‘What could have been and never was: the intellectual context of Clement Greenberg’s “Byzantine Parallels”

Journal of Art Historiography

Jessamine Batario¹ 

[1] The University of Texas at Austin;

关键词: modernism;    byzantine;    abstraction;    opticality;    periodization;    comparativism;    ekphrasis;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In its sustained analysis of pre-modern art outside the context of an exhibition, ‘Byzantine Parallels’ is an anomalous text in Clement Greenberg’s published oeuvre. The purpose of Greenberg’s essay comes into higher relief when examined against the backdrop of his unpublished and unrealized body of work. ‘Byzantine Parallels’ is a surviving testament to Greenberg’s deflated attempts to legitimize abstraction in the face of criticism leveled specifically by art historians, namely Bernard Berenson and Lionello Venturi. This paper also traces Greenberg’s understanding of the socio-historical contexts surrounding modern abstraction through his reading of Talbot Rice, a byzantinist, whose interpretation relies on theories advanced by Wilhelm Worringer and Georg Simmel. This intellectual history considers the study of Byzantine art during the early twentieth century as intertwined with modernist discourse, encouraging the two temporal sub-fields of art history to find common ground beyond visual form.

【 授权许可】

Unknown