Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: The 1980s and 1990s were halcyon days for the social history of Impressionism when, in addition to original investigations of individual artists, there appeared major synthetic treatments of the movement by Robert Herbert and T. J. Clark. Although very different in style and scope, both acknowledged a common inspiration in Meyer Schapiro’s revelatory remarks on Impressionism in ‘Nature of Abstract Art’, the review of the Museum of Modern Art’s Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition he published in the Marxist Quarterly in 1937.1 Clark opened The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (1985) with a quotation of ‘a few lines’ from that text which he hailed as still ‘the best thing on the subject, simply because they suggest so tellingly that the form of the new art is inseparable from its content’.2 Herbert dedicated his Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society (1988) to Schapiro and would describe him elsewhere as ‘my hero’, stressing the central role he had played in his formation as an art historian.3 Herbert acknowledged the importance of Clark’s book, which had ‘almost single-handedly re-oriented the field’, conceding that his own study would look ‘old-fashioned’ by comparison. Certainly the contrast between Herbert’s sturdy empiricism and Clark’s displays of theoretical brilliance can be construed in terms of differences between generations and politics.4 However, as Herbert wrote later, one thing he shared with Schapiro was a ‘suspicion of all generalizing theories, political and non-political’.5 What this amounted to in practice was the difference in emphasis between a model of explanation and interpretation grounded in social iconography and one that treated Impressionism as a key stage in the formation of a modernist aesthetic that drew its energies partly from bourgeois leisure activities. These models were bolstered by the work of others. Paul Hayes Tucker elaborated Herbert’s insights into the place of suburban leisure in Impressionist motifs in his 1982 monograph on Monet at Argenteuil.6 Thomas Crow would develop Schapiro’s propositions regarding the links between Impressionism and the emergent forms of mass culture in a much-cited essay first published in the following year.7 Both readings of Schapiro on Impressionism could claim ancestry in the 1937 text, but it is striking how limited their authors’ engagement with his writings of the 1930s seems to have been.8 To be fair, in the 1980s only a very restricted selection of Schapiro’s early essays on modern art and architecture had been reprinted and no bibliography of his writings appeared until the year before his death at 91 in 1996.9 Scholars today also have the advantage of the large mass of unpublished material in the Schapiro Papers in Columbia University Library. In this essay I draw on a wider range of texts – published and unpublished – to argue that Schapiro’s interpretation of Impressionism was driven by other concerns besides those identified by Herbert and Clark and consider why it took so long for his more extended reflections to assume book form.10 By the time he was a freshman at Columbia in 1920–1921, Schapiro had developed ‘an immense admiration’ for the formalist criticism of Roger Fry, which matches with the aesthetic of his earliest published writing from 1924, his review of Emanuel Loewy’s Die Naturwiedergabe in der älteren griechischen Kunst (1900).11 However, by 1932 when he reviewed the Museum of Modern Art’s Matisse retrospective of the year before he was arguing that the forms of modern art were intrinsically related to its content when ‘for the first time in the history of Western art aesthetically valued objects had become the exclusive or dominant subject-matter of painting’.12 Spurred by communist calls for an instrumental revolutionary art – which he characterised as ‘not a socialist art but a practical temporary art’13 – Schapiro insisted that modern art was the ineluctable product of the contemporary capitalist order. In the face of the pervasive formalism with which it was framed by mainstream and communist critics alike in the mid-1930s Schapiro was insistent on modern art’s content in published statements and in talks at the Art Students’ League, New York University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Princeton University. Autumn 1935 saw him deliver a course of six lectures on ‘The Content of Modern Art’ at the New School for Social Research.14 The Schapiro of the 1930s was acutely aware that American art history was theoretically immature – unconscious of its ‘theoretical assumptions’ – particularly by comparison with the discipline as practised in Germany and Austria, which had produced a ‘whole literature’ on ‘problems of method’. At the same time, he acknowledged that ‘American suspicion of theory’ was ‘in part justified by [the] obscure and metaphysical character of much of Europ. [sic] theorizing on art’.15 By contrast, he openly advocated a Marxist history of art, while admitting – as he wrote to Aline Louchheim in August 1936 – that such a history remained to be written. But Marxist art history did not set out from a tabula rasa: It does not give up the techniques of research into details & fact developed during the last 100 years – on the