Modernist Painting 1965 by Clement Greenberg

Modernist Painting 1965 by Clement Greenberg

Modernity

In "Modernist Painting," a 1965 essay by author Clement Greenberg, the writer elucidates a number of points that are fairly crucial to the definition and conception of the philosophy known as Modernism. Along with distinguishing a number of examples of this line of thought that applies to disparate fields such as science, formal philosophy (largely originating from Immanuel Kant) and literature, Greenberg focuses the duration of this literary work upon modernist painting. Some of the most important elements of such painting are denoted by the author as being a reduction of the form of art to its basic elements, which are largely optical and confined to the limited space in which the painting actually is found. Therefore, there are a number of eminent visual artists whose work typifies one, if not more than one of these conventions, and which provides an excellent example of the varying principles which Greenberg discusses.

The Modernist art movement known as Pop Art provides some good examples of some of the principles that Greenberg discusses within his essay. A close examination of the work of visual artist Roy Lichtenstein indicates that several of the pieces that the author was known for can be characterized as Modern due to their invoking of traits described by Greenberg. Lichtenstein did a lot of visual art that can be characterized as comic strip art, and which was cartoonish in the sense of those comic strips that are found in traditional newspapers. The fact that his work was decidedly two dimensional and confined to simple, angular panels that are flat, adheres to the convention propounded by Greenberg that most modern art embraces flatness in an attempt to be reduced to its fundamental essence.

Andy Warhol was another artist whose visual representations became part of the Pop Art movement. While he engaged in numerously different forms of art, some of his fine art that he popularized throughout the 60's also conformed to several principles of Modernism as defined by Greenberg. Works such as Marilyn Diptych, which was initially exhibited in 1962 and was a work of silkscreen, certainly present an optical setting in which the imagery is confined to a flat, two dimensions, in much the same way that Lichtenstein's work did. The repetitions of the image of Marilyn Monroe's face are also simple and are contrasted against really subdued colors, which is another trait of Modernist art according to Greenberg.

As an abstract artist, Jackson Pollock produced a large amount of visual artistry that adhered to conventions of Modernism. Abstract art is modern in the sense that it relies on the optical as the sole means of measuring or regarding a work of art. Furthermore, the subject depicted in most of Pollock's work almost borders on being regarded as an object, and not necessarily a painting -- which is congruent with Greenberg's theory that Modern art is simplified and is decidedly pure in terms of its self-definition as being indicative of a particular medium.