Lessing had begun making distinctions between different artistic mediums including poetry, painting, and sculpture, arguing how each had its own distinct language of development which we should recognize and appreciate.īuilding on Lessing’s essay, Greenberg’s ideas outlined a historical rationale describing where the origins of modern painting had come from and where it was now headed. The text was a continuation of Gotthold Lessing’s famous article Laocoon: An Essay Upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry, published in 1766. Just one year later, Clement Greenberg published the second of his instrumentally important essays: Towards a Newer Laocoon, 1940. It was in the Partisan Review that Greenberg published the first of his most influential essays, titled Avant-Garde and Kitsch, 1939, which formed the foundation for many of his future ideas. Much of Clement Greenberg’s earliest critical writing appeared in New York’s liberal Partisan Review, and was heavily influenced by the ideas of Hans Hoffmann. In 19 Greenberg went to several of Hoffmann’s lectures which emphasized the importance of a “formal” understanding in art, where color, line, surface, and the relationship between planes on a flat surface were deemed more important than figurative or literary content.Ĭelebrating the Avant-Garde Lava by Hans Hoffman, 1960, Private Collection Another major influence on Greenberg’s ideas was the German artist and educator Hans Hofmann. Many of Greenberg’s ideas initially came from Karl Marx, particularly the belief that abstract avant-garde art was a bold and revolutionary move away from oppressive political regimes led by the Nazis or Communists. Many were Jewish and advocated left-wing politics, integrating literary theory with Marxist beliefs, but they rejected Stalin, leaning instead towards the liberalist ideas of Trotskyism. After graduating he drifted between jobs before finding his way into the band of writers and critics who called themselves the New York Intellectuals, including Susan Sontag and Harold Rosenberg. Clement Greenberg’s Early Ideas Clement Greenberg, 1982, The Art Newspaperīorn in the Bronx to Jewish-Lithuanian immigrants, Clement Greenberg studied English Literature at Syracuse University.
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