The Painted Word

Tom Wolfe's Painted Word is an important book! People should be reading it in college. I was delighted with the copy that I purchased. It came to me, swiftly and in good condition! Thank you so much!

A second read for me. Very biting and true review of the art scene. I lived in NYC in the 60', 70's and made many visits to SOHO Galleries. It appears that the theories described have come to a dead end and young artists are rediscovering the world they live in and exploring their relationship to it.

If you have ever been baffled by the ugliness presented by the art world, you are not alone! Tom Wolfe feels your pain and he explains (in very funny terms) why we have treated as less than dirt by the so-called intelligensia.

Excellent, but too brief. Anticipated something like an actual book, got instead an extended article. Would have preferred more flesh on this skeletal work, since his intended focus seemed, like low-hanging fruit, rather ripe for plucking. But incisive, well-written, wry."Wanted much more," is, I will admit, a curious stance for a critic. Perhaps he has been busy. . . secretly compiling some other vast work that will eventually bathe our known world in rare earth, all kandy-coloured, a la britishe. Wonder if he even knows how to apprehend Mylie Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, Ben Carson, etc al. Sadly, nobody would go all "agog" at me sporting breast simulations and a taper-like strap-on these days. Not just anybody can confess to have shepherded "Bo" Polk's children for one summer, at age seventeen. Tom should biograph M. Polk. A totem of some American age.

Wolfe is brilliant, as usual. Just walk through any fine art museum today, and notice what the "moderns" require, as opposed to the realist fuddy-duddies: a placard of pretentious jargon explaining the work in question. "X, using paint drips and furious slashes of pencil, refutes prevailing socioeconomic theories of gender, politics and consumerism in a subliminal dream-fugue of activist self-expression that refuses to be pigeonholed or 'explained' in a capitalist-fascistic culture run amok." Pathetic. Ignore the reviews that whine and bleat about how Wolfe just doesn't get it, he's a philistine; art as we know it has gone off the rails; it is confined absolutely to an incestuous, smug, defensive small world of third-raters and academics; it has no influence, except within its own sad and desperate circle. Gone are the days when a painting mattered -- this is beyond refutation. It is also a tragedy, and Wolfe is an able guide to the insecure -- yet amazingly arrogant -- forces that have reduced a once-powerful artistic voice to a petulant howl on the sidelines of creation.

This book made me laugh from start to finish. Wolfe's nuanced, insightful prose tears into a topic with a bland innocence that explodes into discovery of the absurd behind every corner. And here he picks a topic many of us are too afraid to explore, lest we be seen as uneducated peons.

If you've ever thought that our art community has become a bunch of stuffed shirts, who blather on about nonsense of little importance, here's a great skewer. Wolfe tracks the history of art going from "meaningful, interesting" to "obscure, theoretical." The title refers to the fact that art of the latter half of the 20th century left behind imitating reality and inspiring people for a basis in pure theory, or "the word." As a result, the art becomes like a painting about its own theory, and requires knowing its theory to appreciate.

Wolfe mocks all of the pointless and self-aggrandizing aspects of these movements in, and also gives you insight into the people getting involved in this stuff. He does so without taking a direct polemic stance. Instead, he explores details and tracks them from idea to completion to consequence, and in doing so, shows the Emperor wearing no clothes. Once he's got you onboard with his vision, he really lets fly and the comedy commences all over again!

"The Painted Word" forced me to re-evaluate my opinions about art, since I liked at least one artist he skewered, but even more gave me the ability to laugh at a much-needed mockery of one of life's ludicrous detours. As Wolfe says early in the book, we're afraid to speak up and say the Emperor has no clothes because opposing theory sounds ignorant and backward. But after reading this volume, it's hard to think that art itself has fallen into its own hype, and that it would be ignorant and backward to keep rubber-stamping it for the sake of seeming edumacated.

