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.
I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish. A lot of lawyers or doctors who have names but absolutely no lives. You're going to get your three or four scenes; you're not going to be able to show what you can do.
I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonists different from those in Western novels - more real, more quintessentially of Istanbul.
A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.
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