538 Freedom, Responsibility and Power ‘yegion of consciousness (where equally it could not take place, because a man cannot onetime a ey i anne cto corer toh eucgeirne oso cE ee sea ft A person who is apable of producing ad ar cannot so fr 2s be i cpabl of on kp soe of me coer na a a ce ethnic hrm Tom Eo a ep ei sees he ne ps ce a a cae ee i i eh wl ein aoa oman on be Deere ee cn hn ts cae ee rn gee ey ly Se sn te elm ne seco nnn Oe nme sep nr cee ig i en A i Sr ones CO bine Ket i a Th ce reine oe cat i eat te Tear Te a at tei ieee a li Mn map lcs Cgc nel aeons a ae af ad ae mah et cet ae itt efi secon ae sl ete el Bry menor eens eh ney ae ote sn cee ee nde ang ea ee nee Dron el tena hing we can fod tart, To know Meee ee ead male IVD Modernism as Crivqus 539 from the beginning. A truthful consciousness gives intellect a firm foundation upon ‘which to build; 2 corrupt consciousness forces intellect to build on a quicksand. The falsehoods which an untruthful consciousness imposes on the intellect are falsehoods which intellect can never correct for itself. In so far as consciousness is corrupted, the very wells of truth are poisoned, Intellect can build nothing firm. Moral ideals are castles in the air, Political and economie systems are mere cobwebs. Even common sanity and bodily health are no longer secure. But corruption of consciousness is the same thing as bad art 1 do not speak ofthese grave issues in order to magnify the office of any small section in our communities which arrogates to itself the name of artists. That would be absurd. Just as the life ofa community depends fr its very existence on honest dealing between ‘nan and man, the guardianship of this honesty being vested not in any one class or section, butinall and sundry, so the effort towards expression of emotions, the effort to ‘overcome corruption of consciousness, isan effort that has to be made not by specialists only but by every one who uses language, whenever he uses it. Every utterance and every gesture that each one of us makes isa work of art. Ir important to each one of us that in making them, however much he deceives others, he should not deceive himself. Ihe deceives himseif in this matter, he has sown in himself a seed which, unless he roots it up again, may grow into any kind of wickedness, any kind of mental disease, ‘any kind of stupidity and folly and insanity. Bad art, the corrupt consciousness is the rue radi malorum. 11 Clement Greenberg (1909-1995) ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ ith ths essay Greenberg imported some specific concerns of the German intelectual Left into the American forum of the then Trotskyist Partisan Review, where a debste about the political role of art and iterature had been going on for the previous three years. (In particular, Greenbere’s text shows signs of acquaintance with Blch's ‘Discussing Expres: Sionis; see IVD8) His analysis ofthe avant-garde unites a socathistorcal frm of explan- ation with an interest in the qualitative distinctness of advanced ar. In Greenberg's 1939 formulation, the avantgarde is that historical agency which functions to keep culture ave in the face of capitalism. (i a 1972 reprint ofthe article Greenberg corrected his mistaken ‘dentiicaion of Repin as a painter of pseudorealistc battle scenes.) Frst published in Partisan Review, New York, Vino. 5, Fall 1939, pp. 34-49. For later texts by Greenberg, ‘see VAL and 10, VIB5 and 8.) (One and the same civilization produces simultaneously two such different things as a poem by T. $. Eliot and a Tin Pan Alley song, ora painting by Braque and a Saturday Evening Post cover. All four are on the order of culture, and ostensibly, parts of the same culture and products of the sime society. Here, however, their connection seems tw end. A poem by Eliot and a poem by Fadie Guest ~ what perspective of culture is large enough to enable us to situate chem in an enlightening relation to each other? ‘Dos the fat that a disparity such as this within the frame of single cultural tradition, Which is and has been taken for granted ~ does this fact indicate thatthe dispavity is ¢ part ofthe natural order of things? Or i it something entirely new, and particular 10 our age?540. Freedom, Responsibility and Power "The answer involves more than an investigation in esthetics. Ir appears to me that it is necessary to examine more closely and with more originality than hitherto the relationship between aesthetic experience as met by the specific ~ aot the generalized dividual, end the socal and historical contexts in which that experience takes place Whats browght co light will answer, in addition to the question posed above, other and perhaps more important questions. 1 [A society a it becomes fess and ess able in the course ofits development, 10 justify the ineviability of its particular forms, breaks up the accepted notions upon, which [Trusty and writers must depend in large part for communication with their eudienoes Te becomes difficult to sssume anything, All the verites involved by religion, authority, tradition, style are thrown into question, and the writer or artist is no longer able to cuimate the response of his audience to che symbols and references with which he ‘yorks, In the past such a state of affairs has usually resolved itself into a motionless “Rlexandrianism, an academicism in which the really important issues are Teft un- touched because they involve controversy, and in which creative activity dvvindles to Virtuosity in the small details of form, all larger questions being decided by the Drevedent ofthe old masters. The same themes aze mechanically varied ina hundred Hiferent works, and yet nothing new i produced: Statius, mandarin verse, Roman Ssculpuce, Beaux-Arts painting, neo-republican architecture, ‘eis among the hopeful signs inthe midst of the decay of our present society that we — some of us ~ have been unvilling to accept this Ist phase for our own culture, In ‘ecking to go beyond Alexandrianism, a part af Western bourgeois society has pro- ‘Guced something unheard of heretofore: ~ avant-garde culture. A superior conscious- tres of history ~ more precisely, the appearance of a new kind of eitcism of society, an Fhistorical criucism ~ made this possible, ‘This criticism has not confronted out present Society with timeless utopias, but has soberly exarnned in the terms of history and of fuse and effect the antecedents, justifications and functions of the forms that ie atthe freart of every society. Thus our present bourgeois socal order was shown to be, not an ‘ternal, ‘natural’ condition of life, but simply the latest term in a succession of social ‘nders, New perspectives of this kind, becoming a part of the advanced intellectual ‘conscience ofthe fifth and sixth decades of the nineteenth century, soon were absorbed by artis and poets, even if unconsciously for the most part, Tt, was no accident, therefore that the birth of the avant-garde coincided chronologically ~ and geographic tilly, too — with the frst bold development of scientific revolutionary vhought in Europe, “Truc, the first settlers of bohemia — which was then identical with the avantgarde — ‘turned out soon to be demonstratively uninterested in politics. Nevertheless, without the eculation of evolutionary ideas inthe ar about hem, they would never have been ble to isolate their concept of the ‘bourgeois’ in order co define what they were st, ‘Non without the moral aid of revolutionary politcal attitudes would they bave had the courage to assert themselves as aggressively as they did against the prevailing standards tf society, Courage indced was needed for this, because the avant-garde’s emigration from bourgeois society to bohemia meant also an emigration from the markets of capitaliem, upon which artists and writers had been thrown by the falling away of MD Modernism as Critique 841 asc pronge. (Osea, testa hee vig in eet ‘Khu a» we willbe chown ltr te rane ude somanedatached bourgeois wees ect edd Se mony) Tet etn tomer te tape ad sce io eating il om soe, pried oa wu ed epi olay el ure E50 "Te nur Meine yt of it ao aga mite wh sv and pony dsp ontop oe ae ‘ek ce up hh cet fr bs te re Hee [Rep arth we and tmp feof th rep ‘Spent aa ph so ci wd se eerie seid ef lps and ones Reng fom pl sees She tance pou ra tna se gh el et hy bh Sonim andy iw De cress of an sbolt inhale fi ole he ot nn ae and ‘pure poetry” ay f and subject matter or content ames somethin; Sm ee Ts sc he bh ease sare at sto spunea nd pou, te. The snc pets es fe iia Go by eating omen ald sy ont vm myn wy ee i valine ryadnape-et te pre rssely sh oahng fm ee dodo of eating, ss or orga. Coe se {rele npn in nm th vk oft ste se ted inghicer panting vi sh dh str rt ng vit eich crn soe sre nn tT ays in tema wich eo ‘haere an eles seis. Ano anot beat to Gal and tre tase iano Arman sane ut dec a proto a Sentra, Tis he fey eae Ta Teng i ntcncn es fsea mater feonmenaprne eee rest tin on dum 8 vec The ames ors sty huventes i et Stes an ser res ey Shee tae ory coma oi Tt nin, te he nr of Seer eps fs bc ein a nly be und in he ey tro! dns by ith at eae hae ately ned ce one The hens ome e er mer aan eae cnn wh ‘taut aaranlitcre nea, thea win ee hee nano trang To Yo Nor is chere singing schoo! bur staying ‘Monuments of is own magnificence. Picasso, Branue, Mondin, Mit, Kandinsky, Be x , Bque, Mona, Min, Kandinsky, Branca, even Klee, Matis and Cezanne derive their ehiet inspiration from the medium they work in! The Shen thir art seems to lie mos fallin ts pe pevesupaton wth the nnd gan of pi sey yo en ‘heer not ecoanlyimplaed in tse fcr. The aan of pot lke intang, Malem, Valery, Eur, Pound Hart Crane, Steven, even ike and542, Freedom, Responsibility and Power ry and on the ‘moments? “Yeats, appears to be centered on the effort to create poetry themeclves of poetie conversion, rather than on experience to be converted into poetry. a eer grain ror yma Ota eh a comms Caan ft 0) ot Malas Toles le re rp hn of we ts ee prey penn one Howe ve ee aan money woul be mosh moe “pore and abt” AS forthe ote See Pde eatin af mune wthes ond Ha Fee ac emt a a nr fret consort ei ro oh enue ta eno tt Cae anes ee ee igo el ant J's Ua on oe se ine acs Fen ite hen of apse or fest te pesmi ean wae bs Fat vanparde are the non of mining ~ he ct tell ol sc por ay diapprva Is ret th cute cons within sel some aoe re asndani secs to overcome. The ies quae fom Yeas refered ean, whic i very lve to Aecandst and ina sense thi nition of Sey Jaro sore of Alsods anism, But tee i one most important srr se ammeaede motes we Alesana sands il. And chs, pre are tnt jae the svancards retods and makes thm necessary. The a Hi hee tar by no other mea is ie pombe aay to create a and re high onder, "To quan! with ncesity by throwing about terms Hke ere pn very toe and ao fori iter dll or dishonest, This not sense tat te the sdvntage ofthe antade tha 8 thai ie the opp _ enced specialization of isl, the et that its best atts ar aris arcu, is a ows oct poy tas eatanged a get many of those whe wee sea mal of ening and apprecatngsmbious tad eau, bat Who ae ng nae to acgean ito nt ei eat secret, The mass Fee eye ain moe oes inden caren the proces of developmen But today such culture is being abandoned by those to whom it actually belongs — our rare vit ie the laser tain avant-aee longs. Nol can develop ee ssi tah vidoes source of ale nce And inthe ce ofthe aan cree ates paige bm ttcaong th ingest of that soe fom which t DOE to Ue cto bur to ch it hah ala remnned ached Oy an meal cond of god,‘ prox is el. And now this ele i pil svinkig Set ancqate fms the ol ving clare se now hve he suri i be sear ftire of ator in general us three : ior be decd by supericlpenomene and loa suse, Passos a Tae crow and. So rag th overt the eer in eee er dee sil busines, andthe ples sil publish some “Bieulé err the avant-garde vl aeady sensing the dange, becoming more and eid cresy dy tat pss, Acer ad commercials ate appearing in rs np pla" an mean only ove thing dat the avantgarde Becoming Meee af he audience ie dgpands onthe ch and che cutiated MD Modernism as Crique $43 Jit the nature itself of avant-garde culture that is alone responsible for the danger it finds itself in? Oris that only « dangerous lability? Are there other, and perhaps more portant, factors involved? 