American Visions is as much art criticism as it is
Art History. But what penetrating, colorful art criticism! There are few recent
critics whose power, daring and insight, match that of Robert Hughes. There are
few writers whose careers are so eclectic that they include general history,
art criticism and travel. Many art critics remain within a narrow cultural
environment and a self-created cocoon of opinion, devoid of external influences.
But Hughes’ broad self-education and world travel have provided a balance of
experience that permits wider influence upon his perspective.
This offering covers painting, sculpture and architecture,
in the United States from untrained Colonial painters through 1990s
photographers. The author examines socio-political influences as well, showing
how colonial artists faced a Puritan ethic that considered images blasphemous,
and extending into the 1990s when conservatives forced censorship of art whose
content they disapproved. This wide-ranging examination is supported by a
format where large color photos depict the individual works and movements
discussed. Unfortunately, there are no footnotes or bibliography; an artifact
of devising a project that is less formally a history. If a writer is going to
present controversial views or even just educate, she should support her
assertions with documentation.
At the outset, Hughes is faced with a dilemma: The chief
American painters were just not very good. Both Copley and Peale, the most
well-known of the new republic’s painters, created some of the most appallingly
stiff, expressionless and anatomically misshapen portraits of the 1700s. Both
artists were admirably honest and humble about their skills. Copley avoided traveling
to London, where he was encouraged to train, because he would have been “a
sprat in an ocean of talent” (Hughes, p. 83). Peale candidly wrote to a friend
“how far short I am…of the excellence of some painters, infinitely below that
perfection…I have not the execution, have not the ability” (Hughes, p. 95). But
Hughes is a polite Australian guest in the US, writing for an American
audience. He rationalizes that the comically outsized head in Copley’s portrait
of Paul Revere by writing “the assonance between its big smooth mass and that
of the teapot…is surely meant to remind us of the identity between the
craftsman and his work” (Hughes, p. 86). Surely not. Copley simply had no sense
of proportion. It would have been more instructive about the development of
skill in US artists if Hughes had been as blunt as Copley and Peale about their
lack of talent. It isn’t until the career of Gilbert Stuart that we begin to
see some semblance of proportion and expression among the portraitists who
remained in the US.
Another problem comes much later in the book with the
migration of Abstract Art across the Atlantic. It resulted in Abstract
Expressionism; the first original art movement on US soil. The difficulties
involved with a trend, where communication with an audience is not the goal of
the artists, is treated in another article at this link http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-problem-of-abstract-expressionism.html It is
too extensive a conversation to be done justice here.
There are times when the colorful, enthusiastic writing of
Robert Hughes, carries him away: “In the 1950s and 1960s Americans came to
believe in the supremacy of their art” (Hughes, p. 465). The author may love aesthetic
works that much, but the majority of US citizens ascribe little importance to
art. For the most part however, Hughes has an excellent sense of history and
artistic mood. His ability to pair an unrelated poem with a sculpture, or his
interpretations of a work, are preternaturally spot-on. He can write movingly
as he does of the Vietnam War Memorial: “the names of the dead on the black
walls, in whose polished surfaces the living see themselves visually united
with the dead. They take rubbings; they leave flowers; they kiss the names of
those they have lost” (Hughes, p. 570). He can write bitingly: “Mabel Dodge
Luhan was a mystagogue, an egoist, a sexual imperialist and much of the time an
intolerable bitch” (Hughes, p. 389). His brashness, emblematic of his style,
will force a reader to react emotionally, to take sides, to think. His
colorful, opinionated demeanor, highly articulate and broad, drives the
narrative and engages his audience. One will not be sleepwalking through this
book.
Hughes, Robert. American Visions. The Epic History of Art
in America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
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