contrary, it insists upon scientific method throughout, while rejecting as ‘unscientific’ ‘the typical methods & theories of interpretation of men like Riegl, Wölfflin & Dvorak [sic]’, who were ‘the best of modern art historians’.16 A two-and-a -half-page sketch ‘Lecture – Marxism and Art’, which is probably contemporaneous, opens ‘Marxism lacks a definite theory of art or of art history’ and continues: ‘Few references to art in Marx and Engels’.17 This is not strictly true, although the founders’ comments are scattered and fragmentary. Schapiro was writing just as the first compilations of these comments were being published in French and in German; I have found no record of his response to them. Intellectual New York in the mid- and late 1930s was a battleground in relation to Marxist theories of art and literature as a result of divisions over the course and nature of the USSR, divisions that are represented by the catchwords Stalinism and anti-Stalinism. As a representative instance, on one side a body of communist and fellow-travelling critics styling themselves the Marxist Critics Group put out a magazine Dialectics that appeared in 1937–1939 together with ten pamphlets, mainly but not exclusively devoted to making available something of recent Soviet debates on the arts. The pamphlets included the first attempt to elaborate a Marxists aesthetics on the basis of intensive readings of Marx and Engels’s works, Mikhail Lifshitz’s The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx.18 By his own recollection Schapiro never read it.19 However, his sometime student Milton Brown – only seven years his junior – published an article on ‘The Marxist Approach to Art’ in the second issue of Dialectics and the group also put out his substantial pamphlet Painting of the French Revolution.20 Brown had wanted to acknowledge Schapiro’s input to this latter essay but was told by the editors he could not on account of Schapiro’s perceived Trotskyism.21 Although Schapiro was still writing for a Popular Front publication as late as November 1936,22 he was surely troubled by reports of the first major Show Trial in Moscow in August of that year and by March 1937 he had moved decisively to the other side and become a vehement critic of Stalinism.23 At some point in 1936 he joined the board of a new independent Marxist journal open to writers with different political allegiances with the title of Marxist Quarterly (Fig. 1).24 Three issues of this would come out in 1937 before it folded; ‘Nature of Abstract Art’ appeared in the first. With Marxist Quarterly’s demise, the main forum for independent Marxists became Partisan Review, the one-time magazine of the communist John Reed Club of New York, which had dissolved in the autumn of 1936 and relaunched as an anti-Stalinist organ in December 1937. In August 1937 one of the editors of the reconstituted magazine, Frederick Dupee, met with Schapiro and in the aftermath wrote to him: ‘You have some exceedingly interesting and subtle contributions to make to modern criticism, and we hope you will become one of our regular writers’. Of the pieces they had discussed, Dupee said, Partisan Review’s editors were ‘particularly interested in the one on Plekhanov’.25 In June of the following year another of the magazine’s editors, William Phillips, wrote to ask: ‘Will you have time this summer to get the piece on Plekhanov and the utility theory of art in shape for fall publication?’.26 of the Marxist Quarterly The in was a review of the Marxist Critics Group publication of Art and which had appeared in pamphlet form in 1936 with the French and Painting in the Schapiro never his but of an and of their they make Schapiro’s on some key issues his published writings of the and his of Impressionism in were Partisan Review’s editors so to have Schapiro’s It was partly as Schapiro put was the first Marxist who to the of art and But it was also because text a and of and to acknowledge art’s it simply with and was all with Stalinism in Partisan Review’s Although as the to the Critics Group pamphlet acknowledged that Plekhanov was a Marxist who had the on the his aesthetic were in with contemporary in to art as an to and in its forms was to Schapiro that and Plekhanov drew on to his were and the of his also some of his other However, Marxism Schapiro saw as a scientific in that out from he social the art for art’s and and they to a of – is regarding art as on the of the basis of his reflections on and French literature and art, Plekhanov that the art for art’s when ‘a between and those with the and social the of a of between a of and those more or interested in Schapiro out that with this him to and writers with different aesthetics and he for art’s ‘the of the the of the aesthetic and the of and The did not to because of could be with his of ‘a he had ‘a of and Plekhanov that the – who he with the of the art for art’s – were ‘in with the bourgeois of their but that they were not the to Schapiro saw the in bourgeois as a more role – as to the for individual for the of in art was inseparable from the of bourgeois the of on and were to by and the or an to the it is in bourgeois that for the first time the of a individual by the and of the just as and become for the bourgeois individual so the an like his in a But it is only these that the of the can as an