Harold Rosenberg: Work

Harold Rosenberg was American writer and art critic. Explore interesting quotes on work.
Harold Rosenberg: 58   quotes 0   likes

“An art mode, new or old, is for the creative mind essentially a point of beginning. Content is brought into being by the activity through which the artist translates the movement into himself. In such an appropriation, there is no difference between an ongoing movement and one that is finished. During the reign of Minimalism, a painter might realize the new through Impressionism. That art history has a schedule of continuous advances en masse is a fantasy of the historian. The shared syntax of art movements is constantly replaced by the sensibility and practice of individuals. The avant-garde art of yesterday is the only modern equivalent of an aesthetic tradition. The fading of the ideas of a movement does not mean that it can no longer be a stimulus to creation. At the very dawn of a movement, the work of its artists commences to replace the concept; instead of Cubism there appear Picasso, Braque, Gris. Compared to the activities to which they give rise, ideas in art have a brief life. In the last analysis, the vitality of art in our time depends on works produced by movements after they have died.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 230, Art on the Edge (1975) "Shall These Bones Live?: Art Movement Ghosts"

Life , Art , History , Idea

“The skills of the modern artist are the opposite of those of the craftsman: instead of acquiring techniques for producing classes of objects, the artist today perfects the means suited to his particular work.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 51, "Inquest into Modernism"

Perfection

“The internationalization of art becomes a factor contributing to the estrangement of art from the artist. The sum of works of all times and places stands against him as an entity with objectives and values of its own. In turn, since becoming aware of the organized body of artworks as the obstacle to his own aesthetic self-affirmation, the artist is pushed toward anti-intellectualism and willful dismissal of the art of the past.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 137, "Criticism and Its Premises"

Art , Time , Past

“How much the work of an artist owes to an art movement to which he belongs can never be determined exactly, if only because the movement derives its character from the individual creations of its members.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 55, "Evidences of Surreality"

Art

“Not only were the minds of artists formed by the university; in the same mold were formed those of the art historians, the critics, the curators, and the collectors by whom their work was evaluated. With the rise of Conceptual art, the classroom announced its final triumph over the studio.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), pp. 247-248, "American Drawing"

Art , Universe

“The interval during which a painting is mistaken for the real thing, or a real thing for a painting, is the triumphant moment of trompe l'oeil art. The artist appears to be potent as nature, if not superior to it. Almost immediately, though, the spectator's uncertainty is eliminated by his recognition that the counterfeit is counterfeit. Once the illusion is dissolved, what is left is an object that is interesting not as a work of art but as a successful simulation of something that is not art. The major response to it is curiosity: "How did he do it?"”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 237-9, "Reality Again: The New Photorealism"

Art , Nature , Appearance , Success

“The struggle to make an absolute statement in an individually conceived vocabulary accounts for the profound tensions inherent in the best modern work.”

Harold Rosenberg

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 316, "Metaphysical Feelings in Modern Art"