I found this little book squished in between two big art books in the library. It hadn't been checked out in years and looked like it needed a friend. I had just finished the very long NINTH STREET WOMEN, a book chock full of detail about the evolution of the New York art scene in mid century America, and here in my hand was the antidote. This small gem is a frolic through time and style, from late Cubism, through Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Op, Minimalism, Reductionism, and on into Conceptual Art. Wolfe confesses that he has looked at much of this art in puzzlement and, after an aha moment, bounces through his theorum that the emperor is, in fact, not wearing any clothes. No matter what your opinion of any style of art may be, this funny book about the small, elite, world of art, and about his feeling that the critics are the true drivers, may enhance what you see when next you walk into a gallery or museum. What are those big explanatory placards and often mystifying descriptions of the reason for being of individual works doing there anyway? And which came first......the art or the theory? Does the theory describe the art, or did the artist paint the words?!

Another Wolfe publication logged for the year (sure to also include The Bonfire of the Vanities in my list this fall) and what a joy it has brought. Even if it initially delivers the very same pretensive rage and confusion experienced while ignorantly, blankly staring at modern works on display when you’re meant to “ooh” and “ahh”, this short essay quickly kicks the “Eureka!” moment you’re looking for into light speed overdrive; all while pulchritudinously (yes, I had to look this word up, and yes, I took creative agency to adverb it) wrapped in the irresistible Wolfe-prose you were hoping for at embarkment. For those that love Wolfe and/or for those who can see when shown, this will bring outsized joy.

Oh my! No wonder Jeff loves Wolfe so much. As a starting point on the “read the authors that died last year” journey, I picked up the smallest Wolfe book — a devastating shake down of “modern art” as descending into the literary with adherence to the Word (here defined as flatness). I need to read it again with a dictionary nearby.

A few months ago my dad handed me this book, and holy heck did he pick the perfect book for me. It's like this was written AT me, a revelation of someone putting my own thoughts into words and connecting the dots better than I could ever do. I could see myself using this as a textbook on 20th century art history, a period of time whose art I don't much care for, despite spending my life obsessing over the art I DO care for. It starts with a glance at an art review that shocks Tom Wolfe, as it categorically denounces an exhibit of the excellent Jean Francois Millet, because realism "lacks a pervasive theory." It spirals out of control from there, taking you from the poor finishing of the Impressionists to the completely anti-optical farce of postmodernism. In predictions of the 21st century from the epilogue:

"Every art student will marvel over the fact that a whole generation of artists devoted their careers to getting the Word (and to internalizing it) and to the extraordinary task of divesting themselves of whatever was in their imagination and technicalability that did not fit the Word. They will listen to art historians say, with the sort of smile now reserved for the study of Phrygian astrology: "That's how it was then!"--as they describe how, on the one hand, the scientists of the mid-twentieth century proceeded by building upon the disoveries of their predecessors and thereby lit up the sky...while the artists proceeded by averting their eyes from whatever their predecessors, from da Vinci on, had discovered, shrinking from it, terrified, or disintegrating it with the universal solvent of the Word. The more industrious scholars will derive considerable pleasure from describing how the art-history professors and journalists of the period 1945-75, along with so many students, intellectuals, and art tourists of every sort, actually struggled to see the paintings directly, in the old pre-World War II way, like Plato's cave dwellers watching the shadows, without knowing what had projected them, which was the Word.

What happy hours await them all! With what sniggers, laughter, and good-humored amazement they will look back upon the era of the Painted Word!"

Hot damn, I am 100% that 21st century art student/teacher he predicted.

I love this book. When I read the last page, I returned to the beginning of the book and read it again.

I wish I had read this book years ago. It made very clear to me all the things that had always puzzled me about "modern art." Wolfe covers art movements starting with Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and on through Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Op Art, Art Installations, Earth Art and Conceptual Art.

There is humor throughout the book, such as this quote from an art critic of the time: "Shards of interpenetrated sensibility make their way, tentatively, through a not always compromisable field of cobalt blue..." When the emperor has no clothes, Wolfe is delighted to point that out to the reader.

It's a small, easily readable book of around a hundred pages, some of which are almost empty or filled with illustrations and photos. No knowledge of art history is required.

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wonder, what the fuck is this? You squint your eyes to look at it proper, tilt your head, but still the whole thing escapes you. Why can't I understand it?

Well, Tom Wolfe has an answer. It's not because you're not trying, or you're too dumb to figure it out. It's just that contemporary art can only be understood if you know what happened in the art world since the 1920s. Art is a conversation between artists and everyone in their little world-- art critics, art theorists, collectors, art journals. The latest form art takes, whether it's conceptual, pop, minimalist, or what have you, is a reaction the to form that came before.

An example: The first form of modern art was cubism, and it was developed as a reaction to the realism of paintings that came before it, that of Rembrandt's and Da Vinci's and everyone else. Then a new movement rose as a reaction to cubism, and so on and so forth. You might wonder why you didn't know about this before, and to that Tom Wolfe says, because they never wanted to let us in on it. Art is a conversation between everyone in the art world. We're not invited.

