COMMENTS ON Ernst Gomrich’s 1958 TYRANNY ARTICLE tm.

©
2007
By PAUL HENRICKSON ©
2005

Ernest Gombrich begins his revelatory article “The Tyranny of

Abstract Art” which appeared in the April 1958 issue of “The
Atlantic Monthly” with the confession that he and his art
historian colleagues were, perhaps unintentionally, responsible
for having misled the public by the use of language which
failed to adequately describe the facts of creative artistic
production.

In consequence, the metaphoric language employed may have

seduced the reader. Although Gombrich refers to art historians
specifically and not to art critics, it is, I have found the art
critic who is more likely to be guilty of a seductive use of
language than is the art historian.

After all, it is the job of the historian, at least nominally so, to

deal with the sequence of artistic events. The function of the
critic goes beyond that by hypothesizing the reasons certain
artists selected approaches to their craft that distinguished
them from other artists and what the meanings of those
changes in direction have meant or might mean. Both the art
historian and the art critic might respond to the formal
characteristics of a work of art, the historian as a means of
determining the proper chronology of the piece and the critic
as evidence of the motivation which gave issue to the change.
In this regard the social environment out of which the works
have been produced is of some importance, but, in addition, so
are the more personal and, perhaps more hidden, reasons why
a particular change was adopted over some other. It is this last
which borders on the personal psychology of the artist
involved.

In short, the main job of the art historian is to establish what

the historical facts might be. The art critic’s responsibility is
more complex and more variable and controversial in its
results. Additionally, the art critic’s ability to express himself
in comprehensible language is of prime importance since often
what he may be expected to convey are the non-verbal
meanings inherent in a mute object. This is tricky. Exactly how
tricky it is, is probably one of the major reasons why Gombrich
wrote what he wrote.

In his second paragraph Gombrich lays before us yet another

challenge to the reader by reminding us that there are critics
who believe that painting in this last century became too easy,
“a mere splashing of
colors.”

Kirk Hughey: “Grey”

Kirk Hughey: “Abstraction”

Kirk Hughey: Teal Rider

Constance Counter: untitled

Well, it would be possible for me to assert that the belief is not

mistaken for there are painters whose works give testimony to
support that belief. Yet I feel impelled to point out that great
works of art are neither conceived nor created, necessarily, out
of painstaking effort or physical strain.

Edvard Munch records the story of the banker who had

commissioned him to do a family portrait and who after the
thirty minutes it took Munch to complete the work the banker
complained that the painter hadn’t spent enough time on the
work to warrant the large sum of money he was asking. Much
is said to have responded that it had taken him thirty years to
be able to expertly paint the work in thirty minutes. This
seems like a very good reply and, in this case, quite probably
honest.

The banker’s observation is, in a limited way, justified at least

from the amount of evidence he had available at the time, but
Munch’s argument is stronger. It is not infrequently reported
that a work of art “just flowed” from the artist’s brush, the
writer’s pen or the sculptor’s warm wax. It can be rightly
assumed, however, that such fluidity of artistic expression
does come from a lengthy period of effort during which the
artist does, at least metaphorically, sweat blood.

The development of an expert technique does take not only

physical energy but a great deal of critical mental evaluation
as well. A handyman and gardener whom I had employed who
had just seen me produce a painted wooden panel using
stencils and spray cans of paint in about ten minutes exclaim
in near disbelief, “you really are an artist”, once astounded
me! I was stunned not because this very basic personality had
uttered an aesthetic judgment but that the judgment seemed
to carry with it the idea that an artist is someone who can
perform at will and with ease.

