For a long time, the torrent of the art world was unclear, either stopped or flooded. It was not until some adventurous critics tried to open paths many times that some rivers were formed. Finally, the wide river channel that we may call "John's Appreciation"-although it is still tortuous-can finally sail. Most people-especially those who despise critics' works-don't know, or pretend not to know, how realistic this problem is. They wait for the river to form safely, then swagger out and enjoy the smooth sailing, and then say, who needs critics? [2]

This passage was said by Steinberg, the greatest living art critic in contemporary America. I quoted it in detail, because it most eloquently proved my basic point of view on the function of art criticism. I once pointed out: "Without understanding the history of art criticism, it is impossible to really understand the history of art ... I believe that the history of criticism is the pre-history of art history, and only in this pre-history can the fossils of art history obtain a more or less recognizable form." [3]

Donald Kuspit, a famous American art critic, once pointed out that the role of art critics is often contradictory. Because when art was still fresh and strange, he took the lead, often the most vivid response, and initially explained its meaning to us. However, his response is often not comprehensive, because such works of art have not been widely experienced: the works have not yet had a history, and a context that can explain the "text" accordingly. When critics regard art as a product of the present, it still lacks the "load" of history. In fact, part of a critic's job is to win a lawsuit in the court of history. This is why, as Baudelaire said, critics are often "enthusiastic and partisan observers" of works of art, rather than impartial judges of their value. Because of its modernity, he played the role of an agitator and could only handle the whole case from the perspective of the work itself. For a sensitive critic, the work always surprises him, and he always remains enthusiastic about it. He will let future art historians deal with things such as dissecting works of art, and by that time, works of art are usually considered to have recognized significance.

Clement greenberg, another great critic, thinks that the best time to criticize a work of art is when its novelty has faded, but it has not yet become history. However, it is at this moment that the interpretation of works of art is the most unsolvable and vulnerable; It is at this moment that the decisions made by critics in the form of impromptu naming often seal its fate once and for all. [4]

There are many people who despise art criticism. Ironically, the greatest enemy of an art critic is often the artist himself who he claims to defend. Artists seldom understand critics, just as many critics seldom understand artists. They often work under two completely different educational backgrounds and behavior habits, and it is rare to have elegance of mountains and rivers.

There are also art historians who despise art criticism. As Steinberg pointed out in the preface of Substitution Standard: "Few art historians take contemporary art seriously and are willing to spend time on it. Turning their attention from the Vatican to the 10th Street in new york will shock them, and they will think it is frivolous-and I respect their integrity. So whenever a classmate mentions my Art Review column, I have to beg him to keep his voice down. He is talking about my private life. " [5]。 Frankly speaking, many respected art historians look down on art criticism and think that art criticism is only the subjective feelings and personal prejudices expressed by critics. This statement may be true for many critics. But for those great critics, this is obviously wrong.

Steinberg is such a great critic who embarrassed many art historians. His "attempt" to American contemporary art not only dredged the channel of contemporary art criticism, but also broadened the riverbed for the writing and rewriting of art history in the 20th century.

The article "Criteria of Choice" constituted the program of Steinberg's critical thought, and later became the title of the critical anthology of the same name. This paper is divided into eight parts after a brief preface. But according to its gist, this paper can actually be divided into two parts. The first part is broken, and the next part is established. The first part mainly wants to break the American formalism criticism thought represented by Greenberg, and the second part provides its own "alternative standard".

For Steinberg, Greenberg is just the latest version of formalism. As a student, Steinberg supported the formalism principle established by roger fry, a great British art historian and critic. However, as an adult art historian, he turned to his childhood interest in human emotions, motivations and metaphors in Renaissance art. In the "new preface" written for the 2007 edition of Substitution Guide, Steinberg recalled his own history of art education, and especially mentioned the suppression of his childhood art perception experience by formalism aesthetics. When he grew up, Steinberg finally discovered the tools of iconology, which seemed to open the door for himself to get rid of depression and restore his interest in the theme of works of art. As soon as this "new order" came up, Steinberg recalled:

Because of my obsession with art, my mother finally took me to a museum. One of the paintings was so huge that I couldn't get rid of it for a whole week. The year is 1930, and the city is Berlin (our family just found a shelter there seven years ago). The painting that disturbed my mind when I was only ten years old was Botticelli's giant painting San Sebastian-a naked young man tied to a dead tree. This painting worries me: why is he still standing there; Doesn't he feel pain?

