âThe Liberating Quality of Avant-Garde Artâ - Timothy R. Quigley

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Modern Art: Basic Assumptions, Definitions, and QualificationsThe Value of Avant-Garde Painting[W]hat makes painting and sculpture so interesting in our times is their high degreeof non-communication. You cannot extract a message from painting by ordinarymeans; the usual rules of communication do not hold here, there is no clear codeor fixed vocabulary, no certainty of effect in a given time of transmission orexposure. Painting, by becoming abstract and giving up its representationalfunction, has achieved a state in which communication seems to be deliberatelyprevented....The artist does not wish to create a work in which he transmits an alreadyprepared and complete message to a relatively indifferent and impersonalreceiver. The painter aims rather at such a quality of the whole that, unless youachieve the proper set of mind and feeling towards it, you will not experienceanything of it at all. [Schapiro, 9]Grace Hartigan, Months and Moons, 1950Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Modern Art: Basic Assumptions, Definitions, and QualificationsThe Value of Avant-Garde PaintingNotice that Schapiro’s argument implies that avant-garde art demands anactive, informed, and educated audience.Only a mind opened to the qualities of things, with a habit of discrimination,sensitized by experience and responsive to new forms and ideas, will be preparedfor the enjoyment of this art. [Schapiro, 9]In fact, he goes so far as to say that communication with the viewer, in theexperience of avant-garde painting, is replaced by “communion andcontemplation”, analogous to the “sincere and humble submission to aspiritual object” of the religious life;an experience which is not given automatically, but requires preparation and purity ofspirit. It is primarily in modern painting and sculpture that such contemplativeness andcommunion with the work of another human being, the sensing of another’s perfectedfeeling and imagination, becomes possible. [Schapiro, 9]Tuesday, February 7, 2012
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Page 3 and 4: Introduction"The Liberating Quality
Page 5 and 6: Tuesday, February 7, 2012Definition
Page 7 and 8: Modern Art: Basic Assumptions, Defi
Page 9 and 10: Tuesday, February 7, 2012Emergence
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âThe Liberating Quality of Avant-Garde Artâ - Timothy R. Quigley