I t was two Englishmen who would develop the new theory of art that would put Cézanne in context and have sweeping ramifications for art in the 20th century: Roger Fry 1866-1934) and Clive Bell( 1881-1964).
An English artist and critic( and co-founder of The Burlington Magazine), Fry is also especially known for his advocacy of the French Post-Impressionists, Paul Cézanne. Former Director of the National Gallery, London, Kenneth Clark referred to Fry as,“ incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin” and claimed“ In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry.” Bell, also an English art critic and close associate with Fry( both were members of the Bloomsbury Group), noted in his 1922 book Since Cézanne,“ One of the many unpremeditated effects of Cézanne’ s life and work was to set artists thinking, even arguing.
His practice challenged so sharply all current notions of what painting should be that a new generation, taking him for a master found itself obliged to ask such questions as‘ What am I doing?’‘ Why am I doing it?’ Now such questions lead inevitably to an immense query--‘ What is Art?’” It was Bell and Fry who would articulate a new definition of what constitutes the fundamental nature of Art, which boiled down to a concept that Bell called“ Significant Form.”
I n his 1914 book Art, Bell puts it this way,“ There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What qualities are shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to [ Saint ] Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto’ s frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cézanne? Only one answer seems possible— significant form. In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call‘ Significant Form’; and‘ Significant form’ is the one quality common to all works of visual art.”
Pable Picasso Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon
1907 Museum of Modern Art
Photo: Wikimedia commons This work is often designated as the first truly“ Modern” painting.
This theory of art later became known as Formalism and its influence can hardly be overemphasized. The“ art” of any artwork was now said to be its formal arrangement. In this regard subject matter, storytelling, or truth to nature became irrelevant. Whereas the distortions of Picasso or the unnatural colors of a Matisse struck many first-time viewers as impudent, garish, and incompetent(“ my child could do this”), this theory served to make plain that Modern artists weren’ t trying to paint realistically and failing. They were pushing the boundaries of Art itself, to boldly go where no artist had gone before. This was the“ avant-garde.” The doctrine that the essential elements of art are line, shape, and color would spread into college and university art departments in the United States for decades to come. In expanding this theory to include the Abstract Expressionists, Clement Greenberg was simply taking it to its logical conclusion: getting rid of referential content( which he saw as impurities) altogether. In the critical establishment,“ Realism” was out.
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