Biting, witty, and compellingly presented; but ultimately a failure. I find this book a bit disturbing, because the average reader clearly hasn't spent too much time really learning about art history, and it preys on that lack of knowledge. His thesis holds truth in some cases, but a blanket statement against modern and contemporary art is unwarranted, and it's sad to see a lot of people turned off from it before even having had the opportunity to fully dive in.

Proceed with caution. If this is your first foray into the arts, do yourself a favor and read some history books first, and come back to this later with your own sets of opinions already half-formed.

Wolfe was surprised reading the New York Times to learn from Hilton Kramer in 1974 that realism lacked a persuasive theory. He had been looking at pictures and professed to not understand why a theory is needed. Indeed, how could modern art be literary? Literary is a code word for retrograde. The opposite is a sort of arts for arts sake mode. Artists helped to make theory--consider the cases of Georges Braque and Frank Stella.

Most modern movements began before World War I. By 1900 the success game of the art world was set. Art supplies are available everywhere, but artists move to New York. The artist has to keep his edge and focus on new developments. An art mating ritual takes place between artists and theorists and collectors. Collectors enjoy being considered separated from bourgeois society.

Modern art enjoyed a boom in Europe in the twenties. By the thirties it was so chic the Dole Pineapple Company sent Georgia O'Keefe to Hawaii. Theory did not come into its own until after World War II. The theories were beautiful even if the Abstract Expressionist paintings are no longer hanging in the museums and in people's houses on Long Island.

After World War II New York replaced Paris as an art center. Hans Hofmann was in Greenwich Village with Ad Reinhardt, Joef Albers, Lee Krasner. There were other circles--cenacles. They met at the Club on Eighth Street and at the Cedar Tavern. The great theorists were Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. Hans Hofmann emphasized purity and there was a lot of concern for flatness. Rosenberg described the canvas as an arena.

Alfred Barr and James Sweeney Johnson had a huge function in art promotion, selecting artists and works. Morris Louis used unprimed canvas. Jackson Pollock was an artist stuck in the dance. He had another problem in that his reputation was huge but his work did not sell. Earlier modern art had been only partly abstract. Robert Scull once said that Abstract Expressionism was a little club on Tenth Street.

Art that is new and not too abstract and not realistic would necessarily be a hit--hence Pop Art. Leo Steinberg and William Rubin were theorists of Pop Art, finding merit in the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Jasper Johns's flags were wonderfully flat. Greenberg and Rosenberg denounced Pop Art.

Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein created famous images. They used commonplace sign systems of American culture. Pop Art rejuvenated the art scene. Op Art like Pop Art was enjoyed for literary reasons. (Wolfe's title for his collection is derived from this observation.) Theory started to move toward reductionism. Conceptual Art was of two kinds. Photo Realism appears in the chapter 'Epilogue'.

Wow! This is a good book. There are illustrations.

