Research On Clement Greenberg's Literature And Art Thought

Clement Greenberg(1909-1994)was an important art theorist and critic in the United States in the 20 th century.He discovered Jackson pollock,Rothko,Willem de Kooning and other native American painters with his keen artistic insight.He is an important promoter of the prosperity of the New York School of Painting.Greenberg sorted out the context of modernism from European Impressionism,Cubism to American abstract expressionism.He constructed the artistic theory of "self-criticism" of modernism and provided the clearest formalism debate of modernism.Besides,he helped to realize the successful transfer of world art center to the United States.Since the 20 th century,Greenberg's great contribution to the abstract art of the US has not attracted enough attention from the American art world,but has been unfairly evaluated and criticized,suffering the criticism about both ideology and art theory.On the one hand,Greenberg's "Avant-Garde" art view was deconstructed by TJ Clark's social criticism method and questioned by Gilbert's "cold war weapon" conspiracy theory.On the other hand,Greenberg's modernism theory was also attacked by art critics such as Michael Fred and Steinberg for its essentialism.Arthur Danto even declared the end of Greenberg's modernism narration with the theory of the end of art.In this paper,Greenberg's theory of literature and art is placed in the context of the development of artistic tradition and the setting of 20th-century America.Through the exploration for the concept history of Avant-Garde,the real connotation of Greenberg's Avant-Garde,the political tendency in his thoughts of literature and art and the era characteristics are clarified.The paper starts from Greenberg's comparison among modernism painting,sculpture,literature and other art forms,expounds Greeberg's modernist medium and the theoretical source and the influence of the trend of self-criticism,and combed the main criticisms to Greenberg and his strong response.The paper explores the "empiricism" foundation in Greenberg's literary thought,tries to fully restore the image of both full passion and reason of Greenberg in artistic criticisms and the construction of theory under the complex background of the crisis and the reconstruction of 20th-century American capitalism,the transfer of world art center and the cold war,etc,and showsGreenberg's "Avant-Garde" view of political tendency,the aesthetic view of formalism art,and the whole picture of the "self-criticism" of modern art.In the contemporary society dominated by mass culture,there still is fresh practical significance and theoretical value by re-reading the connotation and evolution of Greenberg's thought on literature and paying attention to art itself and tradition continuation for the survival dilemma of traditional art forms and the future development of contemporary art practice.