The revenge of the Philistines: art and culture 1972-1984

The Revenge of the Philistines: Art and Culture 1972-1984 HILTON KRAMER, in The Revenge of the Philistines, his new colletion of essays and reviews, alludes sharply to "journals that are normally content to act as if contemporary art does not exist." Though the reference is to The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, the problem goes far deeper than those two magazines alone. A growing number of today's "intellectuals" apparently regard an informed interest in music, ballet, or the visual arts as at best superfluous, at worst a dangerous sign of frivolity. The logic of this position does have a vulgar kind of internal coherence. (How many divisions does Matisse have?) But the irony is that Hilton Kramer's art criticism, for all its high seriousness, ought to be of interest to even the most relentlessly politicized intellectual. For Mr. Kramer is as interested in the politics of art as he is in art itself, and on this endlessly fascinating subject he is almost always first rate.

To say this is not to dismiss Mr. Kramer's critical considereations of objets d'art proper. The bulk of The Revenge of the Philistines consists of reviews and essays about individual artists published during Mr. Kramer's tenure as arat critic of the New York Times, and for the most part these are very good indeed. But close readings are not Hilton Kramer's true metier; his real interests lie elsewhere. His long essay on the 1984 reopening of the Museum of Modern Art, for example, is arguably a more memorable "close reading" than any of his art criticism per se:

There may be a certain symbolism in the way visitors to the museum are obliged to ascend to the second, third, and fourth stories in order to commune with the certified masterworks of modern art, whereas they must descend from these higher elevations to the lower levels of the building in order to study the "temporary" productions garnered from the current art scene. (In keeping with this symbolism, the movies of course are consigned to the lowest levels of the museum.)

What is Mr. Kramer up to? One clue can be found in "Fairfield Porter: An American Classic," one of the most penetrating essays reprinted in The Revenge of the Philistines, in which he speaks of Porter's need "to reconcile art--not only his own, but any art that really meant something to him--with his political and social interests." Mr. Kramer's very similar need is most clearly set forth in his introductory essay, "Postmodern: Art and Culture in the 1980s." Modernism, Mr. Kramer argues, is on the decline. "Only now," he says, "are we in a position to appreciate the extent to which so many postmodern developments in art are actually antimodernist in spirit, a betrayal of the high purposes and moral grandeur of . . . The tradition that comes out of Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian."

According to Hilton Kramer, the great modernist tradition has been undermined by Camp, Pop Art, revivals of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and other left-wing artistic movements governed by "looser, less stringent, and more avowedly hedonistic and opportunistic standards." This is the phenomenon to which Mr. Kramer refers in his title: a posthumous "revenge" of the cultural philistines who so militantly opposed the avant-garde throughout the first half of this century.

Well, the philistines have certainly had their revenge--even if they have had to leave it to their enemies to secure it for them. . . . In our museums everything from Salon painting to the inanities of kitsch has been dusted off, freshly labeled, and solemnly placed on exhibition, almost as if the modern movement had never altered our view of them. Scholars can always be found to study these objects, and critics to praise them almost as if they believed them to be worthy of their attention.

Nearly every page of The Revenge of the Philistines reflects the rigorous application of Hilton Kramer's systematic critique of postmodernism. From the paintings of Grant Wood to the photographs of Richard Avedon, Mr. Kramer is constantly on guard against perversions of the modernist ideal. ("In an age of sweeping reversals, Glamor too will search out ways to perpetuate its spell by negating all customary expectations.") And "Tom Wolfe and the Revenge of the Philistines," Mr. Kramer's review of The Painted Word, presents the case against postmodernism with a crusading intensity that suggests no one so much as F. R. Leavis:

That the excesses and exclusivities of modernist art are beginning to be denied the easy ordination and overblown praise that would have been granted them, say, ten years ago, as if by divine right, is not, in my opinion, a vicissitude to be despised. But something other than critical intelligence is also at work in this refusal to embrace the latest inanities of the far-out fringe of modernism--something virulent and reactionary that looks dangerously close at times to an assault on mind itself.