only to its and material the of the these of and of art are and but they are the an the basis of and a new of like the political of and which the in the The of the to out of his own to make the the of art, is a and of on is simply the of art and a only the because only were the forms of as individual were to his to a literature and on the basis of a of and social utility in ‘the of a work of art in the by the as it of its The of this for his of Impressionism were Plekhanov acknowledged that the were of they ‘a to the content of their with to a of the Impressionism had been by some French critics to in the were be that their was only the of This is But in Plekhanov and Schapiro shared a for formalism and a with to the more scientific Schapiro The of the ‘Nature of Abstract Art’ was that formalist criticism art had In a on the Content of Modern Schapiro The to the nature of the content of modern art is not only to to more the character of that art, but in to the content at the time and to the relation of style and content in art as a A study will that our art a content and that the modern aesthetic art in which the content is This art is It is with those objects in which are valued as as of of It to a typical social The of Impressionism are the and not from the point of the but of the Impressionism is a and [sic] it the and of and a bourgeois art, related to of and with Impressionism was ‘the of – a more and In a of Schapiro as ‘my and his in French culture was read in modern literature – and particularly in the French – it was central to his interpretation of modern of his in the late 1930s and was the T. to he the of the in the more by a a he wrote in he was particularly – to have been a of Marx and – but found his and in some his French literature is to in of the of Schapiro’s published Impressionism but those lectures are in the of in Schapiro wrote to the Marxist art a study of ‘the iconography of modern What I hope to on the iconography of modern art is only a part of that have long I work also on the first of the but I the I writing the book mainly art and the first to Impressionism or the of the But in as I make between the of in the with With to the of he had a long article on or so Schapiro had to as ‘a on and art, one of the few and Marxists of our Although they did not in until Schapiro and had been in late when they were by Schapiro’s the communist modern architecture being one of their shared By the time their was in in Paris in and one in their is how are for the publication of of work in the Schapiro on this and also put into the that to the in But his they out over been as As I will there were differences as Schapiro he met in an of who was making a independent engagement with was years Schapiro’s and before I had published a major book on modern art – Monet – which as a for Wölfflin – who to it – Monet with one of the first of Cubism to be published had at the of and following the lectures of and others. In he became with the In he he to and the of his him from a he in the by at the had been writing criticism for the and by the time he with Schapiro he had published with another In a to from late Schapiro wrote that had him of published in French in and his on modernist at architecture together with a of his der which was published in in the Schapiro that he was the to read these was so by text on – which he he had read the – that he part of it for publication in the Marxist Quarterly the title of Marxist of In the nature of between Marxist and Schapiro work were more by or wrote or no – at to with – and they wrote to other in which Schapiro seems to have found But Schapiro also wrote in while being his limited with that A the of their was It concerns a on in that formalism and ‘the formalism of his claim with an of In a Schapiro – I not that he on the of his I only that of his from is not such an explanation on the content of a content which for at is very and inseparable from their such a of is Marxist a in this – not only because of the but also because Marxism treated the and a In of iconography as much as formalism this they would to work and their to have been until the by and Popular in In response to this wrote of criticism and Schapiro of It seems to be that their although I not to make the into a or I and Popular was a work of importance to his with the to it by the It was one that he would be of his in ‘the more it between and or which they would as and their own By contrast, Schapiro to and such as and It was the only of the book to in his and the that writing the had wrote both in French his as a to Schapiro’s in the opened the first by that Schapiro had the of and a of aesthetic while he acknowledged contemporary criticism had some in art and history of art, in it was as to and of as Schapiro’s article a very interesting to the of but his did not as of art, which was much more the was why an who was bourgeois by to an art so when the of his was so and Schapiro’s on the of to or the of the In a account he had the and those that to the history of Schapiro’s – and only a his first – wrote at he said, with the of one could the as Schapiro did one wanted to so in a It was this that had been at the of his In the history of art as in other there could be no a and it at Schapiro had a of and an of but he had not related ‘in in while they that was by