The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art March 1962 [antikvár]

HETT'i'i/ , : , .i i i^ i . :: ii i .Vi'1 'rMi/M ROBERTO MATTA ECHAURREN ROBERT MOTHERWELL BEN NICHOLSON PHILIP GUSTON ADJA YUNKERS Some Contemporary Paintings cover: Steeper I, oil on canvas, dated 1958, 66V4 x 76 inches. Philip Guston, American, b. 1913. Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art. 61.21 Tlie B ULLETIN of The Cleveland Museum of Art, Volume 49, Number 3, March 1962. Published monthly, excepting July and August, by The Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Boulevard at University Circle, Cleveland 6, Ohio. Subscription included in membership fee, otherwise $3.00 per year. Single copies, 35 cents, except May number. Copyright, 1962, by The Cleveland Museum of Art. Second-class postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio. Museum photography by Richard F. Godfrey; design and typography by Merald E. Wrolstad. According to Franz Liszt, any effort to expound verbally on the "emotive content of a symphonic poem" would "destroy the magic, desecrate the feelings" and "break the most delicate fabrics of the soul, which had taken form just because they were incapable of formulation in words, images, or ideas."i This point has been made time and again by artists of all kinds whenever they have been asked to explain what their works mean. But it is difficult for most people to accept the idea that words, which suffice for all ordinary explication, are not adequate to explain thoroughly a work of art. While they can be useful in discussing the means of artistic expression, they simply cannot describe the content of that expression. Therefore, while the following words are about the paintings which have been acquired in the past year for the Contemporary Collection of this Museum, they by no means pretend to answer the question heard so often in the vicinity of abstract works of art: "What is it?" The artist, when asked, shrugs his bewilderment, for he simply doesn't understand the question. He has already articulated his "meaning" in visual forms specifically because words could not do the job. The only logical answer he can give is, "It is itself." But the disbelievers smile at this answer, confident that they have won a point. Obviously, there is simply no communication here—neither in paint nor in words. The doubters naively take for granted that "what it is" is what it represents and since it does not represent anything, it must be nothing. The artist suggests that they are looking for the wrong thing, that he has presented something new, not represented something familiar. But he says nothing about what should be looked for because, like Liszt, he feels that it is a mistake to try to put into words an import that can only be—and has already been—revealed in another medium. The fundamental error of the doubters is in assuming that painting (or sculpture) consists merely of giving verbal ideas visual form. This initial error is compounded when they suppose that it is, therefore, possible to translate the work of art back into words. But visual forms, colors, and brushstrokes are precisely the artist's means of expression. For him they are sensations capable of infinite modification and nuance. He thinks and feels and even reasons in