Hilton Kramer
THE NEW AMERICAN PAINTING
The problem which American painters face today is roughly
similar to that which faced Pound, Eliot, and their contemporaries in
poetry forty years ago, with this crucial difference: four decades have
removed most of the glittering possibilities without providing anything
to take their place. Pound and his generation could exploit the whole
European tradition to their purposes as well as exploit contemporary
Europe as the setting for their labors. Forty years later it does not
seem likely that the European tradition can be used in a new way,
and Europe itself is less a setting for expatriate artistic activity than for
the spending of American tourist dollars.
The American painter confronts this situation with a curious back–
ground. The genera tion of painters comparable to Pound's was not
American but the international School of Paris. With the possible excep–
tion of Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and perhaps a few others in
isolated moments of their careers, there is little modern American paint–
ing
with which he can feel his art continuous. And all this is complicated
for him further by the fact that European Post-Impressionism and the
School of Paris had been brought to this country to fill the vacuum,
and have in the process come to dominate the American art world in
a way which does not have the creative relevance it used to have, but
which flourishes out of proportion to its relevance because of its "of–
ficial" position in the museums and in the dealers' galleries where it is
sold.
The new abstract painting which has come into prominence in
America in the last few years-sometimes called Abstract Expressionism,
and now called American "Action" painting by Harold Rosenberg in
the December 1952
Art
News-continues to reflect all the problematic
aspects of this situation. In fact, its problems have lately been more
interesting than its paintings, for where only a short time ago it
seemed that this group might become the vital heir to the European
fortune, it now seems more likely that it will be another casualty of
that perennial depression out of which American painting has not yet
been able to bring itself.
