In his 1939 essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch
", art critic Clement Greenberg
attempts to distance kitsch
, or low-culture art
objects and media
, from true, pure art. He clearly outlines the criteria for a universal art that focuses solely on the medium
used; specifically, he proposes that the artist abandon narrative
and subject matter
and devote full attention to the flatness
of the canvas.
Greenberg describes kitsch
as any form of media that can be easily digested by the beholder. This includes film
, television shows
, paperback novels
, and cloying, sentimental art. Kitsch emerged, he argues, with the influx of the peasants into urban centers. These peasants acquired a “universal literacy
” out of necessity, but did not possess the leisure time
to develop a taste for high culture
. Instead, they turned to kitsch, which was readily available, easy to appreciate, and even easier to discard after its use.
Greenberg reviles kitsch for corrupting high art
"The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully matured cultural tradition
, whose discoveries, acquisitions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends… It draws its lifeblood, sort to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience."
Here Greenberg explains the parasitic nature of kitsch. Without a high art, or an “accumulated experience,” he argues, kitsch cannot exist. This argument is somewhat tenuous. The examples of kitsch, such as Norman Rockwell
paintings, that Greenberg provides could very well exist without some high cultural authority present to push it forward. Still, Greenberg says that kitsch is a failure of modern capitalist
governments, as they did not educate their citizens to appreciate true beauty
. A Socialist
, Greenberg believes the only way to correct this problem is to adopt a socialist government, where, he says, the peasant will have enough leisure time to become “conditioned” to appreciate superior culture.
Good art, and “superior culture” can be achieved when the artist devotes his or her attention purely to the medium
used. Greenberg bases this argument on the practices of the Old Masters
. Their patrons, always of the higher ruling classes, chose their subject matter, and so these artists only had to devote their attention to formal
concerns, and medium. Greenberg extends this to his era by welcoming abstract expressionism
as the new formal tradition—avant-garde
, but fitting in with the same tradition
as the Old Masters. In these works, subject matter is completely lost, and instead the sole focus is on the flatness
of the canvas and the medium of the paint. Mark Rothko
and the color-field
painters would become among the favorites of Greenberg, as their works were large in scale, evoking a simple spirituality
, and acknowledged the flatness and field-like space of the canvas. Of course, the work of Jackson Pollock
is the perfect example of Greenberg's vision.
Greenberg’s argument, though it embraces the abstract expressionist
avant-garde, is still a very traditional one. It positions art above the masses
and perpetuates the idea of an authoritative voice on art
Now, with the proliferation of postmodern
thought and culture, where absolute
concepts of beauty are nonexistent, the proposals of Greenberg's contemporaries, such as Walter Benjamin
, (see: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
)who embraced the new low-culture
media of his time, continue to hold ground, while Greenberg’s efforts to anoint a high art form have given way to an appreciation of mass media
, with the rise of movements such as Pop art
and graffiti art
and a new middle-class
medium, the digital
. Indeed, Greenberg’s kitsch
has become so entwined with high art
that often the two are indistinguishable.
Greenberg, Clement. “Avant Garde and Kitsch.” (1939) Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 1, John O’Brian, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
“Post-Painterly Abstraction.” Art and Culture Network. 1999-2003. 22 April 2003.
Available at: http://www.artandculture.com/arts/movement?movementId=1012
Hebdige, Dick. “A Report on the Western Front.” In Frascina, Francis and Harris, Jonathan. Art in Modern Culture. London: Phaidon Books, 1992.