I concluded, too, that while a viewer would probably receive an inadequate - even a somewhat distorted - picture of modernism if the TV series were his only source of information, such a distortion would not result from a reading of this book. The conclusion I came to was that it ism possible to give a reasonably true account of modernism without discussing these figures, as long as we are told why they are excluded, and the ideas they represent are covered elsewhere. Two important questions kept nagging at me while reading this book and watching a screening of the TV series: Is it possible to give even a reasonably true account of modernism's history and meaning without discussing such figures as Henry Moore, Georges Rouault, Alexander Calder, or David Smith - and without doing more with Frank Lloyd Wright than pointing at him and declaring him to have been a great architect? And what sort of perception of modernism would the general reader of viewer receive from this book, or the TV series, or both, if it were his first real introduction to modern art? Such is the problem confronting anyone attempting a fair criticism of 'The Shock of the New,' the book by Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, based on his eight-part BBC- TV series on modern art currently being shown on PBS.

We don't, after all, have to accept a book just because the author informs us that its limitations were calculated. After all, being extremely personal in one's views, excluding truly major figures for 'technical' reasons, and assuming a highly generalized posture toward the art of the period are in themselves clear expressions of a definite point of view, and, as such, need to be examined as much as the book itself.

And that is true even if it is made abundantly clear in its introduction that the book represents a strictly personal point of view, that the exclusion of certain famous names results not from ignorance but from technical limitations, and that the intent of the book was not so much detailed and precise categorizations as a large overview of the subject.Įven with such disclaimers, however, the author's critical peers will scrutinize the book with more than usual care. All an art critic has to do to unleash the passions of his fellow citizens is to write a book attempting to define the dynamics of 20th-century modernism.

Robert hughes the shock of the new