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From Thomas
Marsh, Sculptor, January, 2001
Dear Poliphilo,
I gave a talk at a
local philosophical society a few years back, where I
outlined an hypothesis about the death of modernism. Simply
stated, modernism arose from and with expression theory a
century or so ago. The basic notion of expression theory is
that the artistic idea (expression), rather than the
attributes of the physical work itself, is the defining
characteristic for an object or an activity to be a work of
art. With this extreme emphasis on the creative process, the
aesthetic attributes of the work itself (such as unity, or
complexity, or beauty, or harmony) are not the basis for
aesthetic value. Rather, the artist's expression (usually
personal or self expression) becomes the basis for aesthetic
value (since the expression IS the art). Thus, a natural way
(perhaps the only way) of distinguishing one kind of
artistic expression from another, in order to evaluate or
rank such expressions, is to see which is more "novel' or
"new" or "creative" or "inventive", etc.. The inherent
problem with "the new" as a basis for aesthetic value is
that newness itself becomes commonplace over time.It
requires an ever-faster pace of "creativity". Hence we
witnessed the dizzying spiral of art movements in the 20th
century which eventually desensitized the viewer
(listener,reader, etc.),even to the most shocking of
activites. Modernism died a death appropriate to proponents
of existentialism and other forms of relativism: it's still
being played out in their heads, again, and again, and
again, and again,... And, of course, it led artists like
yourself and myself to reject modernism's basic premise of
having to be "new". In the word's of my mentor Milton
Hebald, "There is more, much more, to art than that." In
it's defense, I think modernism did produce some great and
lasting works, but only because these works contained
eternal (classical) aesthetic principles such as beauty and
harmony; in other words, they succeeded in spite of
themselves.
Fondest wishes,
Thomas
P.S. Postmodernism is still
modernism.
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Thomas Marsh,
St. John the
Baptist
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