Modernismo, forma, emoción y valor artístico: claves de la teoría de la modernidad artística de Clement Greenberg

Abstract

In the research work we presented for the D.E.A. degree, entitled Modernismo, forma, emoción, valor artístico: claves de la Teoría de la Modernidad de Clement Greenberg, we reconstructed the theoretical position held by Greenberg on texts of the mid 50’s to late 60’s as a late version of “formalist” art theory, showing the important role played there by a fragmentary theory of artistic meaning and value as “quality” and by the notion of a specific aesthetic emotion effected by formal qualities of art. Emphasis was also made on tensions in his theory of artistic “mediums”, between materialism (“literalism”) and the perceptual, or optical. We thus refuted possible readings of Greenberg’s position either as a masked idealistic intellectualism (as suggested by Paul Crowther), or as an unqualified, detached perceptualism (as understood by Deane W. Curtin).