The
Beginnings Perhaps Cezanne
simplified the object as far as it could be simplified. In object painting, Cezanne abstracted as
far as he could. Beyond this was only a
sort of idealism: the attempt to paint ideas rather than objects. But, as Emile Zola said, "Oh, for
pity's sake, no painting of the soul. What is more tiresome than the depiction
of ideas. That an artist place a
thought inside a head, yes! but that
the head be there solidly painted and in such a way that it will defy the
passage of centuries." If the
purifications of Modernism have proven anything, it is that form, abstracted
completely from any visual system, cannot communicate anything, much less the
aesthetically significant emotions Bell is so fond of. Calling up aesthetic emotions visually
without any visually recognizable symbols, or objects, becomes like trying to
call up sexual emotions in a man without recourse to woman, or the idea of
woman. People respond aesthetically to
art because they respond aesthetically to the world; formal qualities—line,
color, etc.—exist in both places, and
art's attempt to set up its own stimulus/response pattern exclusive of the
world cannot succeed. To try to
separate, as Bell does, the aesthetic emotion from other emotions—sexual, among others—may succeed, to a certain
degree, but it will not enrich either life or art. It will leave both dessicated and hopeless. A man may be able to completely separate his
aesthetic appreciation for a woman's "significant form" from his
desire for her, but his art and his love will both suffer. In addition, Bell's
belittling of form as only a "means of suggesting emotion" in some
paintings, as opposed to being an "object of emotion" in abstracted
paintings, overly limits the purview of art.
Bell calls the former "descriptive," and dismisses them as
being illustration, not art. Before I
object, let me give an example of what I think he means. There are two ways to call up the emotions
as they are revealed when confronted with, say, death, or the idea of death:
one may create a scene of someone dying, such as Rubens' Christ on the Cross;
or one may paint a yawning black circle in a white field, as Rothko has
done. For Bell, only the latter uses
form as an "object of emotion" and can be called art. All "descriptive" painting, no
matter how good, is less than art (and is made obsolete by photojournalism
anyway, we are told). I find that Bell's definitions
help very little, though. He never gets
to the crux of the problem. What does
it mean for an abstraction to be "an object of emotion"? I can't say and neither can he. And even if Cezanne's or Rothko's
abstractions are objects of
emotion, does this status really give them precedence over the "suggesting
of emotion"? Is the emotional
experience so much richer that it bumps all previous art into a lower
category? Of course not. A completely abstract painting that acts as
an object of emotion must do so as a symbol.
The color or shape of the abstraction must call up some emotion in a
symbolic way—that is, by suggesting something else. But art as pure symbol, or pure abstraction, can be terribly
limiting because it requires using symbols that are clearly recognizable, or
educating the viewer on the artist's use of symbols. Clear and distinct symbols are not easy to come by, and any
symbolism that has to be explained undercuts the whole artistic process. In addition, symbolic art excels non-symbolic
art only in the treatment of ideas that cannot be "described". "Death," for instance, allows for
no descriptive treatment (except perhaps personification, which is also really
symbolism rather than description).
"A person dying" and "death" are not really the same
thing. But to substitute a symbol, or
an abstraction, for an object like a human being or a pear, that can be
described, is not an improvement. I
have never seen an abstracted human figure, or a symbol of a figure, that was
as human as one of Michelangelo's descriptions. I have never seen a pear abstracted further
than a Cezanne pear that kept its "pearness". And if an artist wants to suggest a human
emotion, such as sadness, how is it possible to do this without recourse to a
sad human face or a sad human situation?
If "sadness" can be abstracted or symbolized at all, it can be
only with some measurable loss of immediacy.
Disconnection from the "real" world, the
"descriptive" world, through abstraction or symbolism, cannot be more
effective as regards the expression of most psychological states because these
states are tied to the world and are meaningless without it. Of course, the idea of "death" is
one very important exception. Death is
this disconnection from the real world, or at least it is thought or feared to
be. The abstracted idea of death may
therefore be expressed by an abstraction.
But does the success of this abstraction supercede the success of
description, as Bell claims? I don't
think so. For where Modernism sometimes
gains, it also loses. Abstraction
cannot tie the idea of death to specific human emotions. But a decriptive treatment of death can
express sadness or fear or joy or expectation, depending on the subject and the
artist's desire. It can tie a viewer's
emotion to the described world, which is understood to be the real world. Ruben's Christ on the Cross, as a
description of death, ties you not only to death but to all the emotions of
Christ's death, both Christ's emotions and the emotions of Christians. An abstract treatment of death can only
separate the viewer from the world of emotions. Bell's claim that abstracted form is an "object of
emotion" is true only when that emotion is understood to be the bliss
of oneness with Being, or whatever you want to call it in your own
terminology. To some this blissful
state is the object of life, the only true "emotion". To others it is the negation of emotion, the
negation of life. To some, Rothko's
painting, as a symbol of the totality of life, light and dark, is an example of
the highest art. For others,
descriptive painting that expresses in one form or another the specific allures
of the light and the dark, their worldly emanations and the human responses to
them, is more interesting. For
me, life demands the latter response: elevating abstraction at the expense of
realism, as Bell wants to do, is tantamount to encouraging a blissful
immobility of the Eastern type. Sleep,
meditation, or staring at a Rothko painting may be restful, but an obsession
with remaining in this Zenlike state is to be avoided, I think. Abstraction is a viable art, certainly, but
it is not the only art any more than yoga is the only exercise or alpha is the
only brain wave. Besides, if I am right
and abstraction is not an "object of emotion" but, as in Rothko, an
object of unemotion—a separation from the worldly—Bell cannot argue the
precedence of abstraction without falling into a reductio ad absurdum. He cannot logically desire the perfection of
his theory. Pure or complete
abstraction (as opposed to Cezanne's very partial abstraction, which still
remains charmingly worldly) implies complete disconnection from the world. And everyone knows that Yogis and other
Eastern adepts do not create art. Nor
would Plato, obsessed with his "forms", allow art in his Republic. As the twentieth century has proven, the
argument for abstraction has been the argument not for the perfection of art,
but for the perfection of no-art. All descriptive art relies on abstraction, in a sense
contains abstraction, or is grounded by it. The reverse is not true.