I am still stunned by the comment because it seems to resist

analysis. The apparent ease comes only with concentration and
intelligent selection. It is also the result of long periods of trial
and effort as well as painful peer criticism and difficult-to-bare
self-analysis. It is probably this sort of experience that
accounts for some of the unconventional social behavior of
many artists. An artists’ audience often has difficulty in
relating to the person of the artist because the audience has
little understanding and no sympathy for what the artist has
had to go through in order to reach what he has reached. It is
this sort of thing that may explain why Peter Paul Rubens is
less an artist than, say, Michelangelo Buonarotti, El Greco, or
Caravaggio.
Michelangelo: “slave”
El Greco: “Toledo”

Caravaggio: “Crucifixion of Peter”

Gombrich reminds us that one of the more frustrating

experiences is to be entirely free to do what one wishes, free
from any restrictions or constraints. This seems to suggest
that the individual is motivated primarily by rebellion.
Thorndyck’s stimulus response theories of learning may
dovetail this concept nicely, but there seems to be an
important item missing in this theory and that might be the
role of curiosity, simple, bald curiosity. A curiosity so
demanding of satisfaction at times that some individuals have
been known to so without food, sleep and companionship. If
one takes, by way example, Ludwig Beethoven, who was deaf,
totally deaf, was largely forgetful of other of life’s amenities in
order to focus on the composition of music…music that he
would never get to hear except, perhaps, in his mind, one
might well wonder if there had not been an extremely
compelling reason for him to concentrate on the development
of a talent that had been so victimized by the situation of his
birth from a syphilitic mother. There is evidence in the work of
Carravagio that suggests that he, too, may have been driven
into producing a large amount of work in a short period of time
as a result of his having been aware of fate have dealt him a
joker card.
It is this curiosity and intense involvement in something which
some have described as “play” which needs a more subtle
explanation. The word “play” seems to disregard the very
serious nature of the involvement. I suspect that the word
“play” may have been initially chosen simply to distinguish it
from the idea of “work” which carried with it the idea of an
exterior force pressuring the individual to produce and the
concept of their being an interior pressure compelling one to
produce was not yet ready for consideration. It is now,
however.

Such an intense concentration of energy on the production of a

creative work of art can be more fatiguing than an eight-hour
day of straight labor. It has also been noted that once the fever
of creation has taken hold of an individual that that individual
may work until he drops. The physical body, it seems at such
times, can hardly keep pace with the flow of images. This had
been described as the “fire of creation”. I do not fully
understand why the image of fire in connection with creation
should be so meaningful except that destructive fires often
precede creative reconstruction.

Gombrich is such a fertile writer. I cannot get past the third

paragraph before a third rich idea is expressed. Gombrich
describes the state of the artist as he stands in front of his
canvas “facing the existential nightmare, the responsibility for
every decision, every move, without any convention to guide
him, any expectation to live up to except the one of creating
something recognizably himself.” The emphasis is mine
because it is this that is the artist’s major, if not his only,
responsibility. What else can the artist honestly do but to
create from what he is able and willing to create from what he
has been given or developed. Now, the key word in that
sentence is “honestly”.
Paul Shapiro: “Tap Root”
(The reader is invited to consider the meaning of the above text in the light of the
graphic evidence offered by Hughey, Counter and Shapiro.)

I realize that such a claim can be and has frequently been used
to trivialize the artistic effort generally and to legitimize the
culturally destructive efforts of dilettantes who seek the
patronage of bored, unintelligent, wealthy sources which seek
out the opportunities that will allow their egos to ride the
crests of fashion. Such are the fatuous.

The effort the creative artist makes to reach into that depth of
being where the deposit of universal prime evil soul-
knowledge resides is awesome and exhausting, at least for the
one who achieves it. For the observer who is able to
participate in this moment of sharing it is an ennobling
experience. Not many works of art achieve that level. As for
examples that do achieve it I would include the following:
Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”, Rodin’s “Burghers of Calais”
and Mestrovic’s “Job”.
Michelangelo: “The Last Judgment”
August Rodin: “Burghers of Calais”

Ivan Mestrovic: “Job”

Now, if the truth were told, I dislike the phrasing in the

foregoing paragraph. It carries with it much too much of the
elegant language of the Victorians, too much of the tone of the
romantic, the mysterious and the ambivalent. Why, it might
well be asked, doesn’t one just say what is “good” and what is
“bad”, and get the job done?

