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Cubism And Its Enemies: Modern Movements And Reaction In French Art, 1916-1928
GREEN, CUBISM AND ITS ENEMIES. NEW HAVEN, CT, 1987, vii 326 p. figuras.Encuadernacion original. Nuevo.
325 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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December 26, 2020
This is I think the best art history book I've ever read. This is so partly because, I think, it is not about my favorite art: in the main, I don't actually read too much of the art history books I have, I just look at the pictures, which are the real point. But this book is about the French art world of about 1916 to about 1924, in particular the postwar, twenties art world, and as much about the "Salon Cubists" as about Picasso and Braque. As Green himself notes, "the pre-1914 period, at least so far as Cubism is concerned, will always be more attractive", and indeed while Braque and Picasso's work from 1908 to the start of the war is some of my most favorite art in the entire history of the world, a lot of the work here does not appeal to me much or at all.
So why do I like this book, if not the majority of art in it? Because it is absolutely fascinating, and a completely different approach to art history than I'm used to, which proceeds in linear fashion from the heroic Cezanne to the heroic Pollock in an inevitable teleological PROGRESS OF HISTORY towards Clement Greenbergian Modernism. Green does instead what Butterfield requires in his The Whig Interpretation of History, and attempts present this past not through the controlling frame of the present, but in its complexity, in the way it was experienced: "the surprise of what actually did take place", in Butterfield's phrase. And how he presents it as almost a kind of political contest, with various art movements taking the character of political parties, vying for supremacy in the postwar art world of France. Cubism, as a self-conscious group of artists, in caucus with the Purists Ozenfant and Jeanneret (better known as the architect Le Corbusier), are representatives of the Modernist belief in the artwork as autonomous, separate from life. Opposing them are the conservative "Naturalists" or "realists" on the one side, and the radical attacks of the non-objective artists of De Stijl and Constructivism, the nihilistic "demoralizers" of Dada, and those mystic searchers after "the marvellous", the Surrealists. The art history of this time, therefore, is not seen as a single inevitable arc bending towards Abstract Expressionism, but a dialectical contest of push and pull, of artists defining themselves against the positions of others, of a continual churn of influence and reaction.
And it envelops so much: not just styles of painting, but the political implications of the art elite, collective self-effacement or individualist self-expression, the postwar prominence of the machine and also of ultra-nationalism and internationalism, the "religion" of Gleizes or Mondrian and the "magic" or "alchemy" of Masson or Breton, the varying commercial fortunes of the various painters and the changing opinions of the official state art establishment of the Salons; and all these, too, a continual push and pull, ever changing and ever surprising. So much is here that it's quite overwhelming, and with each chapter of something new and fascinating, it became harder to keep in mind previous chapters of other things new and fascinating.
It's both a little surprising that this book is apparently completely obscure (because it's so good) and also understandable because I can't really imagine who I might directly recommend it to. I love the Cubism of Braque and Picasso, as I say, but I don't know many other people who do, and a lot of the other artists here are not to my taste or maybe anybody's. Certainly in the very early going, after Picasso (who, it is very clear from this book, was for all his centrality to everyone, was very much a man apart and aloof in his pure self-sufficiency), the march of lame Salon Cubists was such a drag that the first Braque came as an almost physical relief. Juan Gris, though accepted for some reason as a "real Cubist" by the art history world which has boiled that group down to only four, has never been more than a talented graphic designer to me, and Leger, the last of that group, is both great and not especially appealing to me. And while I like De Stijl fine, I can't stand Surrealism (although Masson is an exception in this early period, it's partly because there's so much Cubism about him!) or Purism for that matter. And despite its look of a coffee-table book of reproductions, like an art exhibit monograph, it's really more of a text (in two columns of tight text on huge coffee-table pages, it's at least twice as long as the page count would suggest). So it's hard to say who but me might like it, as is the case with many of my favorite books. But it is great, eye-opening, paradigm-changing stuff, and an incredible achievement indeed.
So why do I like this book, if not the majority of art in it? Because it is absolutely fascinating, and a completely different approach to art history than I'm used to, which proceeds in linear fashion from the heroic Cezanne to the heroic Pollock in an inevitable teleological PROGRESS OF HISTORY towards Clement Greenbergian Modernism. Green does instead what Butterfield requires in his The Whig Interpretation of History, and attempts present this past not through the controlling frame of the present, but in its complexity, in the way it was experienced: "the surprise of what actually did take place", in Butterfield's phrase. And how he presents it as almost a kind of political contest, with various art movements taking the character of political parties, vying for supremacy in the postwar art world of France. Cubism, as a self-conscious group of artists, in caucus with the Purists Ozenfant and Jeanneret (better known as the architect Le Corbusier), are representatives of the Modernist belief in the artwork as autonomous, separate from life. Opposing them are the conservative "Naturalists" or "realists" on the one side, and the radical attacks of the non-objective artists of De Stijl and Constructivism, the nihilistic "demoralizers" of Dada, and those mystic searchers after "the marvellous", the Surrealists. The art history of this time, therefore, is not seen as a single inevitable arc bending towards Abstract Expressionism, but a dialectical contest of push and pull, of artists defining themselves against the positions of others, of a continual churn of influence and reaction.
And it envelops so much: not just styles of painting, but the political implications of the art elite, collective self-effacement or individualist self-expression, the postwar prominence of the machine and also of ultra-nationalism and internationalism, the "religion" of Gleizes or Mondrian and the "magic" or "alchemy" of Masson or Breton, the varying commercial fortunes of the various painters and the changing opinions of the official state art establishment of the Salons; and all these, too, a continual push and pull, ever changing and ever surprising. So much is here that it's quite overwhelming, and with each chapter of something new and fascinating, it became harder to keep in mind previous chapters of other things new and fascinating.
It's both a little surprising that this book is apparently completely obscure (because it's so good) and also understandable because I can't really imagine who I might directly recommend it to. I love the Cubism of Braque and Picasso, as I say, but I don't know many other people who do, and a lot of the other artists here are not to my taste or maybe anybody's. Certainly in the very early going, after Picasso (who, it is very clear from this book, was for all his centrality to everyone, was very much a man apart and aloof in his pure self-sufficiency), the march of lame Salon Cubists was such a drag that the first Braque came as an almost physical relief. Juan Gris, though accepted for some reason as a "real Cubist" by the art history world which has boiled that group down to only four, has never been more than a talented graphic designer to me, and Leger, the last of that group, is both great and not especially appealing to me. And while I like De Stijl fine, I can't stand Surrealism (although Masson is an exception in this early period, it's partly because there's so much Cubism about him!) or Purism for that matter. And despite its look of a coffee-table book of reproductions, like an art exhibit monograph, it's really more of a text (in two columns of tight text on huge coffee-table pages, it's at least twice as long as the page count would suggest). So it's hard to say who but me might like it, as is the case with many of my favorite books. But it is great, eye-opening, paradigm-changing stuff, and an incredible achievement indeed.
April 19, 2012
An art history book explaining the Cubism movement. I imagine this won't be interesting to most people, unless they love art.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews