The Painted Word

A classmate lent me The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, published in 1975, and boy, if you ever want some actually intelligent criticism and questioning of the establishment of modern art, this is it! The beauty of this book is that Wolfe doesn't usually attack the art - though occasionally he does accuse artists of allowing themselves to be too influenced by popular theory - he really attacks the establishment. And he does so in a hilarious way. For instance, Wolfe starts out explaining the "mating ritual" between the bohemian artists, "boho", and high society that can financially back and establish the artist, the "monde". He talks about how to be successful, an artist must first be an honest boho, live amongst the other bohemians and adopt true anti-bourgeois values. This is called the "boho dance". But once an artist has attracted the monde with his dance, he must "doubletrack", which means learn to gleefully hobnob with the elite and enjoy his success, despite being a hypocrite. And this mating metaphor is just the beginning. This book oozes sarcasm of the best and most vicious sort. Just check out this passage, about how pop art, according to the theorists, was supposed to be about "flatness", rather than how the subject matter related to real life: "In short... the culturati were secretly enjoying the realism! -plain old bourgeois mass-culture high-school goober-squeezing whitehead-hunting can-I-pop-it-for-you-Billy realism! They looked at a Roy Lichtenstein blowup of a love-comic panel showing a young blond couple with their lips parted in the moment before a profound, tongue-probing, post-teen, American soul kiss, plus the legend `We rose up slowly...as if we didn't belong to the outside world any longer...like swimmers in a shadowy dream...who didn't need to breath...' and--the hell with the sign systems--they just loved the dopey campy picture of these two vapid blond sex buds having their love-comic romance bigger than life, six feet by eight feet, in fact, up on the walls in an art gallery." How can you not love writing like that? This book rocks.

Wolfe was surprised reading the New York Times to learn from Hilton Kramer in 1974 that realism lacked a persuasive theory. He had been looking at pictures and professed to not understand why a theory is needed. Indeed, how could modern art be literary? Literary is a code word for retrograde. The opposite is a sort of arts for arts sake mode. Artists helped to make theory--consider the cases of Georges Braque and Frank Stella. Most modern movements began before World War I. By 1900 the success game of the art world was set. Art supplies are available everywhere, but artists move to New York. The artist has to keep his edge and focus on new developments. An art mating ritual takes place between artists and theorists and collectors. Collectors enjoy being considered separated from bourgeois society. Modern art enjoyed a boom in Europe in the twenties. By the thirties it was so chic the Dole Pineapple Company sent Georgia O'Keefe to Hawaii. Theory did not come into its own until after World War II. The theories were beautiful even if the Abstract Expressionist paintings are no longer hanging in the museums and in people's houses on Long Island. After World War II New York replaced Paris as an art center. Hans Hofmann was in Greenwich Village with Ad Reinhardt, Joef Albers, Lee Krasner. There were other circles--cenacles. They met at the Club on Eighth Street and at the Cedar Tavern. The great theorists were Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. Hans Hofmann emphasized purity and there was a lot of concern for flatness. Rosenberg described the canvas as an arena. Alfred Barr and James Sweeney Johnson had a huge function in art promotion, selecting artists and works. Morris Louis used unprimed canvas. Jackson Pollock was an artist stuck in the dance. He had another problem in that his reputation was huge but his work did not sell. Earlier modern art had been only partly abstract. Robert Scull once said that Abstract Expressionism was a little club on Tenth Street. Art that is new and not too abstract and not realistic would necessarily be a hit--hence Pop Art. Leo Steinberg and William Rubin were theorists of Pop Art, finding merit in the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Jasper Johns's flags were wonderfully flat. Greenberg and Rosenberg denounced Pop Art. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein created famous images. They used commonplace sign systems of American culture. Pop Art rejuvenated the art scene. Op Art like Pop Art was enjoyed for literary reasons. (Wolfe's title for his collection is derived from this observation.) Theory started to move toward reductionism. Conceptual Art was of two kinds. Photo Realism appears in the chapter 'Epilogue'. Wow! This is a good book. There are illustrations.

That would require some element of fiction. This is simply a straight telling (well, almost straight) of the taste-makers and -breakers in the New York art scene of the 1950s to mid-70s. It's already so ludicrous, so filled with poker-faced parodies of sane discussion, that fiction wouldn't be nearly as strange. It's the complete domination of analysis over analyte. This short book (100 pages, including some amusing cartoons) lampoons the whole theory of art theory as it arose in the salons and saloons of that era. It briefly traces the never-ending search for the new, a Red Queen's race since whatever we have today isn't new enough. In a bizarrely involuted turn, he even describes the rise and fall of different tastes in taste-makers. If you've ever groaned at the solemn silliness of the intellectoid analyses or nihilist (lazy?) "Conceptual" artists, you'll laugh out loud at Wolfe's descriptions. He runs through the artsy buzz-wording like a buzz-saw. //wiredweird

Tom Wolfe is the master of cunning expose. With history and humor he describes the New York City Art scene in the 1960s. The politics and posturing of art figures trying to "legitimize" their art philosophy was ripe with hilarity. Art itself was secondary to the press agent. Guru's would write art credos and then hunt down bohemians to fit the bill. Guru's would fight among themselves the real definition of Art. The more outlandish, the more embraced.The art that stirs emotion, brings pleasure, or tells a universal truth will stand the test of time.I've seen the Jackson Pollack documentary and understand that it took a certain skill to produce his many works, but do you want #27 hanging on your wall in the den?