Art Criticism - The State University of New York

worst disease of modem art). Yet these seemingly wayward sects fortify the
monopoly.
That first fine careless rapture that abstract expressionists could call
up at will (until its academy, pressured by new sects, made tighter rules against
spontaneity) can be resurrected at any time by young painters ingenuous and
self-directed enough to weather group intimidation. How quickly we accept an
arcane inarticulate explanation over one that is succinct and blessed with
common sense!
Not breaking the picture plane has become as much of a tyranny as
perspective once was. The fact that the non-objective painters are constantly
searching in· the old masters' work for correspondences to their flat space
shows a lack of confidence in a dogmatic rule that often reduces the impact and
dramatic dialog qf their paintings. And when famous old paintings are cannibalized
for purposes of homage it is usually only for an excuse to hand on the
forbidden receding planes the fulminating veneers that have trouble inventing
their scaffolding.
Like dessert after protein, or buying a necktie after being suited, paintc
ing is what we tum to last, after our literary, musical or public sculpture needs
are taken care of. Yet each of our rooms have four walls which are not often left
bare, even if cheap reproductions of paintings are bought at the ten-cent store.
But the timbre of an impastoed original oil is such a tactile conditioning that
many of us will use any tasteless hand-painted pompier, scorning the masterpiece
whose replica in print is often superior to the blackened over-burnished
original. We have not evolved to a stage where the memory of the artifact will
suffice, as it might in novels or music; but stronger than our need to be physically
and constantly reminded of colors and forms is our greedy collector's
instinct, which vitiates any esthetic urges we may be left with after our other
demands are satisfied. This appetite, along with gambling speculation, is what
makes it seem that painting today is blessed financially above the other arts
(which doesn't commend painting since anything physical can be collected
and used in speculation). No wonder painters, in their mute boorishness, often
regard themselves as second-class citizens, on whose impoverished walls are
hung photos of admired masterworks only.
The universal artists cannibalize all important art of the past and
present without being too consciously familiar with it, hoping critics will translate
any obscurities for the layman; they don't expect to be illustrators of the
critics' theories. These spokesmen did not want abstract expressionism to
speak too loudly except in safely incoherent pseudo-scientific jargon that had
little to do with human joy or anguish, like a religious ban of human image to
keep the non-literary element in step with the (cocktail) party line. Intellectual
puzzling-out is alien to painting's traditional aboveboard largess. Why in this
era of moral permissiveness must it concern itself with a cryptography of
vol. 17, no. 1 43