Three years later, the family fled Nazi Germany and settled in London. The art school there soon trained me. I've learned that appreciating paintings carefully requires other rules. You don't have to ask a portrayed saint what his dedication feels like. Adults are tracking visual rhythms and "meaningful forms". What they envy is "the integrity of the picture" or "insisting on the authenticity of the media". If some over-expressed Sebastian (such as Mantnia's works) shows his pain, you don't have to pay attention to it, because this kind of performance blurs the "essential purpose of painting". I understand and try to internalize the rules of formalism.

Throughout Steinberg's life, he seems to regret that he encountered a strong formalism theory when he was growing up. Therefore, he spared no effort to oppose formalism theory for a long time. But when he finally realized that the best formalism aesthetics did not exclude the theme, he felt that formalism methodology and iconology methodology were either one or the other. I realize that this is not an either-or thing. All my papers on modern art or classical art are based on the principle of combining form with content.

On the basis of either/or, Steinberg tried a pluralistic interpretation, which combined formal analysis, emotional content and historical context-this critical model became more and more influential in the next 30 years.

In the section entitled "Aesthetics of Prevention" in Another Standard, Steinberg outlined the history of formalism aesthetics from Baudelaire to Greenberg in more than one thousand words. He first quoted Baudelaire's article about Delacroix, in which Baudelaire pointedly pointed out that aesthetic pleasure comes from the formal arrangement of works of art (in this specific context, he called it "Arabic decorative patterns"), not the theme:

A well-drawn character will fill you with pleasure, which has nothing to do with the theme. Whether it is sultry or horrible, this figure fully benefits from the Arab decorative patterns it depicts in space. Skinned sacrificial ribs and syncope of the female fairy's body, if described superbly, will produce a kind of pleasure, in which the theme does not work; If you don't believe me, I have to think that you are an executioner or a rogue.

Secondly, Steinberg moved out of roger fry's roger fry's Last Speech. In this lecture, Frye talked about the theme of "pornography" in Indian sculpture art, and thought that this kind of art, which was intended to arouse the audience's lust, would distract the audience's attention and thus interfere with aesthetic meditation (Luo Lai's understanding of Indian sculpture certainly had some deviation):

Indian artists' senses are too lustful-the main idea of many of their sculptures comes from the attitude of lazy and neglected female characters. Most of their art, even their religious art, is absolutely pornographic. Although I have no moral prejudice against this form of expression, I usually force an irrelevant interest to interfere with aesthetic meditation. This kind of interest will not only disturb the artist's concentration, but also distract the audience's attention, making them unable to observe the essential purpose of the works of art.

Thirdly, Steinberg cited the example of Albert Barnes, an American collector and art historian. Steinberg believes that formalist writers always accuse artists of trying to impress the audience in illegal ways-for example, Barnes thinks Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting "The Fall of Man" is "powerful, but too dramatic", which is in the wrong direction and must pay the price.

Finally, Steinberg invited clement greenberg, the most famous American art critic in his writing years (late 1960s and early 1970s). Greenberg attributed Picasso's loss of certainty at a certain moment to the painter's concern for graphic expressiveness. In Greenberg's modernist theory, all expressive contents in painting, like literariness and narrative, are unacceptable and violate the laws of formalism:

An amazing painting named Three Dancers, painted on 1925, shows its graphic expression for the first time since the pink period, which is the first evidence that his certainty has begun to weaken. ..... However, the three dancers went in the wrong direction, not because it was literature ... but because of the dramatic arrangement and description of the heads and arms of the characters in the middle of the picture, which led to wandering in one third of the picture.

Obviously, Steinberg's purpose is to systematically clean up the formalism that dominated American art history and art criticism at that time in the first half of this article. Almost at the same time (slightly earlier than 1968 written by Alternative Criterion), Steinberg published the exhibition catalogue of Rodin's works in 1962, and what he read here is still to eliminate the formalism he accepted during his growth:

That was before I received art education. Soon after, my teacher told me that passion is one thing, drama is another, and art is another. Aesthetics is responsible. Because of the absolutely reliable education when I was young, especially roger fry, a British formalist critic, I learned that artistic aesthetics does not completely believe in any interesting stimuli. A truly quality aesthetic, I think, should have its own moral standards. It should be true, pure, indomitable and ascetic. It should not only reject mediocrity, but also withstand the temptation and interference of disturbing content.