0 Where there is an avantgarde, generally we also find a rearguard. True enough ~ simultaneously with the entrance of the avant-garde, a second new cultural phenom- fenon appeared in the industrial West: that thing to which the Germans give the wonderful name of Kisck: popular, commercial at and literature with their chromeo- types, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, exc, ete. For some reason this gigantic apparition has always been taken for granted. Iris time we looked into its whys and swherefores. Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution which urbanized the masses of ‘Western Europe and America and established what is called universal Biteracy. Prior to this the only marker for formal culture, as distinguished from folk culture, ‘had been among those who in addition o being abe to read and write, could command the leisure and comfort that always goes hand in hand with cultivation of some sort. ‘This until chen hal been inextricably associated with literacy. But with the introduc sion of universal literacy, the ability to read and write became almost a minor ski Griving a ce, and it no longer served to distinguish an individual's cultural inclinations, since it was no longer the exclusive concomitant of refined tastes. “The peasants who setted in the eites as proletariat and petty bourgeois learned to read and write for the sake of efficiency, but they did not win the leisure and comfort necessary forthe enjoyment of the citys traditional culture. Losing, nevertheless, their taste forthe folk culture whose background was the countryside, and discovering a new capacity for boredom at the stme time, the new urban masses set up a pressure on society to provide them with a kind of culcure fit for their own consumption. To fll the demand of the new market, a new commodity was devised: ersatz culture, kitsch, destined for those who, insensible vo the values of genuine culture, are hungry nevertheless for the diversion that only culture of some sort ean provide Kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates ths insensbiity. Tris the source ofits profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all tha is spurious in che life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing ofits customers except their money ~ not even their time. ‘The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hang’ ofa fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, scquisitions, and perfected self-conseiousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends. It borrows from it device, tricks, stratagems, rules of chumb, themes, converts, them into e system, and discards the rest. It draws its life blood, soto speak, from this, reservoir of accumulated experience. This is what is realy meant when itis suid that the populat art and literature of today were once the daring, esoteric art and literature of yesterday. Of eourse, no such thing is tue, What is meant that wien enough time544 Freedom, Responsibility end Power has elapsed the new is looted for new ‘twists’ which are then watered down and served tupas kitsch, Selevidently, all kitsch is academic; and conversely all that’s academic is [ktsch. For what i called the academic as such no longer hasan independent existence, ‘bur has become the stuffed-shirt Yront for kitsch, ‘The methods of industralism displace the handicrafts ‘Because itcan be turned out mechanically, kitsch has become an integral part of our productive system in a way in which true culture could never be, except accidentally. Tt has been capitalized at a tremendous investment which must show commensurate etuins; it is compelled co extend a8 well as to keep its markets, While iis essentially jas own salesman, a great sales apparatus has nevertheless been created for it, which brings pressure to bear on every member of society. Traps are laid even in those areas, 80 10 speak, that are the preserves of genuine culture, It is not enough today, in a ‘country like ours, to have an inclination towards the latter; one must have a true passion for i that will give him the power to resist the faked article that surrounds and presses in on bim from the moment he is old enough to look at the funny papers. Kitsch is deceptive. It has many different levels, and some of them are high enough co be ‘dangerous to the nave seeker of true light. A magazine like the New Yorker, which js fundamentally high-class kitsch for the luxury trade, converts and waters down a great deal of avant-garde material for its own uses. Nor is every single item of kitsch altogether worthless. Now and then it produces something of merit, something that has ‘an authentic fol flavor; and these accidental and isolated instances have fooled people ‘who should know better. “Kitsch's enormous profits are a source of temptation tothe avant-garde itself, and its members have not always resisted this temptation. Ambitious writers end artists will ‘modify their work under the pressure of kitsch, if they do not succumb to it entirely. ‘And then those puzzling borderline cases appear, such as the popular novelist, Sime ‘non, in France, and Steinbeck in this country, The net result i always to the detriment ‘oF true culture in any case Kitsch has not been confined to the cities in which it was bora but has flowed out lover the countryside, wiping out folk culture. Nor hes it shown any rogard for (geographical and national-cultural boundaries. Another mass product of Western industrials, it has gone on a triumphal tour of the world, crowding out and defacing native cultures in one colonial country after another, so that it is mow by way of ‘becoming a universal culture, the first universal culture ever beheld. Today the native of China, no less than the South American Indian, the Hinds, no less than the Polynesian, have come to prefer to the products of their native art, maguzine covers, rotogravure sections and calendar girls. How is this virulence of kitsch, this iresstible attractiveness, to be explained? Naturally, machine-made kitsch can undersell the yative handmade article, and the prestige of the West also helps; but why is litsch 2 ‘s0 much more profitable export article than Rembrandt? One, after all, ean be repro duced as cheaply asthe other. In his last article on the Soviet cinema in the Partisan Review, Dwight Macdonald ‘points out that kitsch has in che ast ren years