All Clement Greenberg Quotes
- Where the Old Masters created an illusion of space into which one could imagine walking, the illusion created by a Modernist is one into which… Created
- All profoundly original art looks ugly at first. All
- You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work… Abstract
- Art criticism, I would say, is about the most ungrateful form of 'elevated' writing I know of. It may also be one of the most… Art
- It has become apparent that art can have a startling impact without really being or saying anything startling — or new. The character itself of… Anything Startling
- The superior artist is the one who knows how to be influenced. Artist
- Art solves nothing, either for the artist himself or for those who receive his art. Art
- The dissolution of the pictorial into sheer texture, into apparently sheer sensation, into an accumulation of repetitions, seems to speak for and answer something profound… Accumulation
- The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms. Artist
- The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our… Carrying
- Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can… Accepted
- The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by… Abstraction
- If you want to change your art, change your habits. Art
- I don't get into 'becauses.' When you come into a studio you see a number of works. My habit is to go to the one… Art
- Part of the triumph of modernist poetry is, indeed, to have demonstrated the great extent to which verse can do without explicit meaning and yet… Anything Essential
- Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art. Art
- Decoration is asked to be 'merely' pleasing, 'merely' embellishing, and the 'functional' logic of Modernism leaves no room, apparently, for such 'mereness.' This is part… Apparently
- A large picture can give us images of things, but a relatively small one can best re-create the instantaneous unity of nature as a view… Best
- With an 'advanced' artist, it's not now possible to make a portrait. Advanced
- It's as though aesthetic value, quality, could be preserved only by concentrating on 'absolute' or 'autonomous' art: thus on visual art... that held and moved… Absolute
- Nothing could be further from the authentic art of our time than the idea of a rupture of continuity. Art is - among other things… Among
- Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have… Acclaimed
- One is also reminded of how, in art, the tortoise so often overtakes the hare... Art
- Complete honesty has nothing to do with 'purity' or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure… Artist