Master Narratives and Their Discontents
James Elkins, 20051
Series Preface
What I mean to suggest is that there is a point beyond which attention to the ine
structure o historical e!ents is no longer the necessary !irtue o good historical work, but rather becomes a strategy o a!oidance that can threaten the coherence o the enterprise as a whole"# $ Introduction Master Narratives and Their Discontents
%rt historians and critics are normally preoccupied with the work at hand, and there
is little writing on larger &uestions" 'he e(ercise I ha!e in mind in!ol!es changing the ordinary ocus o day)to)day research to ask about the indispensable moments and works o twentieth)century art"# $2 1. Modernisms 1. Modernism Begins in the Renaissance
E"*" +ombrich
2. Modernism Begins at the End of the Eighteenth Centur
,ichael -ried '"J" .lark
!. Modernism Begins in the "eneration of Manet and Baude#aire
/iterary histories o modernism start with 0audelaire
$. Modernism Begins %ith C&'anne and Picasso
1oger -ry and popular college art te(tbooks generally
(. Modernism and North )merican )*stract E+,ressionism
.lement +reenberg 2options3 re4ect, early, late, unknown5
1
James Elkins, Master Narratives and Their Discontents. /ondon3 1outledge, 2005"
2. Postmodernisms
1osalind 6rauss, October, and Formless3 marginali7ed edges o art, 8urrealism October3 the medium is in &uestion, and only its most marginal and philosophically
sceptical moments are allowed"# 9$
:ostmodernism works like a dormant illness in the body o modernism3 when
modernism alters and ails, postmodernism lourishes"# ;9
%rthur <anto3 =end o art history> ollows the sel )realisation o :op art" %rt that is interesting in the terms proposed in Formless does not so much simply
ail as demonstrate the knowledge that works in the modernist sense is also ailure, that the crumbling modernist edi ice cannot be shored up, and e!en that the crumbling may be the most interesting thing about it"# 92)$ !. Po#itics
'wo guiding concerns in orm the historian>s appraisal3 either the work>s ethics or
the social setting in which the work was made"# 99 2moral art criticism !s" social art history5
'he disagreements are so wide and deep that it can almost be argued?as Eisenman
has implied?that modernism is constituted by the disagreement"# 11@ $. The Im,ortance of S-i##
8kill can o ten be a matter o shame in modernist theory, but it is also shamed by
modernist theory3 and accounts that pri!ilege skill tend to eel modernist criteria, i they eel them at all, as a kind o shame"# 1A5 (. The Idea That None of This Matters )n more
Bisual studies a!oids the highClow art categories as a re erence point or
interpretation"
'he re!aluation or re4ection o the modernist distinction between high art and low
art creates a relati!i7ed ield o art in which the act o pri!ileging one work o!er another cannot be 4usti ied by appealing to !alues that are taken to be normati!e" 'he resulting relati!ism is compounded by the pluralism o the contemporary art world, which discourages e(tended comparisons between di erent works by making all comparisons seem somehow misguided" 2I say somehow# because the pluralism o the contemporary art world tends not to be theori7ed" I it were, it would become apparent that comparisons are made continuously and cannot be abandoned without
abandoning the sense o current practices"5 'he result, in !isual studies, is a lack o interest in problems o the kind I ha!e been addressing"# 1A;
Bisual studies a!oids the highClow art categories as a re erence point or
interpretation" .. Conc#usions
Why did a century so crowded with competing notions o painting end up generating
such a small number o interpretationsD# 15;
)rtists and E+hi*itions/
+Enter Fmberg
Sources/
Elkins, %rt *istory without 'heory,# Critical Inquiry 1A"2 2Winter 19;;5" W"J"'" ,itchell, ed" Against Theory !iterary "tudies and the Ne# $ragmatism .lement +reenberg, %!ant)garde and 6itsch# 'om Wol e, The $ainted %orld <a!id .arrier, &osalind 'rauss and American $hiloso(hical Art Criticism From Formalism to )eyond $ostmodernism *ilton 6ramer, The Age o* the Avant+,arde An Art Chronicle o* -./0+-.12, The Ne# Criterion &eader The First Five 3ears, <oes %bstract %rt ha!e a -uture,# Ne# Criterion 21,A 220025 /" 1on *ubbard, Art and $hiloso(hy o* Art Edgar Wind, Art and Anarchy
