ART CHRONICLE
THE NEW DECADE
For the first time since the painters around Robert Henri
formed themselves into a group, called "The Eight," American art has
had in the Abstract Expressionist painting of the last ten years a move–
ment characterized by artistic coherence and widespread influence. The
impression made by this movement has been the more emphatic because
of an absence of significant movements in the forty years which separate
"The Eight" from the dazzling adventure of the postwar years. There
were important American artists in this period- particularly Dove,
Marin, Benn, and Hartley-but they were made to work in a milieu
so isolated that their importance is even now badly understood. In this
period the only movement, so-called, was the aborted social realism
of the 'thirties, whose dubious legacy to a later generation consists ex–
clusively of a retrograde taste from which certain museum officials and
collectors have been unable to shake loose.
This absence of movements has been an important,
if
negative,
factor in the proliferation of Abstract Expressionist influence, for the
capacious energy it has displayed in dominating the artistic culture of
the last decade has been in direct proportion to the void it was invited
to fill; and only a full-fledged movement, animated by audacious talents
and what seem like far-reaching ideas, striving tc:;>ward common goals,
could hope to build the momentum which the situation called for.
This momentum could be traced to another source as well: to the
belief that the artistic coherence of Abstract Expressionism derived from
a radical impulse. For this reason alone it could scarcely avoid making
a profound mark on the public sensibility, for the fact is that the cul–
tural life of the last decade has not been distinguished by an adherence
to radical ideas, and any artistic movement which appeared to embody
a radical spirit was bound to ignite that smoldering nostalgia for the
avant garde
which everywhere characterizes the artistic life of the West
today.
There is a sense in which this radicalism has been authentic, for
it has extended easel painting to the brink of dissolution ; but like many
forms of American radicalism, it has also been provincial. This was
true of "The Eight," and it is also true of the Abstract Expressionists.
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