become che dominant culture in Soviet ‘Russia. For this he blames the politcal regime ~ not only forthe fact that kitsch is the official culture, but also chat itis actually the dominant, most popular culture, end hhe quotes the following from Kurt London’s The Seven Soviet Arts: *...the attitude of the masses both tothe old and new art styles probably remains essentially dependent IND Modernism as Critique 545 on the nature of the education afforded them by their respective states.” Macdonald ges on to say: “Why afterall should ignorant peasants prefer Repin (a leading exponent fF Russian academic kitsch in peinting) to Picasso, whose abstract technique is at least as relevant t0 their own primitive folk art as isthe former's realistic style? No, if the masses crowd into the Tretyakov (Moscow's museum of contemporary Russian art: IEtsch, it is Iargely because they have been conditioned to shun “formalism” and to admire “socialist realism.” In the frst place it is not a question ofa choice between merely the old and merely the new, as London seems to think ~ burt of a choice between the bad, up-to-date old and the genuinely new. The alternative to Picasso is not Michelangelo, but kitsch. In the second place, neither in backward Russia nor in the advanced West do the masses prefer kitsch simply because their governments condition them toward it. Where state ‘educational systems take the trouble to mention art, we are told to respect the old ‘masters, not kitsch; and yet we go and hang Maxfield Parrish or his equivalent on our vealls, instead of Rembrandt and Michelangelo. Moreover, as Macdonald himself points cout, around 1925 when the Soviet regime was encouraging avant-garde cinema, the Russian masses continued prefer Hollywood movies. No, ‘conditioning? does not explain the potency of kitsch Al values are human values, relative values, in ar as well as elsewhere. Yet there does seem to have been more or less of a general agreement among the cultivated of ‘mankind over the ages as to what is good art and what bad. Taste has varied, but not beyond certain limits; contemporary connoisseurs agree with the cighteenth-century [Japanese that Hokusai was one ofthe greates artist of hs time; we even agree with the ancient Egyptians that Third and Fourth Dynasty art was the most worthy of being selected as their paragon by those who came after. We may have come to prefer Giotto to Raphael, but we still do not deny that Raphael was one of the best painters of his time, There has been an agreement then, and this agreement rests, T believe, on fairly constant distinction made between those values only to be found in art and the values ‘which can be found elsewhere. Kitsch, by virtue ofa rationalized technique that draws fon science and industry, has erased this distinction in practice. Let us see, for example, what happens when an ignorant Russian peasant such as ‘Macdonald mentions stands with hypothetical freedom of choice before two paintings, one by Picasso, the other by Repin. In the frst he ses, let us say, a play of lines, colors and spaces that represent a woman. ‘The abstract technique — to accept Macdonald's supposition, which I am inclined to doubs ~reminds him Somewhat ofthe icons he has [eft behind him in the village, and he feels the attraction ofthe familiar. We will even suppose that he faintly surmises some of the great art values the cultivated Picasso, He turns next to Repin’s picture and sees a battle scene. The technique is not $0 familiar—as technique. Bat that weighs very lite with the pessan, for he suddenly discovers values in Repin’s picture that seem far superior to the values he has been accustomed to find in icon art; and the unfamiliar ise is one of the sources of those values: the values ofthe vividly recognizable, the miraculous and the sympathetic. In Repin’s picture the peasant recognizes and sees things in the way in which he recognizes and sees things outside of pictures ~ there is no discontinuity between art, and life, no need to accept a convention and say to oneself, that icon represents Jesus because it intends to represent Jesus, even fit doesnot remind me very much of aman. ‘That Repin can paint so sealstically that identifications are self-evident immediately546 Freedom, Responsibility and Power and without any effort on the part ofthe spectator ~ that is miraculous, The peasant is iso pleased by the wealth of selfevident meanings which he finds in the picture: fells story. Picasso and the icons are so austere and barren in comparison. What is tore, Rep heightens reality and makes it dramatic: sunset, exploding shells, running ‘and falling men. There is no longer any question of Picasso or icons. Repin is what the peasant wants, and nothing ese but Repin, Iti lucky, however, for Repin that the peasant is protected from the products of American capitalism, for he would not stand hance next to a Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell. ‘Ultimately, it can be said that the cultivated spectator derives the same values from Picasso that the pessint gets fiom Repin, since what the latter enjoys io Repin is ‘soinehow att t00, on however low a scale, and he is sent to look at pictures by the same Sntinets that send the cultivated spectator. Bur the ultimate values which the cultivated Spectator derives from Picasso are derived ata second remove, as the result of reflection upon the immediate impression left by the plastic values. It is only then that the recognizable, the miraculous and the sympathetic enter. They are not immediately or ‘externally present in Picasso's painting, Dut must be projected into it by che spectator “Sensitive enough to reict sufficiently to plastic qualities. They belong to the ‘reflected? ‘effect In Repin, on the other hand, the ‘reflected effect has already been included in the picture, teady for the spectator’s unreflective enjoyment. Where Picasso paints ‘use, Repin paints effect. Repin prodigests art for the spectator and spares him effort provides him with a short cut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily ‘iffcat in genuine at. Repin, or kitsch, is synthetic art “The same point ean be made with respect to kitsch lterarure: it provides vieerious experience