Well, here we go - time to criticize a culture critic. Try saying that three times fast.
Anyone who knows anything about Tom Wolfe will know exactly what to expect from this 1975 exploration of the 1950-1970 Art World. Considering that he's always on the lookout for something funny to say, he does quite a good job, probably because the Art World is apparently a pretty funny place. Then again, that's always true of any insular group that develops its own vocabulary and learns to take itself too seriously.
According to Wolfe, that judgment applies equally to the artists, their critics, and the small world of collectors that support them both. He uses as an example the following cycle: Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning paint a few pictures using mere blobs of paint. At about the same time, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg conclude in their columns that painting must naturally go in the direction of increased "flatness" to fulfill its destiny (and they do, in fact, write in such semi-apocalyptic terms). To illustrate their point, Greenberg and Rosenberg talk up Pollack and de Kooning. Art patrons in Milan, Rome, Paris and New York read the columns and get interested in Pollack and de Kooning. Thus encouraged, these artists paint even flatter paintings, Greenberg and Rosenberg chat them up even more in their columns, the Art World gets more excited, and round and round we go until a guy named Leo Steinberg smashes into the cycle. He declares that they've got it all wrong, the true "flatness" exists in the Pop Art of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and the whole thing starts all over again. Only with even more feverish declarations of theoretical orthodoxy this time.
Eventually, of course, the theory becomes far more important in the Art World than the paintings. This gives rise to Op Art, Happenings, Conceptual Art, and the world we live in today wherein the answer to the question "What is Art?" is "That which we find in Art Museums."
Wolfe splashes all this high comedy around in a truly scrumptious style, full of exclamation points. Behind the rhetoric, I suspect, is a man who thinks very highly of himself, but what else can we expect from a culture critic? Fortunately, what with all those exclamation points, it's fairly clear that Wolfe doesn't really take himself all that seriously, so his work is much easier to enjoy than it otherwise would be.
Even more interesting than the language, however, is the odd feeling one gets from The Painted Word that Wolfe doesn't think of the mid-century Art Follies as necessarily a bad thing, or even bad art. And indeed, who says that Art Theory is anything other than Art itself? Why criticize this development? Why not just enjoy it?
So in his last few pages, Wolfe predicts a retrospective in the year 2000. Instead of the paintings, this retrospective presents the true Art of the 1950's-1970's - the columns of Greenberg, Rosenberg, Steinberg, and whatever other Bergs in enormous reproduction, with tiny illustrations of the paintings in question next to them. As I write this, such an exhibit is nowhere yet to be seen, but that may only mean that Wolfe is smarter than the average museum curator (a supposition I can neither confirm nor deny). Be that as it may, Wolfe's craft is undeniable - sarcastic, informed, bitchy, and overwhelmingly funny. If the Word is Art, then the hyper-serious Greenberg, Rosenberg and Steinberg are mere wannabes. Wolfe, like Groucho Marx, is an Artist.
Benshlomo says, in the words of William Shakespeare, better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Someone else commented they would read anything written by Tom Wolfe, including his shopping list. I've found the same to be true. Not really a big fan of art myself, I found myself inexplicably enthralled with "The Painted Word." The social criticism was brilliant and funny, but aside from that I actually learned a good bit about modern and contemporary art. It's only a short essay/book but is able to do a remarkable job of skewering the elites and "culturati" who tell us what art we should like. When you're reading, you can tell this is coming from someone who knows and appreciates art. In my view, Tom Wolfe is America's greatest living writer--pick up this or one of his other works today and enjoy.

Tom Wolfe, that most trenchant of all observers of contemporary American society, turns his gaze to the world of painting and drawing during the first seventy-five years or so of the twentieth century in this book, published in 1975.

Just about anybody with eyes has, I think, wondered by what criterion a good deal of the painting during this period can be considered art. Few of us, however, have Wolfe's command of language to explain the complete vapidity of the work produced during the period that he covers, nor the ability, nearly unique to Wolfe, of allowing artists, critics, and theorists' own words to expose that vapidity.

This is indeed a refreshing work, and written with Wolfe's usual mastery.

A lot of art theorists take themselves too seriously. Those in academia *have* to at least sound serious in their analyses: publish or perish.

This book is not for those serious people. It's a collection of light jabs at the more vulnerable art theorists. If you know Tom Wolfe's writing, you'll know that he aims to entertain and criticize, and only by-the-way 'report.' From what I know of art history and theory, much of Wolfe's versions of theory matches those of 'serious' art theorists.

Enjoy this fun and fast read! Grin a little, kid yourself and the art theorists a little. Sound smart by intoning some phrases and drop a few names at serious art galleries, museums and shows. :)

A classmate lent me The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, published in 1975, and boy, if you ever want some actually intelligent criticism and questioning of the establishment of modern art, this is it!

The beauty of this book is that Wolfe doesn't usually attack the art - though occasionally he does accuse artists of allowing themselves to be too influenced by popular theory - he really attacks the establishment.

