I think to be fair to Chris here, we need to understand that some people like to look at a Pollock. While I can't see why, they still might truly like looking at the effect of those dribbles and smears of different colors.
Thanks Fred, for offering me a gracious way out. You know, I would be the first to admit that looking at Pollock may simply be likened to rubbernecking at the human equivalent of a car wreck ....
But before I exit this discussion, I would like to comment on one aspect that surprised me, which was that I guess I am more alarmist with respect to the early twentieth century avant garde than most. Perhaps I have mentioned it here before (and apologies for the repetition if I have, and to those who saw a similar post on
r.a.f.) but one book that has influenced my thinking in that direction was
Modris Eksteins'Rites of Spring, which covers the effect of the Great War on Western culture. A quote from the preface describes the tenor of the book:
The Weimar period, 1918 to 1933, and the Third Reich, 1933 to 1945, were stages in a process. Avant-garde has for us a positive ring, storm troops a frightening connotation. This book suggests that there may be a sibling relationship between these two terms that extends beyond their military origins. Introspection, primitivism, abstraction, and myth making in the arts, and introspection, primitivism, abstraction, and myth making in in politics, may be related manifestations. Nazi kitsch may bear a blood relationship to the highbrow religion of art proclaimed by many moderns.
FWIW, Eksteins is a prof at the University of Toronto, and well known with respect to studies in modern European history.
