This is a follow-up to “On Greenberg (Part 1 of 2): Dispelling Miscomprehension.” in which I sought to clarify three aspects of Greenberg’s attitudes and writings that are often misunderstood. In what follows, Part 2 of 2, I cite five essays by Greenberg, likely less-read though each remains relevant to artists today (and in future) as a silver lining despite constant criticism of Greenberg’s better-known writings. Greenberg’s writings display a subtlety of writing (underlying the bold pronouncements) and a keen perception of artworks, techniques, and an artist’s place in history. Most artists miss this because they are offended by short excerpts they “had to read whilst in school,” selected by authors and professors to imply Greenberg was doctrinaire and dogmatic. In some of these essays, Greenberg’s skills as a connoisseur and critic are recalled in hopes others might be as perceptive and passionate; in others, Greenberg’s ideas are reinforced, as valid today as decades ago. These essays, and many more, are included in the four-volume set Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism.

1941: “Art Chronicle: On Paul Klee (1870-1940)”
This early essay demonstrates that Greenberg, who studied literature and foreign languages in university, was rooted in empirical observation. Written as an obituary of the noted Swiss-German abstract artist, Greenberg incorporates an illuminating description and evaluation of stronger and weaker aspects of Klee’s art. From the artist’s chief asset, rooted as he was in a provincial folk art tradition, to his accomplishments as a mature artist, Greenberg’s descriptions of style and technique are precise, the context he provides for Klee amongst his contemporaries is well-informed, and his evaluations are even-handed – sometimes positive, sometimes negative. In a closing that seems prescient of his own life’s work, Greenberg writes of Klee: “He was one more illustration of that bias towards … asserting the singular emotions and states of mind of the individual to be more important and true than that which is held to be objective reality.”

1948: “Irrelevance versus Irresponsibility”
During the spring of 1946, W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, two literary critics and philosophers, published their revolutionary essay “The Intentional Fallacy” in Sewanee Review. What is revolutionary was the scholars’ insistence that the meaning of literary works must be gleaned from internal evidence alone, not external or contextual evidence which might lead to the mistaken impression that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. Greenberg’s “Irrelevance versus Irresponsibility,” published two years later in Partisan Review, embraces Wimsatt and Beardsley’s thinking as applicable to criticism of visual arts. Greenberg laments, “Whereas the point of music qua art is usually unmistakable enough, in practice if not in theory, that of painting and sculpture is more often than not missed by the very people who sincerely enjoy them.” What is the point of painting and sculpture? “Pigment and its abstract combinations on canvas are as important as delineated forms; matter – colors and the surfaces on which they are placed – is as important as ideas.” Shouldn’t people look and perceive, not wait for words to define the meaning?

1951: “Cézanne and the Unity of Modern Art”
The concept of the linear progression of art stems from German art historian Heinrich Wölfflin’s 1915 study Principles of Art History. Looking especially at the shift from Renaissance to Baroque styles, Wölfflin argued that each artist has a personal style, but there are also national styles and period styles which rise and fall cyclically. Without doubt, some artists have had more influence on those who follow. Greenberg, adopting Wölfflin’s concept of the linear progression of art, identified Manet and Cézanne as the two apostles of the modern art movement. In this essay, Greenberg defines Cézanne’s role – trapped between an inclination toward tradition and a stumble into innovation – as follows: “he wanted a composition and design like that of the High Renaissance painter to be imposed on the ‘raw’ chromatic material supplied by the Impressionist notation of visual experience.” This essay is Greenberg’s astonishing analysis of an unintentional art revolutionary.

1961: “The Identity of Art”
The opening line of this brief essay is Greenberg’s hypothesis: “In the long run there are only two kinds of art: the good and the bad.” Modern and contemporary aesthetic judgment must be both sophisticated and discriminating as there are so many makers of objects with aesthetic intent. He writes: “Quality in art can be neither ascertained nor proved by logic or discourse.” Yet, while the discrimination of good and bad quality in art is empirical and subjective, it is borne out in the long-term by a consensus of taste. Ultimately, those with more experience looking at and evaluating art develop a better sense of aesthetic merit (or lack of merit). Elitist? Maybe. But is there not widespread belief that some people have good taste and others do not?

1969: “Avant-Garde Attitudes: New Art in the Sixties”
Before postmodern thought and style were described in Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock (1970), Thomas Kuhn’s The Structures of Scientific Revolutions (1972), or Jean-Francois Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: a report on knowledge (1979), Greenberg had already identified the increased pace of invention in the visual arts which led to the plurality and hybridization of style(s), the de-emphasis of aesthetic merit, and the (over-)emphasis of concept and method. And yet he insists that the history of art, the all-too-human attempt to categorize everything and record for future generation only the significant, will determine what unifies the multiplicity (in postmodern art before it was called such) and will include only examples of the highest quality. “To this extent, art remains unchangeable.” Greenberg continues, “Its quality will always depend on inspiration, and it will never be able to take effect as art except through quality.”[10]

Bear in mind, Greenberg was an assiduous writer. These are five examples of hundreds as he reviewed art exhibitions (and exhibition catalogues) of past and contemporary artists; literary, musical and theatrical works; and even dipped into economic and political commentary. That he was assiduous is not an assertion of the rightness of his writing, but indicates the significance of his voice at a time when few others wrote as much or ranged as broadly.||

Jay Heuman