There may be abstract art that contains no description. But this purity is not in itself an argument
for the superiority of abstraction. The
limits of descriptive art like that of Michelangelo damn it no more than do the
limits of symbolism damn the art of Rothko.
In constructing his terribly limiting definitions, Bell is too obviously
clearing the way for new art at the expense of old art, regardless of
quality. But art is defined not by any
one abstracted quality alone, not by whether the emotion involved has been
"suggested" by description or "objectified" by
abstraction. It is defined by the quality
of the emotion and the quality of its expresssion. How rare, beautiful, or enlightening is the
emotion, how honestly inspired in the artist's psyche? How masterful is the artist in expressing
the emotion through his craft? These
are the questions that matter, that will always matter. Even if one accepts the
primary importance of formal qualities in art, surely it is possible to imagine
a painting that had the successful form of a Cezanne but also the finish
and technical virtuosity he lacks (in the same way that Sebastiano's Christ
in Limbo has these qualities beyond Cezanne's abstraction of it). The question is, why should one quality necessarily
negate the other. Does Sebastiano's
finish usurp his forms? Must it?
There is no doubt that some artists' overconcern with finish, and neglect of
formal qualities, leaves their work unappealing despite its great
dexterity. But given that some artists
have been masters of both, why, in that case, would we prefer an
abstraction? Why should Sebastiano's
emotional line, his subtle coloring, his graceful composition detract from his
emotional form rather
than accentuate, or define, it?
Why should we accept the Modern critic's assertion that
Modernism "goes beyond" Classicism, when any logical analysis can
show that it hardly approaches it.
Modern art abstracts from Classic art, meaning it focuses on one
problem and ignores all the
others. It subtracts and
simplifies. Cezanne, for instance,
focuses on the form—the relation of areas of color to eachother. He abstracts this quality from the totality
of painting (as the Sebastiano copy makes clear) and leaves the rest. I am not going to deny his success at this,
but I am going to question whether this is an advance that makes all previous
art obsolete. Even Bell demands that
art is "significant form," that is "lines and colours combined
in a particular way." But whereas Cezanne's forms are always
significant, and his colors usually are, his lines never are. His paintings have no linear quality at
all. I am not trying to
critique Cezanne here: the paintings are not meant to have any linear
quality. I am criticizing the critics
who have wanted to elevate Cezanne, and the continuing abstraction of and
subtraction from painting, at the expense of the Old Masters. I can find no good reason, either in the
explanations of the critics or in the paintings of the Moderns, for preferring
abstracted form (or color, or line) when I can have form and color and
line and subject matter and idea and composition all in
the same painting. I can't convince
myself that artistic poverty is preferable to artistic wealth based simply on
its "purity." It reminds me
of Leonardo's quote: "There is hardly anyone so stupid that he would fail
if he applied himself earnestly to one thing, practicing
continually." And the whole
argument about purity is misplaced from the beginning. Undoubtedly death is a purer state than
life, but that by itself is hardly reason to prefer it. I believe the explanation for the critics'
preference for abstraction lies simply in their lack of ability to comprehend
an artistic whole on the level of the Old Masters. They require the simplifications of abstraction, because they
really cannot see the "significant form" in a painting until that is
all there is left in it, and it has been circled and highlighted and put in
letters ten feet tall. They are the
type, no doubt, that is confused by subplots in novels and counterpoint in
music. In their pathetic attacks on
Classicism and their deification of the partialities and simplifications of
Modernism, I can't help but see the reaction of those overwhelmed by an
experience and a talent altogether too large for them. When Bell or Greenberg complains about
Classical art's "lack of purity," I can't help but hear them saying
in their hearts of hearts, "Stop oppressing us with your multiplicity of
talents. We can only envy such
prodigality. Give us someone we can
relate to. Give us the limitations of a
struggler like Cezanne. Or, even
better, the incapacities of a complete phony like Barnett Newman. Who could be oppressed by that?" If this paper was useful to you in any way, please consider donating a dollar (or more) to the SAVE THE ARTISTS FOUNDATION. This will allow me to continue writing these "unpublishable" things. Don't be confused by paying Melisa Smith--that is just one of my many noms de plume. If you are a Paypal user, there is no fee; so it might be worth your while to become one. Otherwise they will rob us 33 cents for each transaction. |