Modernism and Artistic Developments
By Alexandra A. Jopp Modernism was the “cultural outcome of modernity, the social experience of living in the modern world.” [1] Many artists and critics, starting in the 1940s, abandoned traditional historicism and art forms in favor of a search for new standards, leading to an abundance of original writings, actions, reactions and artistic developments. When reflecting on how Modernism influenced art in the 1960s, it is important to note the role of American art critic and formalist Clement Greenberg, who had great influence as an arbiter of artistic quality, taste and value. His “Greenbergian Modernism” linked “high modern” art with artists who worked to refine a medium-specific approach to their work, and he preferred, above all, painterly Abstract Expressionism, especially Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. For Greenberg, the highest form of art was that which concerned itself so strictly with its medium and essential materials that the work was about the medium and noth...