Modern Essays in English [antikvár]

IntroductionThe Atomic Age was born in the summer of 1945. Its adolescencelike most adolescenceswas characterized by tantrums, feel-ings of guilt, a sense of living dangerously, and a rapid growthin strength. Though now having passed the age of twenty-oneand technically arrived at manhood, the Atomic Age is still fright-eningly and exhilaratingly young. And we are part of it.Yet history is a continuum: at any given moment a new gen-eration is being born, an old one dyingand the world is alwaysin a state of transition. But now, for the first time in its longevolution, the human race is faced with the clear possibility ofextinguishing itself by its own powers of destruction or of dis-tinguishing itself by its own powers of construction. It is thepressing reality of this fear and this hope that gives the AtomicAge its unique schizoid quality. We are aware that we are bal-ancing on a teeter-totter poised between the abyss and the stars.All art, no matter how nostalgic or prophetic, necessarily re-flects the era in which it is produced. In an age which is self-conscious about its newness, its difference from the pastsuchas Periclean Athens or Medician Florence or Elizabethan Eng-landart is especially responsive to its own time and place. Inthe Atomic Age both the level of historical self-consciousness andthe rate of overt change are so high that our art is even moreresponsive to its time and place, is indeed often pointedly con-temporary. Modern painting mirrors a fragmentation of values,a concern for the subconscious, and a universe in which Ein-ix