a of that was related to – although did not this – this could not be from the of the of the the of it had in relation to French art, and its for the as a and could the with different they to the same Schapiro had identified art with theory to a very was a who aesthetic theories to his own of But was that he could not the between Schapiro’s of and his Schapiro but of as out the and importance of his of the and of that he had not identified art with he out that there were insights in response to that one had to study a before one could its But he did that the form of the article was ‘You are the of a form for these and I with it In the article no and which work to Schapiro’s did not claim that the article was a it was ‘a study which to a more for I have but one with which I This into one of the main differences between and Schapiro on Marxist but he could not same he der to that in it are out more in of the Marxist at the same time as he that ‘the of and by his of their major difference is by the essay an of Art’, which had – or – on the to his American on the between and New York in This a of of the in the by art such as and the insights of Schapiro’s text in the content of and the of some of its it could that it took the record as the with the Schapiro’s of and Impressionism from to the of from the of who with an elaborate of history and and have to be as as to the of the second of the who on from nature or from an a or an Schapiro found the the in the as by like with a and the of not as a revolutionary but as retrospective and and of the the of not in its or but as a aesthetic the of the and which in was more openly of modern art for the both Monet as the saw him as a of in work and the body are alike as the only to and and the it is ‘the is on form him from the of Impressionist iconography or the that it was to the which were so was central to Schapiro’s of it as key of the of modern Schapiro’s differences with some of his he was so with that he was to a In in his an at the Meyer an article on – to in – in which the were as long as the main the that does get in details – the criticism of him which It is that he as his had a with this did not him from insights into Schapiro’s more the that Schapiro had in an from the of his Schapiro wrote to from his summer in his in to had read ‘a from they are to for the book which I they suggest to the history and art of the last and I have been to some which would be or But in the long I that I very this which only time from the writing that I to put for the of more and I have a point I be to the to the in a few or I writing so much that I for some the to have out of for on he wrote to the This become so long that I to in and the first part is the and theoretical as a it a of and and I not be until in the at the of the following he would have to his and with other in the and At one this is the of an and to a body of the of a At the with can be read as an between a of Marxism by and one that to Marxist method with Both to why Schapiro never the study of French art in which Impressionism would have played a role and why the published lectures on Impressionism read so from and Popular with the of American in the a book with no so The text of the published lectures – Impressionism: and – is an of the at University in some of the that make up the acknowledge the content of Impressionism in their – ‘The ‘The ‘The The – they iconography only in very terms and the of capitalist by the of and leisure by Schapiro that ‘the of an as as an and of the of the of that the in the is those Paris its Of artists, and the Schapiro while and to the they found new in the of a of art in which the of its and the individual of was an emphasis on the of that is ‘The new of art were on of political ‘the new art was with in French social These of are not to of statements by the are they by of contemporary is no of so the bourgeois from the of his the ‘the and the of in 1937 are not is there a of of the who the of but the to and who were by a of in an The of social have no In the the claim that the Impressionist style an of individual from its in the 1937 text and to a aesthetic At the same time, the movement is to a ‘the by a few Impressionist between and are the and of in the of new of the last In Schapiro a of formalist in art history and criticism in his on ‘The Social of Art’, at the American in New that while modern that content did not they were in their of the of from their they drew on a of objects from a and This did not that modern were more and of art the art of the it that ‘the and aesthetic of had as of the character of ‘the of art as aesthetic and individual can only culture been from practical and and is by the of modern art of this did not in themselves the of it as or with the and of the could not to art on the aesthetic of for the of or of This was an art of individual on the and of the an art could not be because it was so and today the political of these or by But at one time they set the of a scientific research that Impressionist for a while one of the and of research on and Columbia for and University of of American Art, Meyer Schapiro will of Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro
Source: Oxford Art Journal
Author: Andrew Frank Hemingway
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,620
OpenAlex ID: W4383313604