"When art is under scrutiny as art and nothing but art, then the question of the relation of art to life, of esthetic to moral value, is beside the point." -- Clement Greenberg, from his essay The Experience of Value

For anyone interested in the arts and aesthetics, this collection of essays and university discussions is a breath of fresh air since Clement Greenberg grounds his observations relating to intuition, beauty, taste, creativity and the visual arts not on extensive scholarship (there are NO FOOTNOTES!) but on his own direct experience, having spent hours every day visiting museums and galleries and his fifty years as an art critic based in New York City. Here are several quotes from the book along with my comments:

“Esthetic intuition is never a means, but always an end in itself, contains its value in itself, and rests in itself.” ---------- Greenberg gives a simple example: if we look at the sky to see if it is going to rain, this is a practical consideration – we want to know if we should bring our umbrella; if we look at the sky to see the blue, this is esthetic – our looking has no other end or function beyond the simple pleasure of our seeing. Of course, the esthetic extends to works of art: if we view art with a practical aim, say, purchasing a painting as a financial investment, this is non-esthetic; if we look at the same painting totally for the pleasure of the viewing, this is esthetic.

My own observation: the esthetic requires a capacity to slow down and really become observant, trust our eyes, our ears, our feelings, our immediate connection with the present moment. With even a modest amount of practice, we can begin to take our time as we move through our day, making room for the esthetic, acting less and less like a chicken with its head cut off, constantly hankering after whatever comes next.


“A good, a large part of the satisfaction to be gotten from art over the course of time consists in overcoming newer and newer challenges to your taste, whether in art of the present or art of the past. To keep on doing this you have also – my experience says – to keep on learning from life apart from art.” --------- There is a rhythm here: the deeper our understanding of life, the greater chance we have to expand and refine our tastes in appreciating art; the more we open ourselves to the various periods and styles in the history of art, including contemporary art, the better chance we have of increasing our understanding of other peoples, societies and cultures.

From my own experience, I have a greater appreciation and empathy for the peoples living in the calamitous 14th century, with all its war, famine and plague after my acquaintance with the art and music of the period.


“In effect –to good and solid effect – the objectivity of taste is demonstrated in and through the presence of a consensus over time. That consensus makes itself evident in judgments of esthetic value that stand up under the ever-renewed testing of experience.” ---------- Greenberg acknowledges art does not lend itself to objectivity in the sense of exact formulas or precise calculations as in the fields of mathematics and science; rather objectivity transcending subjective appraisal results from a consensus of judgment, particularly learned judgment, over generations. Is Rembrandt a superior artist as a matter of objective truth? Yes he is, according to Greenberg, since generation after generation of art critics have judged him to be one of the great masters within the Western tradition.

“Art moves and lives by changing, by innovating. When expectations of art stop changing – which means in effect when surprise is no long wanted from art or in art – then a tradition sickens and begins to die or become paralyzed. For it is only through continued newness, continued originality and surprise that esthetic quality gets maintained – and the life of a tradition of art is its quality.” ---------- Very true, Clement! When any form of art begins to repeats itself, refusing infusions of fresh energy and interpretation, this is a sure-fire recipe for the death of that form.

As for a positive example of an art form welcoming novel shots of energy, think of all the modernized film and stage versions of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing – creating theater as lively and vital today as it was in Shakespeare’s time.

Joss Whedon’s modern film version of Much Ado About Nothing

“Experience also reveals that there is no such thing as intellectual art. For a work of art to be properly intellectual would require its proceeding from a universally accepted datum by as strictly logical a chain of inferences as that by which a truth of knowledge is arrived at.” ---------- There is something truly unique about each painting, print, sculpture or photo. Certainly, any art can be intellectual in tone - the painting of Piet Mondrian or sculpture of Donald Judd, for example - but each and every individual work must be seen with the eyes to be appreciated artistically and esthetically. This is the very nature of visual arts.

“The last thing I want to do is condemn a species of art as a species. When I keep on pointing at far-out art as deceptive that does not mean I take everything I consider far-out art and consign it to the same low level. I’d still want to go and see each work for itself, and I’m still talking only about the far-out art I’ve seen, and I’d still insist on value discriminations, even there.” --------- Clement Greenberg had the wisdom to know when it comes to art, even if he previously viewed nine works within a specific outlandish, far-out, shocking species, say, electronic instillation art or body paint art or political-earth art and all nine were appallingly bad art, he had to remain open and free from prejudgments when viewing number ten, since, well, who knows?

Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson
( )

"When art is under scrutiny as art and nothing but art, then the question of the relation of art to life, of esthetic to moral value, is beside the point." -- Clement Greenberg, from his essay The Experience of Value

For anyone interested in the arts and aesthetics, this collection of essays and university discussions is a breath of fresh air since Clement Greenberg grounds his observations relating to intuition, beauty, taste, creativity and the visual arts not on extensive scholarship (there are NO FOOTNOTES!) but on his own direct experience, having spent hours every day visiting museums and galleries and his fifty years as an art critic based in New York City. Here are several quotes from the book along with my comments:

“Esthetic intuition is never a means, but always an end in itself, contains its value in itself, and rests in itself.” ---------- Greenberg gives a simple example: if we look at the sky to see if it is going to rain, this is a practical consideration – we want to know if we should bring our umbrella; if we look at the sky to see the blue, this is esthetic – our looking has no other end or function beyond the simple pleasure of our seeing. Of course, the esthetic extends to works of art: if we view art with a practical aim, say, purchasing a painting as a financial investment, this is non-esthetic; if we look at the same painting totally for the pleasure of the viewing, this is esthetic.

My own observation: the esthetic requires a capacity to slow down and really become observant, trust our eyes, our ears, our feelings, our immediate connection with the present moment. With even a modest amount of practice, we can begin to take our time as we move through our day, making room for the esthetic, acting less and less like a chicken with its head cut off, constantly hankering after whatever comes next.


“A good, a large part of the satisfaction to be gotten from art over the course of time consists in overcoming newer and newer challenges to your taste, whether in art of the present or art of the past. To keep on doing this you have also – my experience says – to keep on learning from life apart from art.” --------- There is a rhythm here: the deeper our understanding of life, the greater chance we have to expand and refine our tastes in appreciating art; the more we open ourselves to the various periods and styles in the history of art, including contemporary art, the better chance we have of increasing our understanding of other peoples, societies and cultures.

From my own experience, I have a greater appreciation and empathy for the peoples living in the calamitous 14th century, with all its war, famine and plague after my acquaintance with the art and music of the period.


“In effect –to good and solid effect – the objectivity of taste is demonstrated in and through the presence of a consensus over time. That consensus makes itself evident in judgments of esthetic value that stand up under the ever-renewed testing of experience.” ---------- Greenberg acknowledges art does not lend itself to objectivity in the sense of exact formulas or precise calculations as in the fields of mathematics and science; rather objectivity transcending subjective appraisal results from a consensus of judgment, particularly learned judgment, over generations. Is Rembrandt a superior artist as a matter of objective truth? Yes he is, according to Greenberg, since generation after generation of art critics have judged him to be one of the great masters within the Western tradition.

“Art moves and lives by changing, by innovating. When expectations of art stop changing – which means in effect when surprise is no long wanted from art or in art – then a tradition sickens and begins to die or become paralyzed. For it is only through continued newness, continued originality and surprise that esthetic quality gets maintained – and the life of a tradition of art is its quality.” ---------- Very true, Clement! When any form of art begins to repeats itself, refusing infusions of fresh energy and interpretation, this is a sure-fire recipe for the death of that form.

As for a positive example of an art form welcoming novel shots of energy, think of all the modernized film and stage versions of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing – creating theater as lively and vital today as it was in Shakespeare’s time.

Joss Whedon’s modern film version of Much Ado About Nothing

“Experience also reveals that there is no such thing as intellectual art. For a work of art to be properly intellectual would require its proceeding from a universally accepted datum by as strictly logical a chain of inferences as that by which a truth of knowledge is arrived at.” ---------- There is something truly unique about each painting, print, sculpture or photo. Certainly, any art can be intellectual in tone - the painting of Piet Mondrian or sculpture of Donald Judd, for example - but each and every individual work must be seen with the eyes to be appreciated artistically and esthetically. This is the very nature of visual arts.

“The last thing I want to do is condemn a species of art as a species. When I keep on pointing at far-out art as deceptive that does not mean I take everything I consider far-out art and consign it to the same low level. I’d still want to go and see each work for itself, and I’m still talking only about the far-out art I’ve seen, and I’d still insist on value discriminations, even there.” --------- Clement Greenberg had the wisdom to know when it comes to art, even if he previously viewed nine works within a specific outlandish, far-out, shocking species, say, electronic instillation art or body paint art or political-earth art and all nine were appallingly bad art, he had to remain open and free from prejudgments when viewing number ten, since, well, who knows?

Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson
( )