BOOKS
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For Greenberg, Cubism remains the most significant style of
modern art for having invented a truly new visual structure, one,
moreover, offering a pictorial rebuttal to Renaissance illusion . So
strong is this belief that Greenberg tends to be prejudicial , some–
times ignoring a valid stylistic lineage competing with the Cubist
geneology he derives for his artists. (Pollock, one may argue , is es–
sentially Impressionist in syntax, Expressionist in semantics.) In this
retrospective of collected essays, however, one sees Greenberg's radi–
cal view of modern art unfold with unexpected and ramified
thoughtfulness. Here is no piece of legislation upheld without excep–
tion , and typically Greenberg will award partial favorable judg–
ments in consideration of lesser talents and problematic careers .
Despite himself, Greenberg's practical criticism is more forgiving
than his systematic aesthetics .
In any event, ideology has not been the stumbling block for
Greenberg that it has for some art critics . John Berger, for instance,
believes art for art's sake to be mere entertainment - its aesthetics ,
an unconscionable detachment from politics and society. He is thus
forced by his ideological stance to elevate Leger above Cezanne as
the superior artist. Greenberg does not fall victim to this sociological
ploy . Refusing to lead with his ideology, Greenberg rightly main–
tains that Cezanne is the superior artist for a style implemented
more radically and strenuously, his avant-garde painting totally be–
yond the appeasement of culture even today. In contrast to Ce–
zanne , by courting accessibility and communication with society,
Leger compromises his so-called radical position . Then , too, enter–
tainment descends on Leger in another way . In a 1941 review of
Leger, Greenberg sadly ruminates on the truth that it is difficult for
an abstract artist to keep fresh . "By force of repetition ," Leger's work
has become "facile and empty . . . . When the abstract artist grows
tired , he becomes an interior decorator-which is still, however, to
be more creative than an academic painter."
Consciously or not , Greenberg assumes the position of art his–
torian Henri Focillon, who believed in the soundness of structure,
with the concomitant decadence of ingratiating substitutes and their
"merely decorative" effects . To Greenberg, an artist becomes merely
decorative through a failure of visual nerve or by the intention to in–
gratiate himself with society. Flash forward twenty years later: will
Greenberg have the gumption to say these words to color-field artists
whose work has grown soft from facile rehearsals of spatial ideas?
Will Greenberg turn from this gentrification of art to at least some
