PARTISAN REVIEW
was being done in America; he has exposed officialdom at times when
exposure was imperative; one has instinctively felt that he would line
up on the side of right. In the face of this it may seem ungracious to
infer that his aesthetic appraisals usually manage to be wrong. However,
it must be understood that knowingly-presented superficialities can
confuse the issue even more than the obvious ignorance of the journal–
ists. And worst of all, the artists, upon whom the avant-garde critic
depends for his own development, are unable to help him out much
either; as an example, when Greenberg's truly disgraceful report on
American art (in
Horizon)
was ridiculed by
Time-for
all the wrong
reasons of course-no one felt obliged to defend it.
"The Decline of Cubism" (March PR) comes near to being a
typical example of that irresponsible criticism we have been discussing.
One must stretch a point to call it criticism at all-rather it is an ap–
praisal-sheet built around a thesis. So deftly and inaccurately are the
appraisals contrived that one suspects the thesis of having been the
starting-point-especially as several names that do not follow the pattern
get left off the lists entirely. The field of contemporary art is given the
semblance of a tournament. Umpire Greenberg charts the last rounds
somewhat as follows: the expected champions (Picasso, Braque, Arp, etc.)
have lost their punch, and no new blood is coming along-so to every–
one's surprise, a couple of Old Timers (Matisse, Bonnard), who have
been relying all these years on poky lobs and drop shots rather than
spectacular rushes to the net, were the ones to reach the finals after
all. I do not feel that anything as elusive as the ultimate values of
contemporary art can be graded as simply as this, certainly not without
considerable substantiation. And such a prearranged result might prove
highly irritating to a different referee, who thought he saw Matisse pass
out of the tournament in love sets around 1917.*
It would have been rewarding if Greenberg had indicated
in what
ways
the works of our losers have declined since the thirties. What he
has cited for us are the external events that
account for
a decline already
presupposed. And
if
he had been clearer on this point I think his thesis
might have been undermined at the start.
To clarify this point I must pass on to the next one, which discloses
Greenberg in the act of lumping together Cubism and Abstract art.
• I hope that it will be understood that my distaste for the recent "supreme
achievements" which Greenberg credits to Matisse and Bonnard is on the grounds
of
quality,
and
not
because I find them insufficiently abstract. While speaking
of quality, for the critical booby prize of 1948 I should like to submit Greenberg's
statement that Beckmann is painting better than Picasso today!
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