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.
Architecture to me is whole. I cannot say I only care about this 25% and the other 75% I let go... it's just I want to work the way I want to work. In my shop, you can order certain things and other things you cannot. They are not available.
Don't worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them.
incurable lover of the grotesque
I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.
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