Modernist Formalism - Clement Greenberg and Post-Painterly Abstraction

If you like or loath Greenberg this is place to go : http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/, its got all his important essays for an informed opinion. 

Avant Garde and Kitsch (1939) 

Modernist Painting (1960) 

Avant Garde Attitudes (1968)

Modern and Postmodern (1979)

I recommend reading one (or more) of these ^ to really appreciate the Greenberg aesthetic.

Here's a lighthearted Video that is worth watching as an accessible introduction to what Greenberg is about .

How does Greenberg's  definitions and appreciation of modernist progress compliment or contrast with Ramachandran's interpretation of Neuroesthetics?

The Following four slides show the gradual progression of Piet Mondrian's oeuvre . It is a modernist progression that Greenberg would've appreciated.

Greenberg on Pop Art

Greenberg on Duchamp

Next Week: The New Art History T.J Clarke: The Social History of Art.

T. J Clark looks at art from a Marxist perspective. Here's the main book of interest:

The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers

Content Analysis: Panofsky, Iconography- Iconology

The most important things that you take from the Panofsky Lecture is his broad content based approach and his methodology (detailed in the handout). If you can remember the terminology all the better.

'Content analysis' is about the meaning inside a work of art i.e. content. Often considered the antithesis of Formalism it is really an abridged version. Theories of content analysis maintain you can't examine form without paying equal attention to content. Iconography refers to the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images.

Before we look at  Panofsky here's a republican pundit in America talking about Obama's annoyingly savvy use of Iconography in his election campaign. "The power and danger of iconography."

Ewin Panofsky designed a systematic process to examine content though iconography  

This is the book I'll be referencing: Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History found on Amazon at $0.56! Mind you after postage that'll be about €10 ..

Erwin Panofsky uses a simple Greeting as an example to illustrate his theory of meaning in the visual arts.

The following table is key to a systematic implementation of Panofsky's ideas. Successfully followed you can get a hell of a lot of content from any cultural object; from a crisp packet to a 77,000 year old piece of engraved ochre.

Getting a grip of Panofsky's system involves filtering a cultural object (in this case a cap doffing man) through three different perspectives.

In criticism we might ask if Panofsky over intellectualises art by Investing content where (in a subjective sense) it may not be deserved. Why does he compartmentalise what is just as easily an intuitive exploration of content?

Looks like I won't be doing Greenberg next week. Instead we'll look at this guy: V.S Ramachandran and the so called area of "neuroesthetics."

Despite all the bad press Greenberg is worth looking at. He had a huge impact on the art of the 20th century. If I get the time I'll do a summary next week.

This Website is brilliant: http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/, its got all his important essays

Avant Garde and Kitsch (1939) 

Modernist Painting (1960) 

Avant Garde Attitudes (1968)

Modern and Postmodern (1979)