And he does so in a hilarious way. For instance, Wolfe starts out explaining the "mating ritual" between the bohemian artists, "boho", and high society that can financially back and establish the artist, the "monde". He talks about how to be successful, an artist must first be an honest boho, live amongst the other bohemians and adopt true anti-bourgeois values. This is called the "boho dance". But once an artist has attracted the monde with his dance, he must "doubletrack", which means learn to gleefully hobnob with the elite and enjoy his success, despite being a hypocrite.

And this mating metaphor is just the beginning. This book oozes sarcasm of the best and most vicious sort. Just check out this passage, about how pop art, according to the theorists, was supposed to be about "flatness", rather than how the subject matter related to real life:

"In short... the culturati were secretly enjoying the realism! -plain old bourgeois mass-culture high-school goober-squeezing whitehead-hunting can-I-pop-it-for-you-Billy realism! They looked at a Roy Lichtenstein blowup of a love-comic panel showing a young blond couple with their lips parted in the moment before a profound, tongue-probing, post-teen, American soul kiss, plus the legend `We rose up slowly...as if we didn't belong to the outside world any longer...like swimmers in a shadowy dream...who didn't need to breath...' and--the hell with the sign systems--they just loved the dopey campy picture of these two vapid blond sex buds having their love-comic romance bigger than life, six feet by eight feet, in fact, up on the walls in an art gallery."

How can you not love writing like that?

This book rocks.

Amusing? For sure. And spot on as well. Wolfe does a fine job skewering the pretensions of artist and art theorist members of the culturati. For anyone who has gazed upon a a work of modern art (I don't mean to implicate all modern art, simply works of a certain eye-raising obscurity) and wondered, "What the $^%#!?," The Painted Word is sure to strike a chord. Will it split your sides though? I doubt it. The Painted Word is satire of a decent order, but it's a bit over-long, fairly redundant, and...well...not so incisive as all that. Still, it's a quick read. And Wolfe is capable of some very entertaining writing. Though I don't rate The Painted Word highly, I don't regret the time I spent reading it.

This is a very insightful book on the runaway valuations on the art market. It is a must-read for anyone who deals in the art market, or is thinking of buying art. You may still want to buy the hyped artists when you're done reading this very interesting critique on the modern art world--but at least you'll do so with your eyes open.
Did I mention that Tom Wolfe is one of the funniest analysts around? From the Electric Kool-Aide Acid test onward, he has a laser wit.

Tom Wolfe is the master of cunning expose. With history and humor he describes the New York City Art scene in the 1960s.
The politics and posturing of art figures trying to "legitimize" their art philosophy was ripe with hilarity. Art itself was secondary to the press agent. Guru's would write art credos and then hunt down bohemians to fit the bill. Guru's would fight among themselves the real definition of Art. The more outlandish, the more embraced.
The art that stirs emotion, brings pleasure, or tells a universal truth will stand the test of time.
I've seen the Jackson Pollack documentary and understand that it took a certain skill to produce his many works, but do you want #27 hanging on your wall in the den?

If you have ever looked at a Pollock, Warhol, etc. and wondered what the fuss was all about, this book is a must-read. This is no low-brow, philistine, know-nothing critique of "modern art." On the contrary, it is a critique by a decidedly high-brow intellectual who "gets" the theory behind modern art, and, as a gifted writer, is able to explain it to the masses (God forbid!). Art snobs will object vehemently, but will be hard pressed to respond to Tom Wolfe's exposé of the irrational rationalizations at the core of the elite art scene.

This book is Tom Wolfe pointing and shouting "The Emperor has no clothes!!" He explains how splattered canvases by Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella could be called works of genius. It's the history of how people can be suckered into believing anything if it adds to their level of status in the world. Wolfe wrote a book like this about the world of architecture titled FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE. It is equally great, and you should not read one without reading the other. You'll understand your world a lot better after reading both of them.

That would require some element of fiction. This is simply a straight telling (well, almost straight) of the taste-makers and -breakers in the New York art scene of the 1950s to mid-70s. It's already so ludicrous, so filled with poker-faced parodies of sane discussion, that fiction wouldn't be nearly as strange. It's the complete domination of analysis over analyte.