for the insensitive with far greater immediacy than serious fiction can hope todo, And Eddie Guest and the Jndian Love Lyries are more poetic than T. 8. Eliot and ‘Shakespeare m ‘Fthe avant-gace imitates the processes of art, kitsch, we now see, imitates its effees “The neatness ofthis antithesis is more than contrived; it corresponds to and defines the tremendous interval that separates from each other two such simultaneous cultural phenomena asthe avant-garde and kitsch, This interval, t00 great tobe closed by all the Fnfinite gradations of popularized ‘modernism’ and ‘modernist’ kitsch, corresponds in turn to a socal interval, «social interval that bas always existed in formal culture, a8 Csewhere in civilized society, end whose two termini converge and diverge in fixed ‘elation tothe increasing or decreasing stability of the given society. ‘There fas always been on one side the minority of the powerful ~ and therefore the eultivared ~ and on. the other the great mass ofthe exploited and poor ~ and therefore the ignorant. Portal Culture has always belonged to the frst, while the last have had to content themselves vith folk or rudimentary culture, or kitsch. “ina stable society that funerions well enough to holdin solution the contradictions between its classes, the cultural dichotomy becomes somevhat blurred. The axioms of the few are shared by the many; the latter belicve supersttiously what the former believe soberly. And at such moments in history the masses are abl to fee! wonder and admiration for the culture, on no matter how high a plane, ofits masters. This applies atleast to plastic culture, which is accessible to all. NO Modernism as Critique 547 In the Middle Ages the plastic artist paid lip service at leat to the lowest common denominators of experience, This even remained true to some extent until the seven- teenth century. There was available for imitation a universally valid conceptual reality, ‘whose arder the artist could not tamper with. The subject matter of at was prescribed by those who commissioned works of art, which were not created, as in bourgeois society, on speculation. Precisely becanse his content was determined in advance, the artist was free to concentrate on his medium, He needed not to be philosopher, of visionary, but simply artifice. As long as there was general agreement as to what were the worthies subjects for at, the artist was relieved of the necessity o be original and Javentve in his ‘matter’ and could devote all his energy to formal problems. For him the medium became, privately, professionally, the content of his art, even as his ‘medium is today the public content ofthe abstract paints’ art— with that difference, however, that the medieval artist had to suppress his professional preoccupation in public ~ had always to suppress and subordinate the personal and professional in the finshed, official work of art. If, as an ordinary member ofthe Christian community, he felt some personal emotion about his subject mater, this only contributed to the enrichment ofthe work's public meaning. Only with the Renaissance do the inflections ‘of the personal become legitimate, still wo be kept, however, within che limits of the simply and universally recognizable. And only with Rembrandt do lonely" artists begin to appear, lonely in their ar. But even during the Renaissance, and as long as Western art was endeavoring to perfect its technique, vitories in this realm could only be signalized by success in realise imitation, since there was no other objective criterion at hand, Thus the masses ‘ould stil find in the art of their masters objects of admiration and wonder. Even the bird that pecked at the fruit in Zeuxis’ picture eould applaud It is a platiude that are becomes caviar to the general when the reality i imitates no longer corresponds even roughly tothe reality recognized by the general. Even then, however, the resentment the common man may fee is silenced by the awe in which he stunds of the patrons of this art. Only when he becomes dissatisfied with the social ‘order they administer does he begin to criticize their culture. Then the plebian finds ‘courage forthe firs time to voice his opinions openly. Every man, from the Tammany alderman tothe Austrian house-paite, finds that he is enticed to his opinion. Most fen ths resentment toward culture is to be found where the dissatisfaction with society isa reactionary dissatisfaction which expresses itself in revivaism and purita ism, and latest ofall, in fascisan, Here revolvers and torches begin to be mentioned in the sume breath as culture. Inthe name of godliness or the blood’ health, in the name ‘of simple ways and solid virtues, the starue-smashing commences. v Returning to our Russian peasant for the moment, let us suppose that after he has ‘chosen Repin in preference to Picasso, the state's educational apparatus comes slong. and tells im that he is wrong, that he should have chosen Pieusso ~ and shows him why. Te is quite possible for the Soviet state to da this. But things being as they are in ‘Russia ~and everywhere else ~ the peasant soon finds the necessity of working hard al day for his living and the rude, uncomfortable circumstances in which he lives do not allow him enough leisure, energy and comfort to train for the enjoyment of Picasso.