"One is also reminded of how in art the tortoise so often overtakes the hare. 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 anything to say and take to performing instead of stating. This is how they first become accessible to broad taste, which is lazy taste, and by the same token to the processes of publicity and consecration. As long as they were trammeled up in the urgency of getting things said they were too difficult, too "controversial.""
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
On Hans Hofmann, in "Hofmann", in Georges (Fall 1961)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994) was an American art critic known for his advocacy of Abstract Expressionism.
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Clement Greenberg →
Related Quotes
"Hofmann is perhaps the most difficult artist alive-difficult to grasp and to appreciate. But by the same token he is …"
"the dividing line between the painterly and the linear [painting] is by no means a hard and fast one."
"It has become apparent that art can have a startling impact without really being or saying anything startling — or ne…"
"The essence of modernism lies in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline it…"
"Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention…"
"It belongs to journalism — and to the millennial complex from which so many journalists and journalist intellectuals …"
"The main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalinists, is not that …"
"Perhaps the greatest change that industrialism (along with Protestantism and rationalism) has made in daily life is t…"
"Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, sim…"
"Complete honesty has nothing to do with "purity" or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the compl…"