A History of Modern Art [antikvár]

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture are arts of space. For this reason it is essential to approach these arts in the twentieth century, or in any other period, tlirough an analysis of the artist's attitude toward spatial organization. Since space is normally defined as extension in all directions, this attitude can be seen relatively easily in architecture and sculpture, which traditionally are three-dimensional masses or volumes surrounded by space and, in the case of architecture, enclosing space. Architecture is frequently defined as "the art of enclosing space," a definition which gives primary importance to the interior space, despite the fact that many architectural styles throughout history have been largely concerned with the appearance of the exterior, or the organization of outdoor space. The classic and romantic eclecticism of the nmeteenth-century academic styles in architecture added nothing new to the history of architectural spatial experiment. The development of reinforced concrete and structural steel, however, provided the basis for a series of new experiments in twentieth-century architecture. The most significant product of steel construction is, of course, the skyscraper, which in its characteristic spatial development is perhaps more interesting as an exterior form than as an interior space (if one excepts the new interior space effects resultant from the all-glass sheathing). It is in the flexible material of reinforced concrete that many of the most impressive twentieth-century architectural-spatial experiments have been realized, as well as in the use of new structural principles such as those embodied in Buck-minster Fuller's geodesic domes. Until the twentieth century a work of sculpture has characteristically been a three-dimensional object existing in surrounding space. The formal problems of the sculptor have thus involved the exploitation of his material (bronze, clay, stone, etc.), the integration of the sculptural elements with their environment, and the relation of these elements to surrounding space. In the various broad cycles of sculptural history—ancient, medieval. Renaissance, Baroque-the development of sculpture has tended to follow a pattern in which the early stages emphasized frontality and mass, and the later stages, openness and spatial existence. In the twentieth century, sculpture has continued in one way or another most of the sculptural-spatial tendencies of the past. Modern experimental sculptors have also made fundamental new departures, particularly in the exploration of sculpture as construction or as assemblage; in experimentation with new materials; and in sculpture as enclosing space. Pardy as a result of influence from primitive or archaic art, there has also been a contrasting abandonment of the developed systems of full spatial organization in favor of a return to frontality achieved through simplified masses. It is probably more difficult for the spectator to comprehend the element of space in painting than in either architecture or sculpture. A painting is physically a two-dimensional surface to which pigments, usually without appreciable bulk, have been applied. Except insofar as the painter may have applied his paint thickly, in impasto, the painting traditionally has no projecting mass, and any suggestion of depth on the surface of the canvas is an illusion created through various technical means. The instant a painter draws a line on the blank surface he introduces an illusion of the third dimension. This illusion of depth may be furthered by overlapping or spacing of color shapes, by the different visual impacts of colors-red, yellow, blue, black or white—by different intensities or values, and by many other devices known throughout history. The most important of these, before the twentieth century, were linear and atmospheric perspective (discussed in Part One). Perspective, although known in antiquity, became for the Renaissance a means for creating paintings that were "imitations of nature"—visual illusions that made the spectator think he was looking at a man, a still lite, or a landscape rather than at a canvas covered with paint. Perhaps the greatest revolution of early modern art lay in the abandonment of this attitude and the perspective technique that made it possible. As a consequence, the painting— and the sculpture—became a reality in itself, not an imitation of anything else; it. had its own laws and its own reason for existence. As will be seen, after the initial experiments carried out by the impressionists, post-im-pressionists, fauves, and cubists, there has been no logical progression. The call for a "return to nature" recurs continually, but there is no question that the efforts of the pioneers of modem art changed modern artists' way of seeing, and in some degree, modern man's. The principal emphasis of this book revolves around this problem of "seeing" modern art. It is recognized that this involves two not necessarily compatible elements: the visual and the verbal. Any work of art history and/or criticism is inevitably an attempt to translate a visual into a verbal experience. Since the mind is involved in both experiences, there are some points of contact between them. Nevertheless, the two experiences are essentially different and it must always be recognized that the words