One doesn’t do that because one cannot do that and also it

should not be done because it is not certain, given the various
natures of human beings, that language can convey what it is
intended to convey. Why does a woman ask a man if he loves
her and then when he tells her she doesn’t believe him…and it
makes no difference what his answer is she will still not
believe him?

Also, I resent having to submit to the weak resolution that

there are some things that are ineffable, so I, and others, keep
trying. In addition to all that, language also is not static, it is
very mutable indeed.

Matisse is supposed to have stated that he wanted to create

art for the common man who, when he came home from work
he would not be confronted by an item that demanded his
concentration, attention and accumulated knowledge to be
appreciated. If one were to judge Matisse’s success by his
stated aim we would have to conclude that he failed…indeed
he failed utterly. There is not point of view that would grant
him the luxury of claiming success. He is a colossal failure.
Henri Matisse: “
Matisse: “Woman before a Window”

Not only could one not ever, except by some unbelievable

accident, find a Matisse in a common man’s house. In fact, it is
highly doubtful that one could find a common man who would
want a Matisse in his house. If his house held any paintings at
all, they would be Rembrandts and something or other from
the Pre-Raphaelites and then they wouldn’t be originals, but
cheap prints.
Rembrandt van Rijn: “self portrait”
Burne-Jones: “The Sea Depths”

Referring to Walter Pach, Gombrich asks an awesome question;

“Are those who oppose a false art of one kind safe from being
imposed upon by another?” Gombrich, in that paragraph at
least, escapes from being compelled to answer the question by
diverting our attention from the primary issue and calling us to
consider the fact that there were few economic incentives for a
copyist to focus his attention where there was no significant
market for those images.

The real issue, it seems to me, is not whether there might be

an economic incentive, but why is it that the images seem of
more value than the work, the original work itself, which
supports the image. How else might I put this?
I think it necessary to firstly separate the idea of an “image”
being a “shown subject” such as a still life or a figure from the
more basic idea of an image being the structure of the work.

We must include the possibility that an “image” might also

simply be the way something, anything, “looks”. The “look” of
a Hans Hoffmann, for example, which is the ”image” the
Hoffmann offers us, is as valid a “look” or “image” as an
Ingres’ “look” or “image”.

Hans Hofmann: “Golden Wall”

Ingres: “Pauline de Bearn”

Let me try another way. A woman has hired a gardener to work

in the garden. At about mid-morning on an increasingly hot
day he comes to the back door looking sweaty, a wet shirt
under the arms and in the middle of the back and asks for ice
water. In the early afternoon he returns wearing only his
under shorts and sandals to ask for more ice water. Now the
woman sees that the man is handsomely built and wonders
how much warmer it might get in a few more hours.

The point of this little anecdote is this. What is important to

the woman is the structure of the man. What should be of
importance to the art critic and the art historian is the
structure of the work.

Some of us are more practiced than others in seeing the figure

hidden by the clothing but a good critic is able to accomplish
this. This is one reason why it may be dangerous for them to
appear in public for there are some people who feel something
when they are being undressed and inspected for how they are
really composed.

If one of these paintings has a degree of virtue greater than

the other it may be the Hofmann because there is little doubt
in the mind of the viewer as to what it is he is looking at. The
average viewer may ask the question “But what is it?” We are
sympathetic with that frustration which arises out of a
centuries old inculcated expectation that a painting must be a
painting OF something or it does not properly belong in the
seventh heaven of works of genius.

The value of Hofmann over Ingres is that Hofmann the work he

shows us is showing is only the work he shows us, whereas
Ingres, with all due respect for his excellence draughtsmanship
and control over the medium is presenting a disguised painting
in the form of a beautiful two-dimensional woman. I suspect
that were the painterly elements existing in the Ingres portrait
were disattatched from the subject matter they describe and
allowed to exist on their own they might be as valuable an
aesthetic experience as is the Hofmann.

So, one may argue: ” But that is what art is all about…that is,
artifice!”

And one counters with the argument: “but that is what other
artists are trying to change, to free the creative spirit from the
slavery of having to represent an image of something other
than itself. In addition, to show that such an approach has as
much, if not more, validity in its attempt to inform the human
soul of values existing elsewhere as does the work of highly
talented illustrators.”

