by

    Fasra Chiong
    Modernism emerged in the late 19th century and led to a radical change in the conception of art's function, moving from realistic depictions to emphasizing the medium itself. Clement Greenberg's 1960 essay defined modern art as using the inherent aspects of a discipline, like painting's flat surface, to critique the discipline. This definition was applied to Abstract Expressionism and justified non-representational art. Later theorists expanded on Greenberg's definition, and his views remain important to understanding 20th century art movements, which increasingly critiqued and incorporated popular culture into art.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Arrival of Modernism

    Composition with Red Blue and Yellow (1930) by Piet


    Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944)
    The arrival of Modernism in the late 19th century lead to a
    radical break in the conception of the function of art,[118] and
    then again in the late 20th century with the advent
    of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article
    "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of
    characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the
    discipline itself".[119] Greenberg originally applied this idea to
    the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way
    to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract
    painting:
    Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using
    art to conceal art; modernism used art to call attention to art.
    The limitations that constitute the medium of painting—the
    flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the
    pigment—were treated by the Old Masters as negative
    factors that could be acknowledged only implicitly or
    indirectly. Under Modernism these same limitations came to
    be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged
    openly.[119]
    After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged,
    such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda
    Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only
    originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set
    of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important
    to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements
    of the 20th century and early 21st century.[120][121]
    Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and
    influential through work including and possibly critiquing
    popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s,
    1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism
    beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including
    fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.[122][123]
    Duchamp once proposed that art is any activity of any kind-
    everything. However, the way that only certain activities are
    classified today as art is a social construction.[124] There is
    evidence that there may be an element of truth to this.
    In The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Larry Shiner
    examines the construction of the modern system of the arts,
    i.e. fine art. He finds evidence that the older system of the
    arts before our modern system (fine art) held art to be any
    skilled human activity; for example, Ancient Greek society
    did not possess the term art, but techne. Techne can be
    understood neither as art or craft, the reason being that the
    distinctions of art and craft are historical products that came
    later on in human history. Techne included painting,
    sculpting and music, but also cooking,
    medicine, horsemanship, geometry, carpentry, prophecy,
    and farming, etc.[125]

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