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PARTISAN REVIEW
in drawing ordinary letterforms than in the study of anatomy or leaf
forms. Greenberg absorbed this distinction between modernism and
abstraction via collage rather than a feeling for the fluid calligraphy
implicit in surrealist automatic drawing. Reviewing a collage exhibition
at the Museum of Modern Art in
1948,
Greenberg responded to col–
lage's sources in cubism: "The fictive depths of the picture were drained,
and its action brought forward and identified with the immediate, phys–
ical surface of the canvas, board, or paper. By pasting a piece of news–
paper lettering on the canvas one called attention to the physical reality
of the work of art and made that reality the same as the art."
Abstraction is virtually a synonym for the creative process. To abstract
is to reduce to essentials, striking the bull's eye of the target. If artists
keep looking up the word "abstract" in a dictionary, it is because they
keep forgetting what it means. Some prefer the definition as the structure
of pure thinking, like a dynamically balanced mathematical equation.
The isolation of the problem as subject matter, distinguished from the
subject matter of the object, creates another problem: painting itself
becomes recognized as more about painting than writing about painting.
Greenberg assumed that abstraction,
to
be "disposed of," must be
"assimilated," instead of being left on the margin. He saw how the
Renaissance painters, copying the pre-Renaissance painters, invented
themselves. Picasso, Matisse, Klee, and Mir6 showed that the ideals of
Western civilization could co-exist with equal dignity with the art of
Africa and Mesopotamia, the American Indians and the Egyptians. Each
culture presents a clear sense of the hierarchy of proportion through a
sophisticated play of intervals.
In
place of the object the abstract artist
asserted his inheritance of old-world techniques that he was incapable
of using
to
the fullest power. The beautiful accident, automatic drawing,
and improvisation are modern inspirations in art as momentous as the
discovery of oil paint.
Greenberg worried that the pursuit of a purely abstract art might
result at last in work that is arid, decorative, and dehumanized. He per–
ceived the genesis, the turning point, through which the abstract became
manifest: "In turning his attention away from subject matter of com–
mon experience, the poet or artist turns it upon the medium of his own
craft." This focus would insure that the avant-garde would lose a mid–
dle-class popularity contest. Greenberg focussed on distinguishing
drt
from
not-art
as absolutely separate categories. The worst of the best
would always triumph over the best of the worst: "If the avant-garde
imitates the processes of art, kitsch imitates its effects." Greenberg pack–
aged his anxiety in the concept of kitsch, experienced as a virulent type