My reaction to both Gombrich and Pach in this regard is that

while I concur with their descriptions I do not think them
complete. For a further understanding of the participant
influences we must, I believe, consider the nature of the
readiness to receive, and understand, the message of the
image.

If one has ever talked with a five year old about what his
drawing represents it might have been noticed that frequently,
so long as there is not much of a time lapse between when the
drawing was done and the questioning about it, the child is
quite ready to tell you the meaning of nearly every mark that
he had made. Too much of a time laps and he probably
wouldn’t understand what you meant by the question. The
relationship, then, between the marks made and their meaning
seems very intimately connected with the actual motor
performance. Sometimes even adult actors have a problem in
answering questions of that sort not too long after having left
the stage. They will, however, be able to answer the question
given time to reconstruct what they know intellectually about
the role and to be able to recollect the experience of playing it
in front of the foot lights. If a researcher has ever asked a long
practicing artist whether or not an early work was indeed his
they, may also have noticed some significant hesitation in
responding to the question. What this speaks to, I believe, is a
state of mind, during the period of creation, which is quite
close to being a trance where the interrelationships between
events have a logical relationship all their own quite other
than such relationships occurring during normal relationship
periods. It is quite another universe, indeed.

As a middle teenager, in my case it was a longer than usual

period, I failed utterly to notice the semi-turgid male members
on Breughel’s painting “The Peasant Dance” whereas, at about
the same period in my life they were immediately obvious in
the work of Paul Cadmus. Readiness for the experience seems
to play a significant role in one’s understanding of it.

Pietre Breughel: “The Wedding Dance”

Paul Cadmus: “The Fleet’s In”

Recently a friend who delights in revealing the number of

facets of meaning he sees in nearly every gem of a thought
goes on, literally non-stop for two hours, without interruption,
polishing all the facets of the gem and usually ending up with
a mildly sardonic quip. He will get up to leave after a few
musical notes emerge from his trouser’s groinal pocket and he
gets called home for supper and very seriously extend his
gratitude to his listener for a very interesting conversation
indeed.

But the spousal reminder is only partially successful and he

launches into a new aspect of the subject with as much
enthusiasm as he had two hours previously. Actually, the
effects of his contribution linger on for several hours after he
leaves in the form of remembered aesthetic experiences and
surprises.

All in all this fellow is, among other things, a performer, but his
audience is necessarily limited to a cultured, literate and
intellectually involved group of people. There may actually be
more of such people than it might appear at first glance and
the reason we fail to meet them is because they have learned
it is safer to be silent than witty.

I recall that as a late teenager it had taken me months of daily

contact with one Monet landscape before I suddenly, and I do
mean suddenly, experienced the visual meaning of all those
green and blue dots. The dots had been on that particular
canvas for at least three generations before I experienced
them. I had not been able to make sense out of that visual
chaos because my expectations for the making of symbolic
representations had been linear and focused on the contour of
an object and not eidetically trained to focus on light rather
than the object. It was not the dots that shifted, it was my
mental focus. One must be ready to receive the meaning
before the process of meaningful communication can take
place.

These sorts of experiences continue and can be the source of

considerable humor if the manner of cultural conflict is not too
severe. These sorts of things are a matter of cultural exposure
and there are many cultures with smaller populations within
what one generally considers to be a national one.

What my talkative friend mentioned before he left and strongly

indicated that he wouldn’t be able to complete all he had to
say had to do with the matter of semiotics. It was fully 20
minutes before he did leave, but it was all-worthwhile. I, too,
had for some time, wondered about the academics’ interest in
semiotics and wondered what they might have in mind to do
with it.

The subject is very wide, including such things as directional

signs for traffic, comfort stations for men or women,
internationally packaged cooking instructions, the facial and
body movements which, generally, only an initiate can
understand and frequently lead to serious misinterpretation.
The ways of miming “no” and “yes” would take one around the
world and be worth a liberal education. A series of silent films
of men and women in various cultures arguing with each other
would be a treasure trove for any choreographer researching
the meaning of movement.