This is why so much of contemporary art is ugly and meaningless to us as an outsider. Without knowing the conversation they're having, there's no way for us to know what each artwork means.

Wolfe's customarily zippily- and zanily-written 1975 essay satirizes, though not without some admiration for the hustle, the 20th century progress of modern art toward further and further reaches of abstraction from Cubism to Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art and conceptualism under the guidance of theorists like Clement Greenberg and Leo Steinberg. Wolfe aptly surveys the changing social role of the artist, from courtier to salon-dweller to bohemian over the course of the 17th through 19th centuries. Moreover, he catches the underlying philosophical logic of modern art when he compares the procession of the -isms to the Marxist theory of history: once you accept the Hegelian postulate of the end of history (qua ideological development), the end of art and the consequent triumph of philosophy (to explain the idea revealed by art's sensuous content) is entailed. But the book's brevity and facetiousness leave far too much unexplained (is Picasso so easily dismissed?) and too little room to proffer alternatives, though a preference for 19th-century realism (e.g., Millet) is implied. This leaves The Painted Word, as serious social criticism of art, stranded uncomfortably somewhere between Pierre Bourdieu and Paul Joseph Watson.

Another great essay from Tom Wolfe.

He lays bare the development of post war modern art. He talks about the critics who provided the theory that drove the development of painting. Greenberg, the critic who developed the theory that is was about flatness. That is paintings are not representations of the 3D world, but rather are flat and there is no 3rd dimension. He was a big proponent of Jackson Pollock who became the ‘it’ painter.

Then theory moved on to painting actions. Paintings as the recording of an events. This theory brought de Kooning to prominence.

Then came pop art which seemed to be a step back to realism, but the theory was not representational of the world, but the paintings were signifiers. Signifiers that didn’t represent reality but commented on it. Art as literary. The Art has to say something, be a text.

Then came the photo-realists who again despised realism and set their paintings in the banal, the non interesting, the not beautiful.

The critics espoused the idea that you should hate the art when you first see it. If you don’t hate it, it’s not art, but representation.

Wolfe also pokes fun at the boho esthetic of the artist and their desire to be famous. It all seems like an eeborate Drama stages by the art world. You can’t understand these paintings without knowing the theory. It was a perfect setup to create an art elite who can be in the know.

All couched in Wolfe’s unmatched descriptions and sharp insights. He loves poking fun at the self important, this book is no exception, and he does it with great panache.

This book was incredibly frustrating for me because I JUST started to appreciate the art of Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko, etc., and Wolfe manages to really rip apart their world.

I think I may agree with his thesis that art has become more about the theory than of the picture itself, but I think I also kind of like that?

Anyway, Tom Wolfe is an amazing writer.

Loved it.

A glorious hatchet job on modernist art. Wolfe's main point is that most schools of modernist art cannot be appreciated unless you first understand the theory behind them, which makes the art itself pretty much irrelevant. It's all about the theory. Wolfe is delightfully vicious and highly entertaining.

I read this book after From Bauhaus to our house from the same author. It was recommended by Antonio García Villagrán in his Youtube’s channel and another person I follow in the same week so I decided to give it a try.

I learned about the decisive influence of critics like Greenberg, Steinberg, Rosenberg and their role in the development of abstract art, pop art and their artists. The tension between the bohemian life and the bourgeois life, both needed to become successful (as Pollock and Picasso knew very well). The irony is core to Wolfe’s style. In From Bauhaus… it was against the pretension of the new art movements of being anti bourgeois. In this one, how they tried to free themselves from the nineteenth century art literacy attachments with abstraction but ended with art that can’t be understood (or even seen) without theory. Greenberg going to Pollock’s atelier and giving him feedback on his work show you how powerful critics they were.

In summary, fifty years after its first publication, it is still a good book if you are interested in art and how it changed during the twentieth century (and better understanding the origins of abstract expressionism, pop-art and op-art). In From Bauhaus… he showed the influence of New York’s rich families (creating the MOMA and bringing European art and architecture legends). In this one, it becomes clear the influence of the critics and how they can shape or redefine art eras. The art world (le monde, in Wolfe’s words) is a lot more than artists: it’s also critics, curators, gallerists, merchants, press and museums directors among other key actors.

Favorite quotes
“People don’t read the morning newspaper, Marshall McLuhan once said, they slip into it like a warm bath.”
“Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can’t see a painting.”
“I had assumed that in art, if nowhere else, seeing is believing.”
“For Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.”
“The aim is not to reconstitute an anecdotal fact but to constitute a pictorial fact.”
“Hitch your wagon to a star.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
“Any work of art that can be understood is the product of a journalist.” (Tristan Tzara)
“What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.” (Rosenberg)
“Aesthetics is for the artists as ornithology is for the birds.” (Barnett Newman)
“Whatever else it may be, all great art is about art.” (Steinberg)