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ART CRITICS

The Spokesmen

In the art world of the 1950s, critics had an exaggerated importance. The art itself was new and difficult to understand, so art lovers, even artists themselves, turned to the critics for direction. Two men, representing different theories of abstract art, dominated Avantgarde art criticism of the day. They were Clement Greenberg, art critic for the Nation from 1945 to 1950 and associate editor of Commentary from 1945 to 1957, and Harold Rosenberg, a regular contributor to Art News (and reputed creator of Smokey the Bear for the national campaign against forest fires). They not only represented different views of art, they championed different celebrity artists. Rosenberg considered Willem de Kooning to be the preeminent artist of the day. Greenberg championed Jackson Pollock. Between them they popularized—even commercialized—an art form that was introspective above all and seemed a most unlikely subject for general interest.

Clement Greenberg

Greenberg was considered the bully of the art world. He was dogmatic, irreverent, and overbearing. He was also successful in championing the cause of abstract art as the only defensible artistic form of the age—a historical inevitability, he called it. He observed that art in America after World War II had no coherent philosophy, and he set out to provide one. He argued that American artists should forsake the early modern obsession with spatial planes and focus on what he called a flat surface. He insisted that the surrealists were "too literary" and that American art ought not refer the viewer to images or ideas outside the scope of the work itself. He talked about quality of line and paint as if he were quoting from some master rule book. Because Greenberg seemed so sure of himself and communicated his seemingly simplified view of abstract art so effectively, he was able to convince museum curators, gallery-owners, magazine editors, and the reading public that he was teaching them truths about art that they needed to know—and buy. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for the popularization of abstract art in the 1950s.

Harold Rosenberg

Rosenberg considered Greenberg to be a simplistic philistine. Of the two, most people in the art world conceded that Rosenberg was better equipped intellectually, had a better understanding of the concepts that drove American abstract artists, and was more sympathetic to their art. Rosenberg explained abstract art as the record of an event—an encounter between the artist and, for painters, the canvas. The purpose of art was uninhibited, sincere self-expression, and the quality of the artwork was measured by the degree of creativity it exhibited. The artist who accepted rules or preconceptions about how and what to paint compromised his creativity. By these ground rules such concepts as subject, form, composition, and shape were simply types of limitations on the artist's self-expression. Rosenberg expressed his ideas forcefully, but his prose style was almost as abstract as the painting he described. Many inhabitants of the art world complained that they had no idea what he was saying—except that it seemed clear that he was excluding Pollock from the gallery of serious abstract artists and Greenberg from the audience of perceptive critics.

Greenberg and Pollock

Greenberg was a promoter. In 1949 he announced that Pollock was the greatest painter in America, a statement that attracted attention because it seemed so outrageous at the time. As a result, in August Life magazine published a tongue-in-cheek pictorial essay on the artist, "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?" In November 1949 Pollock showed his paintings at a small, overflowing gallery in Manhattan and made his first substantial sales. His career was launched, and Greenberg laid claim to the title greatest living art critic in the United States.

Rosenberg's Attack

Rosenberg disputed the claim. In the December 1952 Art News, he published "The American Action Painters," calculated to discredit Greenberg and Pollock. His forum drew the attention of the art world rather than the general public, to whom Greenberg took his argument, but Rosenberg was nonetheless brilliant in attacking Greenberg's ideas about art, Rosenberg insisted that any critic who goes about declaring art movements is promoting values that are not shared by the best artists.

Synthesis

It took both a Greenberg and a Rosenberg to accomplish the acceptance of abstract art that occurred in the 1950s—Greenberg to make the pitch and to create a celebrity artist to represent the movement, Rosenberg to provide an intellectual justification. They were antagonists, and they spoke to different audiences, but together promoted the public awareness of a body of art that may well have gone unappreciated without their attention.