Clement Greenberg

"Perhaps the greatest change that industrialism has made in daily life is to separate work from leisure in a radical and almost absolute way. Once the efficacy of work began to be more clearly and full…"

"Matisse's art speaks for itself through its "mechanics", it's "form" and through the feeling which that "form" makes manifest. It's not by far the first to do so and to transcend the illustrated subje…"

"One is also reminded of how in art the tortoise so often overtakes the hare. Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longe…"

"The so-called obscurity of modernist literature has, of course, a lot to do with the new stress on exegesis. When the overt meaning of a work can no longer be taken for granted, criticism is forced — …"

"The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cézanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fi…"

"A Clement Greenberg tribute page, with a selection of articles by and about him"

"One cannot condemn tendencies in art; one can only condemn works of art. To be categorically against a current art tendency or style means, in effect, to pronounce on works of art not yet created and …"

"Hofmann is perhaps the most difficult artist alive-difficult to grasp and to appreciate. But by the same token he is an immensely interesting, original, and rewarding one, whose troubles in clarifying…"