Abstract Expressionism

Art is long, art criticism is often very, very brief, its Internet afterlife notwithstanding. Its viability relies on a mixture of prose style, sound-bite-able concepts, timing and its ability to clarify visual experience. Naming a major art movement can also help. Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg met many of these requirements. Tenacious Jewish intellectuals formed by the leftist ferment of New York between the wars, both became disillusioned socialists who turned to art and especially the new painting they saw emerging around them. In the late 1940s, and ’50s, they were Abstract Expressionism’s most prominent champions, often in diametric opposition to each other. Cordial mutual dislike was their bond. - Roberta Smith