Steinberg seems particularly unable to accept roger fry's comments on Rodin:

At the age of seventeen, I finally understood that Rodin's works failed to pass the well-trained aesthetic test, just like the elders who used to engage in avant-garde art. According to those standards, it is a failure. Those standards just want to meet their own requirements for the basic form and quality of art. Rodin likes to express sentimental and easy-to-understand feelings. Rodin's works are too loose to be called serious sculpture art, and roger fry is a respected mentor. He once put forward such a classic quotation: "Rodin's concept is basically not a sculpture language." He is concerned with the expression of personality and situation, which is basically dramatic and graphical. "

In any paragraph quoted above, formalism theory, at least in Steinberg's view, advocates rejecting the literary, narrative, graphic, dramatic and expressive content in painting, and only requires paying attention to the organization and arrangement of various formal elements (lines, colors, blocks, etc.) in painting. ). Although this is not the main content of roger fry's thoughts in his later years, Steinberg's popular formalism theory presented in the above quotation really emphasizes the form without asking the theme. In this regard, Steinberg has a famous concluding speech:

I find myself always opposed to so-called formalism; Not because I doubt the necessity of formal analysis, nor because I doubt the positive value of the work done by serious formalist critics. But because I don't trust their certainty, their quantitative methods, and their narcissistic disregard of the parts of artistic expression that their tools can't measure. What I don't like most is their forbidden position-an attitude of telling artists what not to do and telling the audience what not to see.

I read the following meanings from this passage: First, "formalism" has been reduced to a convenient reference, which was popular in the west (especially in the United States) when Steinberg wrote "Alternative Standard" (1968), so it has become "something called formalism". In other words, it no longer needs to make the necessary distinction between the representative writers of formalism such as Baudelaire, roger fry and Greenberg. There is no need to distinguish Frye in his early years from Frye in his later years. In short, "formalism" has become a widely popular trend of thought and an oversimplified standard language in textbooks.

Secondly, Steinberg did not deny the necessity of formal analysis, nor did he deny the contribution of serious formalist critics (I guess he said more about roger fry than Greenberg).

Thirdly, Steinberg pointed out the limitations of formalism criticism. The biggest problem is that formal analysis can't deal with the theme content and performance content in artistic works. Here, I think it is necessary to supplement the relevant knowledge of iconology as Steinberg's main methodological basis.

His three-level views on the understanding of art history;

The level of preliminary or natural theme: this is the most preliminary level of understanding and a simple intuition about the pure form of the work. Take The Last Supper as an example. If you stay at this primary level, then this painting can only be perceived as a painting of 13 people sitting at the table. This primary understanding of a work is the most basic, and no additional cultural knowledge is needed.

Secondary or conventional subject level (iconology): This level goes further than the previous one, bringing people to a level that requires cultural and iconology knowledge. For example, a western audience will understand the painting of 13 people sitting around a table, which reproduces the last supper of Christ. However, the audience who have no knowledge of western Christian history may not be able to understand the theme of this custom (or convention).

Intrinsic meaning or content level (iconology): This level will consider personal, technical or cultural and historical factors when understanding a work of art ... It no longer regards art as an isolated thing, but a product of historical environment. Art historians working at this level will ask, "Why did this artist choose this way to recreate the last supper?" Questions like this. In a word, this last level is a kind of synthesis. Art historians will ask, "What does all this mean?" Such a question.

In short, in panofsky's view, works of art can be examined from at least three levels, namely: first, the formal level (the pure formal relationship of a painting); Second, the image level (the theme of a painting); Third, iconology (the deep meaning of a painting). For panofsky, it is very important to consider these three aspects at the same time when studying the art of the Renaissance. As Irving Lavin, a student in panofsky, said, "It is this unremitting exploration and search for meaning-especially where everyone thinks it is meaningless-that makes panofsky understand art as an ideological achievement as important as traditional liberal arts." [ 16]

From this point of view, Steinberg said, "I don't trust their certainty, their quantitative means, and their narcissistic disregard for the artistic expression that their tools can't measure" can be understood as that formalism can only deal with the first-level problems that iconology can handle, but can't deal with the second-level and third-level problems that iconology requires. Of course, iconology has lost its position in abstract art criticism in the 20th century, because pure abstract art has no theme or content level; Only in form and meaning. This is another topic, so I won't go into details here. )

Perhaps because Steinberg criticized naming names, Greenberg felt it necessary to defend himself. This famous defense is a long postscript published after modernist painting. In this postscript, Greenberg said that his articles are often misunderstood as "telling artists what to do", which may be his rhetorical error: whenever he describes what happened in the history of art (was), his critics always interpret him as "should" to promulgate a norm:

I want to take this opportunity to correct a mistake, a mistake about explaining irrelevant facts. Many readers (though far from all) seem to regard the "basic principle" of modern art that I have outlined here as the position taken by the author himself, that is, what the author describes is of course what he preaches. This may be due to writing style or rhetoric. However, if you carefully read what he wrote, you will find that he never agreed or believed what he described. The quotation marks on the words "pure" and "pure" can clearly illustrate this point. The author tries to partially explain how the best art was produced in the past 100 years, but he is not implying that it must be produced in this way, let alone that the best art in the future must be produced in this way. "Pure" art is only a useful illusion, but this does not make it no longer an illusion. The possibility that it will continue to function cannot make it no longer an illusion.

