Word: artiste
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...free-swinging essays on the philosophy of art, Schapiro finds that modern artists have rebelled against the use of noble images--religious scenes, Greek myths--as the artistic ideal. They substitute for it a new "pure art" that "derives its effects from elements peculiar to itself," not from the imitation of identifiable objects. This anti-objective style allows for the creation of a "universal art"--one that cuts across time and culture and makes art intelligible to all. Abstraction protects the artist's freedom, which Schapiro calls an "indispensible condition," The loss of the decorum and restraint necessary to traditional...
...answer these questions, Schapiro discusses the social forces and the reactions to modern art that have influenced the artistic personality. Most significantly, the modern artist does not use reality as a source of inspiration but instead finds it constraining or destructive. To escape the confines of reality, the modern artist has abandoned the recognizable objects that limit the artistic imagination...
Schapiro points to Cezanne, who, "in rendering the simplest objects bare of ideal meaning..." demonstrates the power of a creative mind. "The humanity of art," Schapiro tells us, "lies in the artist and not simply in what he represents..." He continues, "the charge of inhumanity brought against painting springs from a failure to see the works as they are." But how "are" they? The best in art "must be discovered in a sustained experience of serious looking and judging...." In other words, Schapiro assures us that if we look long and hard enough we will inevitably see what he sees...
While this absurd theorizing is highly personal, Schapiro offers more intelligible essays that fall into two main bodies: first, a technical historical approach to particular artists' work; and second, an examination of the psychological and social pressures manifest in an artist's work...
...second variety, Schapiro studies Van Gogh's "Crows Over the What Fields" in an attempt to understand the artist's last painting before suicide. This psychological essay probes the mood of the painter, analyzing Van Gogh's artistic devices. Schapiro points to the loss of focus, the uncertain movement and orientation and the unstable brush strokes that contrast with the painter's style in earlier pictures. In addition to noting Van Gogh's stylistic decay Schapiro adds that the painter was aware of this decay; thus his unusual attempt at structuring a painting...