ART CHRONICLE
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fulfill the vision in his mind's eye," now "in the increase of facility, his
zeal to work diminished; brilliance of style took away some of his in–
centive." Was it that the approach of full mastery brought home to the
artist the recognition that painting, as long as it remained art, could
never transcribe one's emotion in all its immediate, "existential," extra–
aesthetic truth? Art demands of the artist that he censor or immolate a
good part of his feeling for the very sake of art-in the public interest,
as it were. Art is ultimately social, its medium social-ness incarnate.
Soutine may have felt an unconscious sense of defeat as it dawned
upon him that bohemian individualism could not be literally and com–
pletely acted out in art. That to try to do so meant the destruction of
the quality of form which is its essence and reality. And that he had
bought his "brilliance of style" by renouncing the fullness of his am–
bition and emotion. Maybe this caused him to despair. I think some–
thing similar motivated Rimbaud when he gave up writing.
Clement Greenberg