This constitutes the most famous case in the history of modernist theory: is Greenberg a reductionist and essentialist, which leads to the arbitrariness and absoluteness of his various judgments and Steinberg's attitude of "forbidding orders", or is he an empiricist as Greenberg himself defends? Some of the most famous scholars in the history of modernist theory, such as Michael Fried, T·J· Clark and Thierry De Dive, are all involved in this debate.

Steinberg's criticism of formalism mainly includes the following points:

First of all, he criticized formalism for trying to regard form as a single variable and to separate it from the overall atmosphere of art, which in his view is impossible. He thinks:

Narrowing the reference range has always been a pretentious task of formalism, but there are still some difficult and serious ideas in it. Since works of art are so complicated and charming, it was once an amazing cultural achievement to put artistic value in a single decisive factor of formal organization-in the19th century. This attempt is to standardize art criticism by isolating a single variable and conducting scientific experiments. The "essential purpose" of art-whether you call it the abstract unity of composition or something that can prevent it from collapsing or swaying-is assumed to be separable from all works of art, and the whole meaning is not allowed to deal with the "theme" because the theme is harmless at best, and it usually becomes a burden of form. In formalism ethics, the ideal critic will not be moved by the artist's expression intention, nor will he be influenced by his culture. He turned a blind eye to its satire or iconology, and acted according to the plan, just like orpheus walked out of hell. [20]

Secondly, Steinberg thinks that Greenberg's anti-delusional analysis of the differences between modernist art and the art of a large number of elderly people is contrary to art history. It exaggerates the role of illusion in master works. In Steinberg's view, like painters in the 20th century, the older generation of masters just found some means to remind them of the existence of painting media in different ways. These means include the use of elaborate picture frames, deliberate reference to other paintings in hints and quotations, form deformation, color restraint, surface flash, and extremely inhuman beauty, and so on.

This involves Greenberg's basic exposition of modernist painting. Gerhardt believes that the illusion of the old master conceals art, conceals the media characteristics of art and deceives the audience; Modernist painting reveals art with art and highlights the media characteristics of art;

Realism and naturalism cover up the media of art and cover up art with art; Modernism reminds art with art [2 1]

He further pointed out that:

In modernist painting, the audience first noticed the flatness before painting, rather than being forced to notice what flatness contained afterwards. [In classical painting] people often see what the old master painted first, and then the painting itself [such as a horse], while modernist painting people see a painting itself [some more or less abstract color blocks and lines, not a horse] first. [22]

Steinberg opposed the binary opposition established by Greenberg between the old master and the modernist. His objection is divided into two steps: first, he provides a large number of examples to illustrate that this is not the case. The illusion of the old masters can't hide the characteristics of the media. On the contrary, they highlight the virtual characteristics of painting by various means.

Considering the typical performance of the master, it is sketching. If his brush strokes precede dark brown ink or appear at the same time as the image of the old lady, will Rembrandt's sketch become a modernist work? In my opinion, the last thing this painter wants to do is to cover up his media or his art; What he wants and gets is the tension between the image it evokes and the materiality of paper, brush strokes and ink. And in terms of style, such sketches are an inseparable part of Old Master Q's art. [23]

Here Steinberg gives an example of Rembrandt's painting The Reading Lady (about 1639- 1640) in his later years. He pointed out that if Rembrandt's brush strokes and pen and ink appear before or at the same time as the old lady's image in the painting, and if Rembrandt clearly shows the tension between the painting medium and the painting content, will Rembrandt's sketch become a modernist work? In Steinberg's view, Rembrandt didn't want to cover up the media at all. What he wants to arouse is the "tension" that Greenberg said that the old masters tried to hide, that is, the tension between the materiality of brush strokes and pen and ink and the images they portrayed was clearly pointed out.

