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Quote by Clement Greenberg

“The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.”

Quote by Clement Greenberg

Book:Art and Culture: Critical Essays

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Art and Culture: Critical Essays

This book delves into the complex relationship between art and culture, offering a diverse range of critical analyses and discussions that examine the role of art in shaping and reflecting cultural identity, values, and practices. more

Author

Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American art critic and literary critic. His critical theories had a profound impact on 20th-century American art and literature, particularly in the field of abstract expressionism. Known for his insights into modernist art, Greenberg emphasized the form and content of art, advocating for the pursuit of pure formal expression in art. more

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“Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough.”

Enough Sin Accepted Efficient Virtuous Efficiency Compulsion

Book:Art and Culture: Critical Essays

Source: Art and Culture: Critical Essays

“The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fidelity.”

Effort Greater Painting Evolution Appearance Visuals Paradox Abstraction Fidelity Verge Cezanne

Author:Clement Greenberg

“If you want to change your art, change your habits.”

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“I don't get into 'becauses.' When you come into a studio you see a number of works. My habit is to go to the one I like most. If you start to say, 'because,' you get into art jargon.”

Ifs Art Numbers Habit Studios Jargon

Author:Clement Greenberg

“Part of the triumph of modernist poetry is, indeed, to have demonstrated the great extent to which verse can do without explicit meaning and yet not sacrifice anything essential to its effect as art. Here, as before, successful art can be depended upon to explain itself.”

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“Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art.”

Art Used Attention Mediums Realistic Modernism

Book:The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969

Source: The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969

“I have to be on such a strict diet constantly.”

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“Decoration is asked to be 'merely' pleasing, 'merely' embellishing, and the 'functional' logic of Modernism leaves no room, apparently, for such 'mereness.' This is part of the pity of Modernism, one of the sacrifices it enjoins.”

Rooms Sacrifice Logic Pity Modernism Decoration

Book:Clement Greenberg, Late Writings

Source: Clement Greenberg, Late Writings

“A large picture can give us images of things, but a relatively small one can best re-create the instantaneous unity of nature as a view - the unity of which the eyes take in at a single glance.”

Giving Eye Nature Views Unity Glances Instantaneous

Book:Art and Culture: Critical Essays

Source: Art and Culture: Critical Essays

“With an 'advanced' artist, it's not now possible to make a portrait.”

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Author:Clement Greenberg