‘548. Freedom, Responsibly and Power “This needs, afterall, considerable amount of conditioning” Superior culture is one of the most artificial of ail human creations, and the peasant finds no ‘natural? urgency ‘within himself that will drive him toward Picasso in spite of al difficulties. In the end the peasane will go back to kitsch when he feels like looking a pictures, for he cx enjoy itech without effort. ‘The state is helpless inthis matter and remains so as long asthe problems of production have not been solved ina socialist sense. The sume hold true, {f course, for capitalist countries and makes al ak of art for the masses there nothing ‘but demagory.? ‘Where today a political regime establishes an offical cultural policy, its for the sake ‘of demagogy. If kitsch isthe offical tendency of culture in Germany, Tay and Russia, {is not because their respective governments are controlled by philistines, but because Kitsch isthe calture of the masses in these countries, as itis everywhere else, The ‘encouragement of kitsch is merely another of the inexpensive ways in which toraltarian Tegimes seek to ingratate themselves with their subjects. Since these regimes cannot qaibe the cultural level of the masses ~ even if they wanted to ~ by anything shore of « Surrender to international socialism, they will fatter the masses by bringing all culture ‘down to their level. It is for this reason that che avant-garde is outlawed, and not so ‘much because a superior culture i inherently a more critical culture. (Whether oF not the avant-garde could possibly flourish under a totalitarian regime is not pertinent 10 the question at this point.) As a matter of fac, the main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalnists isnot that they are too ‘tical, but that they are too “innocent,” that it is too diffilt to inject effective propiganda into them, that kitsch is more pliable to this end. Kitsch keeps «dictator Fr eloser contact with the ‘sou of the people. Should the official culture be one to the general mass-level, there would be a danger of isolation, ‘the masses were conceivably to ask for avant-garde artand literature, Hider, Mussolini and Stalin would not hesitate long in attempting to satisfy such a demand, Hitler isa bitter enemy of the avant-garde, both on doctrinal and personal ‘rounds, yer this did not prevent Goebbels in 1932-1935 from strenuously courting vant-gurde artists and writers. When Gottiried Benn, an Expressionist poet, came over to the Nazis he was welcomed with a great fanfare, although at that very moment Hider twas denouncing Expressionism as Kultwbolschewismas, This was at a time when the ‘Nazis fel thatthe prestige which the avant-garde enjoyed among the cultivated German. public could be of advantage to them, and practical considerations of this nature, the Nazis being skillful politicians, have always taken precedence over Hitler's personal inclinations, Later the Nazis realized thet it was more practical to acoede tothe wishes of the masses in matters ofeulture than to those of their paymasters the latter, when iteame to a question of preserving povser, were as willing to sacrifice their culture as they were ‘heir moral principles; while the former, precisely because power was being withheld from them, had to be cozened in every other way possible. It was necessary to promote on much more grandiose style than in the democracies the illusion that the masses actually Tule. The literature and art they enjoy and understand were to be proclaimed the only frac art and literature and any other Kind was to be suppressed. Under these circum stances people like Gottfried Benn, no matter how ardently they support Hitler, become ‘liability; and we hear no more of them in Nazi Germany. ‘We can see then that although from one point of view the personal philistinism of ‘itler and Stalin isnot accidental tothe roles they play, from another point of view itis ND Modernism as Critique 549 coaly an incidentally contributory factor in determining the culture policies oftheir respective regimes, Their personal philistinism simply adds brutality and double Carkness to policies they would be forced to support anyhow by the pressure of all their other policies ~ even were they, personaly, devotees of avant-garde culture. What the acceptance ofthe isolation of the Russian Revolution forces Stalin to do, Hitler is ‘compelled to do by his tcceptance of the contradictions of capitalism and his efforts ro freeze them. As for Mussolini ~his case isa perfect example of the disponibile of eealist in these matters. For years he bent a benevolent eye on the Futurists and built modera= jstc railroad stations and government-owned apartment houses. One can still seein the suburbs of Rome more modernistic apartments than almost anywitere else in the world. Perhaps Fascism wanted to show its up-to-dateness, o conceal the fact that it was a ‘etrogresson; perhaps it wanted to conform to the tastes ofthe wealthy elite tserved. At any rate Mussolini seems to have realized lately that it would be more useful to him ro please the cultural rates ofthe Taian masses than those of their masters. The masses ‘must be provided with objects of admiration and wonder; the latter can dispense with them, And so we find Mussolini announcing ‘new Imperial style,’ Marinett, Chirico, ct, aL, are sent into the outer darkness, and the new railroad station in Rome will not be ‘modernist, That Mussolini was late in coming to this only illustrates again the relative hsitance with which Italian Fascism has drawn the necessary implications ofits roe. Capitalism in decline finds that whatever of quality itis still capable of produc becomes almost invariably a threat to its own existence. Advances in culture, no less than advances in science and industry, corrode the very society under whose aegis they are made possible. Here, as in every other question today, it becomes necessary to {quote Marx word for word. Today we no longer look toward socialism for a new culture ~ as inevitably as one will appear, once we do have socialism. Today we look to socialism simply for the preservation of whatever living culture we have right now. "Lowe thi frtaulison to remark made by Han Hfnan, ther teacher, ane of is etre. Frm the pint of view ofthis fomlain, Sereive in plas ae reacdonary tendency which i "lerping to estore ‘ote’ subject matter. The ehefeoncern of painter ie Dal st represent the ote and cng of icons se process of is edi Tewlbe objected ht such rt for the mses fl twas developed under atimenary conons of pradton and tit pod deal fall ais on high evel Yer tx but fl es pt Athen, and is Athne whom we wat frm clare wih ini of spect ts acuriane, is lage compre enon. Besides, we steno old hat tof what weconsier godin lk ealtureis he ati survnal of ded feral, aristacrae, eulares. Ou old English bl, for instance, were not cel bythe “ol bt by che posted sie fe Engh counted to survivein the outs of he lk long after tho for whom dhe alae were cmpored had gone on to otber forms of Feature ‘Unforamsey, unl the machine ag, care war the exclusive prerogative ofa society tht lived by their