So in Steinberg's view, Greenberg's theory is untenable. Of course, the author thinks that Steinberg oversimplifies Greenberg's theory. Of course, Greenberg's modernist painting theory is not impossible to allow exceptions. Because he demonstrated the general trend of western modernist painting since the second half of the19th century. Compared with classical painting, this general trend always allows exceptions. Rembrandt's emphasis on painting media and the expressive force of brush strokes and materials in his later years is an exception to classical painting, not the normal state of classical painting.

By the way, Greenberg's emphasis on the media characteristics of modernist painting originated from but was different from roger fry, the founder of formalism-modernism theory. Frye was the first modern critic to point out the value of brushwork in Rembrandt and other masterpieces. In defending the post-impressionist painter, he traced the bold brushwork of Cezanne and others back to Rembrandt in his later years:

Generally speaking, Dutch painters are limited to a false surface finally processed and dare not use more expressive methods. It is this that makes Rembrandt an outstanding model. Because it was Rembrandt who revealed the full performance potential of the material in his later years. Nothing is inert to him. On the contrary, the material is infiltrated by thoughts and seems to be polarized by thoughts, so every particle in the picture becomes smart. [24]

Steinberg's second step against Greenberg's dualism is that he uses a new illusion in modernist painting to illustrate that modernism is not lacking in illusion, but just a new illusion:

On the contrary, what if the audience tends to regard modernist painting as the spatial abstraction of the landscape? The sculptor Don Judd complained that the paintings of the new york School in 1950s made him notice strongly what their planes contained-"emptiness" and "illusory space". He later said: "Roscoe's whole way of working is based on a lot of fantasies, which is very empty." The whole work is about floating areas in space. Compared with Newman, his works definitely have a certain depth. However, I finally feel that all paintings are delusions in space. " [25]

In this way, Steinberg believes that the opposition established by Greenberg between modernism and the old master simply cannot be established. (By the way, it is not impossible to understand Roscoe's purely abstract works as the spatial abstraction of scenery or the void experience in the space age, so as to understand purely abstract painting as something with graphic content, that is, the theme content, but it seems to be far from the main idea of purely abstract painting. On this issue, I tend to say that pure abstract painting has no theme content. Because it is against people's intuition to appreciate pure abstract paintings to insist on reading the theme in such pure abstract paintings. Since it can't be established, then Greenberg's painting media theory can't be used as the defining definition of modernism. Therefore, another standard is needed to define it, which is an alternative standard provided by Steinberg:

A bigger objection involves Greenberg's handling of pre-modern art, which needs to be discussed, because Greenberg's modernism defines himself as the opposition to the old master. If this opposition becomes unstable, modernism may need to be redefined, that is, defined by alternative norms. [26]

Steinberg was the first person to publicly criticize Greenberg. He was quite powerful, but his criticism was not without discussion. Among them, the biggest problem is that it ignores the unique historical background of Greenberg's critical theory and obliterates Greenberg's historical position to a great extent. He placed Greenberg's modernism theory in all the western art history since15th century, which has both its effective side and its unreasonable side. As Shi's criticism that Greenberg should not use Kant to theorize the history of modernism shows, Shi's method is likely to evolve into a non-historical view that looks like historicism: according to his logic, Kant's rational self-criticism may not be established, because rational self-criticism can be traced back at least to Socrates and Plato that Nietzsche once thought. Greenberg's historical position lies in providing the clearest theoretical summary of modernist painting since the second half of19th century. No matter how thin this theory is for the richness of art history, it is still one of the most convincing explanations.

Of course, if Steinberg's abandonment of formalism constitutes the most strategic and bold aspect of this paper, then he also put forward many other meaningful viewpoints, which basically became common sense and were generally accepted by people in the next 30 years. Steinberg connected the linear development history of modernism with the rapidly developing perceptual model demanded by young artists like Nolan. He also proposed to shift from art involving nature to art involving cultural images. For example, in Rauschenberg's works, he called this kind of art "postmodernism", which is the first time to use this term in the context related to contemporary art. These concepts still have great influence in the study of art history and contemporary art criticism, perhaps to the extent that we no longer ask about its origin. Like the initiator of any cliche, Steinberg's version is less dogmatic and more subtle than others' later versions.

Steinberg's argument is superb and powerful-no one will say that he deliberately goes easy on others-but it is not just to kill his opponent. He never thought that his multivariate analysis method would be established as the only method and pluralism, which would end all pluralism. As a matter of fact, Steinberg never rejects formalistic concerns, nor does he exclude impartial critics who only adhere to formalistic concerns. As he himself said, in the context of recent artistic writing (while "visual culture research" and so-called "post-modernism" anti-formalism are intensifying), he said: "Now, I find myself more formalistic than anyone else." [27]