This short book (100 pages, including some amusing cartoons) lampoons the whole theory of art theory as it arose in the salons and saloons of that era. It briefly traces the never-ending search for the new, a Red Queen's race since whatever we have today isn't new enough. In a bizarrely involuted turn, he even describes the rise and fall of different tastes in taste-makers.

If you've ever groaned at the solemn silliness of the intellectoid analyses or nihilist (lazy?) "Conceptual" artists, you'll laugh out loud at Wolfe's descriptions. He runs through the artsy buzz-wording like a buzz-saw.

//wiredweird

Key document to understand postwar abstraction and the relationship of art to language. Tom Wolfe is a snide whelp here, as usual, but the meaning has value to all visual artists seeking to understand a difficult period for art.

In his own inimitable style Wolfe offers, to the uninitiated, a Modern American Art World primer. He traces the progress from Realism to Minimalism, with stops along the way. He focuses on the relationship between the theorists ( Greenberg, Rosenberg, Scull, et al. ) and the painters themselves. His wit, his irony, and his keen insights make for an amusing read; but, for me, starting from ground zero, it was a learning experience.

This outrageously funny book gives a brief overview of the slippery slope known as theory-based art.

Wolfe basically tracks his own thoughts and comments on various art movements. His satire is clever and downright humorous.

Do not take him to seriously, though. He is merely a satirist, who is not trying to offer an overly grandiose philosophical attack on 20th century art movements.

Artists: Are you tired of the gallery system? Tired of being told that your work won't sell, that realism is dead (killed by the camera)? Fight back -- read this book.
Art lovers: Know what you like? Find out why you don't like a lot of the garbage that is currently on display as art in the galleries, especially in New York City. Read this book.

Having grown up reading Wolfe in high school I was disappointed in this diatribe against modern art. The basic premise of the book, that art is merely illustrating theory (The Painted Word) is flawed. Wolfe confuses art criticism with art. The American painters known as abstract expressionists (although they mostly rejected the term) didn't need art critics such as Clement Greenberg or Harold Rosenberg, and later Hilton Kramer, to tell them what to paint. Pollock, De Kooning, Kline, Newman, Still, and Rothko, to name a few, painted what they wanted to see, they didn't illustrate some art theory. Their art was an experiential experience. If that experience is meaningless for Wolfe and his legion of fans then that's his lacking, not the arts.

In this short book, Wolfe purports to tell us that the entire American art scene (ie ALL abstract art) of the post-WWII years is nothing but verbiage, a creation of a bunch of second-rater critics. I find this kind of generalization absolutely breathtaking in its arrogance and facile dismissiveness. By what criterion does Wolfe make this judgment? By the fact that there were a bunch of high-falutin' critics who explained it to those who wanted to be taken by fashion. While this is a common enough phenomenon in a nationalistic sense (pride in the output of one's country), I think it only applies to individuals rather than an entire scene. Afterall, the astract artists like Pollack belonged to a continuous milieu, which runs the gamut from Bob Dylan and John Coltrane right through the Beat Generation writers and Pollack and his cohorts and even TV like the Outer Limits and Twilight Zone. Were all of them and all they did first rate? Perhaps not, but I wd argue that there area a lot of wonderful things there as well, reflections of a time even if they don't quite measure up to the earlier generation of modernists like Picasso and Matisse. I wd not dismiss them so cavalierely, so cynically, as if you can emcompass all they stood for in a single argument. This book is for those who want to appear as glib smartas*es.

This great book establishes a solid link between what you always suspected about the artworld and its true "behaviour" . It is essential reading if you want to feel more comfortable simply enjoying art and not having to supply the usual adjectives to it.

This is an unpersuasive essay about the failure of modern art and about how we are all caught up in the falsity and ugliness of modern art. In my opinion, I think Wolfe is writing without much knowledge of modern art. He sounds like an uneducated critic in this book.