of rior sve. They were the el sls af utr. For one man sped ime and energy ‘resting or ining vo poetry ment et another man had to produce enough o keep sel alive and {he Former in corre. A today’ we id that he cla of slave-cwing be i geerly mich superior that af ee bes tha poss no saser 12 Harold Rosenberg (1906-1978) “The Fall of Pari Poet and arte, Rosenberg here celebrates the international character of Modernism and ‘of Paris as its early twenlletycentixy capital Hes aso concerned, however, to point tothe550. Freedom, Responsibility and Power ‘manifest winerabilty ofa merely cultural Modernism in face ofthe actual potical disions ‘ofthe modern world. His conclusion anticipates the establishment of New York 2s the new Inetropoltan centre of Moderist culture during the 1940s. First pubished in Partisan Review in 1940. Slghty revised text printed in Harold Rosenberg, Tradition of the New, Tendon and New York, 1962, pp. 203-20, from which the present version is taken. (See also VAI6) ‘The Style of Today “The laboratory of the wwentieth century has been shut down. Let us admit, hough, the rapping of the soldir’s fist did not interrupt the creation of fresh wonders. For more tan a decade there hid been a steady deflation of that intellectual exuberance which Ihad seat out over the earth the waves of cubism, Futurism, vorticism ~ and Tater, ‘dadaism, the Russian Ballet, surrealism. Yet up to the day ofthe occupation, Pais had ‘been the Holy Place of our time, The only one, Not because ofits affirmative genius alone, but pethaps, on the contrary, through its passivity, which allowed it to be possessed by the searchers of every nation. By Picasso and Juan Gris, Spaniards; by ‘Modigliani, Boceioni and Severii, Italians; by Brancusi, Roumanian; by Joyce, Irish- rman; by Mondrian, Dutchman; by Lipchitz, Polis Lithuanian; by Archipenko, Kan- dinsky, Diaghilev, Larionov, Russians; by Calder, Pound, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, ‘Americans, by Kupka, Czechosloval Lehmbruck and Max Ernst, Germanss by Wynd- hham Lewis and T. E. Hulme, Englishmen....by all artist, students, refugees. "The hospitality ofthis cultural Klondike might be explained as the result ofa tense balance of historical forces, preventing any one class from imposing upon the city its cow restriced forms and aims. Here life seemed to be forever strsining towards a new ‘quality. Since it might be the sign of what was 10 come, each fresh gesture took on an Jinmediate importance. Twentieth-cencury Paris was to the intellectual pioneer what nineteenth-centory America had been to the economic one. Here, the world beat @ pathway to the door of the inventor ~ not of mouse traps but of perspectives. “Thus Paris was the only spot where necessary blendings could be made and mellowed, where it was possible to shake up such “modern” doses as Viennese psych= ‘ology, Aifian sculpture, American detective stories, Russian musi, meo-Catholicism, German technique, Italian desperation, "Paris represented the International af culture. Toit, the city contributed something of its own physiognomy, « pleasant gift of sidewalk cafés, evening streets, shop signs, ppostmen's uniforms, argot, discursive female janitors. But despite this surface local ‘Color, twentith-century art in Paris was not Parisian; in many ways ie was more suited. to New York or Shanghai than to this city of eighteenth-century patks and alleys, What ‘vas done in Paris demonstrated clearly and forall time that such a things international culture could exist, Moreover, that this culture had « definite styl: the Moder 'A whole epoch in the history of art had come into being without regard to national values, The significance ofthis fact is just now becoming apparent, ‘Ten years ago, no ‘one would have questioned the possibility of communication above the national, nor ‘consequently, of the presence of above-national elements even in the most national of rt forms. Today, however, ‘sanity movements’ everywhere are striving to line up artat the chauvinist soup kitchens, And to accomplish this, they attack the value and even the reality of Modernism and ‘the Pars styl.” National life alone is put forward as the MD Modernism as Criique $61 source of ll inspiration. But the Modern in literature, painting, architecture, dram: Gesign, remain, in defiance of government bureaus or patriotic stretcleaners, os solid evidence that a ereative communion sweeping across all boundaries is not out of the reach of our time, In allhis ats contemporary man sem narrow an poor. Yet there ae moments when Ie seems to lesp towards the marvellous in ways more varied and whelecherted than zy ofthe generation ofthe past. Inthe Schoo of Pari Belonging to noone country, but worldwide and worl-timed and pertinene every, the mind Of the wentith nary projected isl into possiblies tat wil occepy mankind dering many eycles of social adventure to come. Relesed in this aged and bottomless metropolis from tutional follore, national poles, national carers; detached from the family and the Corporite taste; the lone indivi, stippe, yet supported on every side by the vality of other outcasts ith whom it was necessary t form no permanent ries, cold txperiment wth everything that man today has within hit of health or monstrouness fuith pure inlet revelling inthe tension of a perfectly adjsted line; with the Ferocious trance of the unmotivated st, with the quivrings of mood and memory left by unmixed punts, with arbitrary dssplines and the catharsis they produce; with th nes fe dhe ce wth he ery ple nd sb of pranoite dreams. ‘Tr, he Pris Marni not epreset ll the cis of present-day if, Anymore than is Into mean th tal sting ose of he popes of ieent ron, Iwasa vert ntl nage hs Morn, witha the anton snd from fom ness of aged hing. Ae vingnce- present and dea ol hineahip = reting ar upon ae tum, but pon wings ogo 38 SS ncrnry inn noting in oder ake off what Was dean he Fa 4 ngtion oe sea Pesta the wrenching of Wester cult ht hd pode this ay ad been 09 scr resulting akin of ‘ef inthe ld of thought, an over defence othe power ofthe pct, Soenc and phn hal xed ttl boda nee Century et ies shown tat they could dep Hom he skies without read Stine or pac, but a, manner, may of