What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the cultural shift from the optimism and idealism of the past to a more jaded present, particularly in the realm of art.
Robert Hughes mourns the loss of the ebullience and idealism that characterized the avant-garde movement of the late 19th century compared to the more reserved attitude of contemporary culture in 1980. He emphasizes that the earlier artists possessed a strong belief in the potential of art to serve as a meaningful commentary on and navigation of their rapidly changing society, a sentiment that seems to have diminished in his time.
In practice
This quote could be cited in a lecture about the evolution of art movements over the years.
Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction. It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker.
It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures. The difference between us and the artists of the 1920's is that they they thought such a work of art could be made. Perhaps it was a certain naivete that made them think so. But it is certainly our loss that we cannot.
Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.
Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.
What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
For the film maker must come by his convention, as painters and writers and musicians have done before him.
I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look.
It is music that welds spiritual and sensual, that can convey ecstasy free of guilt, faith without dogma, love as homage, and a person at home with nature and the infinite.
An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.
A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time.
You would get some fantastic syntactical phenomena. You would hear people talking in Barbados in the exact melody as a minor character in Shakespeare. Because here you have a thing that was not immured and preserved and mummified, but a voluble language, very active, very swift, very sharp.
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