In short, and without doubt, there exists a language of

aesthetics and it is not to man’s credit that he has ignored
researching and developing this aspect of communication.

In sum, then, it will be helpful to remember that the

”goodness” or the badness” of a work of art can only be
appropriately judged by the effectiveness of the signals that
are transferred from the creator of the work to the receptor. I
realize that this notion may be found offensive by those who
may have a more structured idea of achievement, but in all
fairness to ourselves and to the many faceted aspects of the
environment in which we live all things are not everything to
all people. This statement should not be construed as a
willingness to accept everything and anything, but rather, that
before a judgment is made, we delay decisions until we have
checked more out than what we thought we needed to do.
Extend the parameters of the discipline and make them as
flexible as an amoeba.

Gombrich additionally discusses Pach’s idea of “snobbism” and

tells us that the society to which Pach had reference allowed
entrance into “noble” circles by virtue of some intellectual
refinement. Gombrich observes that the word “snobbism”
implies the existence of a nobility and that of a hierarchical
society. Such a society does exist. In fact, many of them exist
simultaneously and it isn’t at all certain that a member of one
noble group would wish to associate with another noble group.
The existence of such elitist groups within a largely
“democratic” society needs to be explored along with the
distinct possibility that it may be one or more of the elitist
groups which may be the seminal causes for the society as a
whole to develop.
The very notions of democracy any society may possess may
be the root cause for the suppression of elitist groups needed
for the continued expansion of democratic ideals.

However, the preferential treatment of some groups in the

theory that past disadvantages must be balanced out in order
to level the contemporary playing field will fail in its objective
by demoralizing one of the most treasured qualities of social
ambition…consensual agreement as to worth. The maker has
to believe he has done well and the society must understand
what he has done. Reward on the basis of something other
than real achievement has the same effect as a leaky car
battery; it corrodes everything with which it comes into
contact.

After a well-explored history of his frustration Gombrich,

seemingly out of patience, states that the much applauded
exploration and experiment in the visual arts tolerated at the
time of his writing must come to an end as we develop
“standards for success and failure”. I, in part, agree with him,
but I personally need room in which to change my mind in the
event of the appearance of new evidence.

One very important “new evidence” is not, as Gombrich

assumes that abstract art is the same as non-objective art.
They are not the same, but as Gombrich implies even the
intellectual elite has broadly accepted this intellectual error of
which Gombrich is a part.

It is my understanding that much of what irritates Gombrich is

a result of this intolerable intellectual misunderstanding. The
verb “abstract” means to take from, to draw from, or to
separate from much as one does when one produces a
summary or a précis of a written document. There is no
editorializing involved. There are NO alternatives available.
The sense and the meaning of the document may not be
altered. No argument is possible, none are permitted.

Contrary-wise, in the area of the graphic and plastic arts any

departure from the visual reality was labeled an abstraction.
To my knowledge there has never been an objection made
concerning the questionable issue of whether all persons see
the same object in the same “real” way, but even if we accept
the gross generalization that “reality is reality and everyone
agrees on that” there will still remain the fact that, by proper
definition, anything that re-presents that reality has departed
from the process of abstraction and started on the course of
personal selection and editorializing. At that point it is the job
of the art critic to determine, as best he can, the inspirational
sources be they art historical, psychological, mercenary or
whatever. It is further the critic’s job to assess the value of
these changes.

Gombrich laments the passing of a framework of convention

that had been built up prior to the twentieth century and feels
its passing has castrated the traditional function of the critic
which was to comment on how well, or how badly, an artist had
adhered to these conventions.

It has been another generation and a half since Gombrich

made these statements and, today, he may have felt obligated
to add a few comments. Be that as it may, it can be safely said
that while the function of the graphic and plastic arts have
changed so have the responsibilities and opportunities of the
critic in regard to them and since both the critic and the artist
are in a position to alter the environment in which we all live it
would be in the best interest of the rest of the populations to
start to take an active and informed interest in their futures.