spn, of ating of eomposing ime of planing the ature, a says bee pone bythe geist fhe community se, where the gp of the dead wat ost relsng ‘They sbddeuy, mos ne spa os angle gen, cxeyhog tied unergiound tad been bought eh uric. The pspesive he mnie bad |. i=-_Hss# lifes gvesone or Roushed like ae but threw ops shower ef wonders a the _ ‘he urge tarda fee if, na sock that evry yar tnd him despe and daar inthe wh of te tenn hed cael envi was — | e._ss§. dead deeper, but ow Sines of ety and of eternal ie. Te eles ofthe | eas. ted Earp india erca~ al mere iver og Go.552. Freedom, Responsibility and Power ‘Strange vision of an eternity that consists of sheets of time and space picked from history like eards from a pack and constantly shuffled, arranged, scattered, regrouped, ‘rubbed smooth, te-faced, spread in design, brushed off to the floor. An absolute of the relative, to be re-ereated in compositions of bits of newspaper, horse-hair, classic prin, the butocks of a South Sea Islander, petroglyphs, arbitrary shapes suggested by the intoxication of the moment. "Thus the Paris Modern, resting on the deeply felt assumption that history eould be ‘entirely controlled by the mind, produced a No-Time, and the Paris ‘International a No-Place. And thisisas fer as mankind has gone toward frecing itself from its past [--] "But nose: processes less spectacular than those of the Paris studios had also been steadily loosening the cultural reefs of the past. Paris has been synonymous with ‘Modernism in the sense of the special style and tempo of our eonsciousness. But itis ‘a mistake to se this city also as central to the modern in the larger sense, the sense in which we think of the contemporary as beginning in 1789. This larger and more Fundamental span has not belonged to Paris alone. Ie has embraced equally the United States, South Ameria, industrial and revolutionary China, Japan, Russia the whole of “Europe, every spot in the world touched by contemporary civilization. Despite the fall ‘of Paris, the socal, economic, and cultural workings which define the modern epoch ine active everywhere, Even the style has not vanished with the elimination of its ‘capital: having been driven from the realm of art, it mo reappears in new military and propaganda techniques, I there i a break between our lives and the kind of life existing before 1789, the current debasement of the Paris of the past 150 years does not imply a ‘break of similar magnitude with the future. The world takes its shape from the moder, ‘vith consciousness or without it. ‘The Intellectual Form of Defeat 7 “The cultural International had a capital: Paris. In the 1920s the political International, 100, had a capital: Moscow, Te isa tragic irony of our epoch that these world centers ‘vere not brought together until che signing of the Franco-Soviet pact, when both were already dead. Then the two cadavers of hope embraced farccaly, with mutual suspi- ‘on and under the mutually exclusive provincial slogans: DEFENSE OF THE UssR and [FRANCE FOR FRENCOMEN. "The intelleccuals turned out in full dress ~ the ‘proletarians,’ of course, with red rosettes and suggestive smirks — to the wedding of their pair of radical ghosts. And offered themselves as anxious godfathers to its earthly isue, the Popular Front. From that time on it became bad luck even to recall the graves of international culture and international socialism, 'A few courageous men — Gide, Breton, Victor Serge, a few others ~ strove to uphold the tradition of French criticism, Bus what ‘higher need” had paralyzed the conscience of non-conformist Paris? "The higher need was Antifascist.(...] [1 Wearing armbands supplied by Moscow, the Paris Left adopted the style ofthe conventional, the sententious the undaring, the morally lax in the name of social duty and the ‘Defense of Culture.” Feasible Fronts were formed in which all the participants ND Modernism as Critique 553 were forced to give up their power of action ~ perhaps a profound desire for this renunciation was the main reason forthe coalitions, “Anvifascist unity became everything; progeams, insight, spirit truth, nothing. [...] {J To defend Paris, men and slogins long diseredited were restored to power. The Communists claimed the ‘Marseille’ as their own and former surrealist poets acclaimed Romain Rolland. Tn this milieu, inguiry soon became not merely a matter of taste but of bad taste. Another blow by Fascist radicalism and it became treachery. “Meanwhile, modera formulae perfected both by Paris and Moscow in the hour of their inspiration, and now discarded, had been eagerly seized upon by Germany and adapted to its peculiar aims. In that country politics became a ‘pure (.e, inhuman)’ srt, independent of everything but the laws of its medium, The subject matter of this ‘avant-garde’ polities was, like that of earlier art movements of Paris, the weakness, ‘mesnness, incoherence and intoxication af modern man, Against this advanced tech ique, which in itself has nothing to do with revolutionary change, the Paris of Popular vont compromise was helpless. ‘So tht, at lst, when the crisis is ripe, a fast-moving explosive force finds nothing in its path but a pile of decomposed scrapings. ‘The Academy had failed to halt modem art, and Fascism was not to be stopped by clichés. In the Fascist political and military adventures, modernist mysticism, dreaming of an absolute power to rearrange life according to any pattern of its choice, submits itself to trial. Agsinst this experiment is oppesed, not conservation, but other forms of contemporary consciousness, another Modernism. "No one can predict the center of this new phase, For its not by its own genius alone ‘thats capital of culture arises. Current flowing throughout the world lifted Paris above the countryside that surrounds it and kept it suspended like a magic island. And its decline, too, was the result not of some inner weakness ~ not of ‘sensuality’ or ‘softness’ as its former friends and present enemies declare ~ but of a general ebb. For a decade, the whole of civilization has been sinking down, lowering Patis steadily, towards the soil of France. Until its restoration as the capital ofa nation was completed Dy the tanks of the Germans,