Marjorie Welish
FLESH AND THE DEVIL IN FIGURE PAINTING
Sensationalism has introduced into painting a tantaliz–
ing ingredient that insists-since this is in its nature-that we
take notice.
Not an international style so much as an international con–
sensus, sensationalism in painting is flourishing partly because
of the global promotion of neoexpressionism, which is often sen–
sational in form or content, but also because it can proceed un–
impeded by artistic composition from minimal and conceptual
art, modes commonly said to be exhausted of vitality. But aban–
donment of these styles, because they are repetitious or second-rate,
has as much to do with the saturation of the art market and atten–
tion by critics who once favored this art
to
newer or more stimulat–
ing visions. By way of reaction, sensationalism gleefully advertises
sensory and psychological excesses, whereas minimalism espoused
impersonal rationality. Romantic in impulse, sensational art is,
however, less extreme in its exploration of sensuality or subjectiv–
ity. Rather one finds an intriguing and problematic collaboration
between romantic expressivity-with its headlong, unreflective,
and uncensored primitivism-and expressivity as received wis–
dom, which foreordains what it purports to discover. For all its
ostensible excitement, much recent sensational figure painting is
quite conventional, though the energy of sex and violence would
beguile us into believing otherwise.
Although conspicuous in recent painting, sensationalism
has ancient cultural roots.
It
is integral to melodrama, whether
the verbal melodrama of Euripedes or the visual melodrama
conveyed in the Hellenistic sculpture
Laocoon,
whose writhing
gestures, writhing facial expressions, and writhing props spell
out the mythic heroes' suffering and fate. Sensationalism further
animates baroque sculpture, the most famous example of which
is Bernini's
The Ecstasy of St. Teresa,
where natural light en–
hances the illusion of the sculptural tableau seen in perspective
This anicle was first presented as a lecture delivered al the Cooper Union, New
York City, 1981.
