Author: Michael de Bruges
Europe has always been known for its cultural diversity, for being an entity forged by history and geography into a multiethnic and disparate whole, displaying a characteristic plural identity against a common backdrop. Hence, the vast diversity that the European continent has brought to the art of pictorial expression has been remarkable throughout the ages. The multiplicity in unity was the natural outcome of the relative isolation of the different parts and the tempering characteristic of having the same basic conditioning.
However, modern times tend rightly to use the term ‘European’ solely in its geographical sense, at the expense of the more subtle reference to that conglomerate of differing sensibilities and values distinguishing the old world in earlier times. After having watered down national and regional ties as determining causes for the creative act, it is but natural that the tendency moves on to a continental scale.
We may consider that this semantic evolution has entered its terminal phase as we advance into a largely harmonized 21st century. The ongoing extinction of the cultural sense of ‘European’ saw its beginnings in the 1960’s and has gained momentum ever since. Media, flux and migrations transform the world into a mono-cultural society where geographical origin ceases to be a diversifying factor. In fact we are inevitably moving ahead, not only towards the end of European diversity, but towards the end of cultural diversity in general. This evolution is certain to be accomplished during the decades to come.
We can remain neutral as to the worth of this evolution and yet clamour with reason that our interest in art, as expression of human perception and sensibility , is doomed to diminish at the rate that standardization, reproduction, simplification, streamlining and machine language take hold.
This makes pre-1960’s art all the more interesting. Not from a nostalgic point of view but simply for showing us the potential for variety. In the works of those times we are facing familiar yet puzzling manners of viewing a world whose diversity is still astonishing and above all stimulating. From that point onwards, the art world fell largely into repetition, make-believe and navel-staring. And most dramatically, the extension of the domain of art to include everyday trivia made the notion of art itself nonsensical.
For European painting, the subtleness of viewpoint, coming from a geographically small but still highly dismembered whole, created optimal conditions for innovation and creativity. Encounters with differently formed sensibilities brought dynamism to individual work, akin to the beneficial ‘melting pot effect’ that New York City enjoyed after the second world war thanks to a highly multicultural population. It is no wonder that the very last really creative acts of the abstract movement, and as such of the modern art movement as a whole, took place in such circumstances.
An international style has emerged, supplanting old concepts of regional schools and national manners. As everything went global, so did inevitably art. In the recent revival of painting this evolution is striking. Nothing in contemporary painting will make a particular cultural reference evident. For some time already, cultural precisions such as ‘European’ or ‘American’ have become meaningless.
However, modern times tend rightly to use the term ‘European’ solely in its geographical sense, at the expense of the more subtle reference to that conglomerate of differing sensibilities and values distinguishing the old world in earlier times. After having watered down national and regional ties as determining causes for the creative act, it is but natural that the tendency moves on to a continental scale.
We may consider that this semantic evolution has entered its terminal phase as we advance into a largely harmonized 21st century. The ongoing extinction of the cultural sense of ‘European’ saw its beginnings in the 1960’s and has gained momentum ever since. Media, flux and migrations transform the world into a mono-cultural society where geographical origin ceases to be a diversifying factor. In fact we are inevitably moving ahead, not only towards the end of European diversity, but towards the end of cultural diversity in general. This evolution is certain to be accomplished during the decades to come.
We can remain neutral as to the worth of this evolution and yet clamour with reason that our interest in art, as expression of human perception and sensibility , is doomed to diminish at the rate that standardization, reproduction, simplification, streamlining and machine language take hold.
This makes pre-1960’s art all the more interesting. Not from a nostalgic point of view but simply for showing us the potential for variety. In the works of those times we are facing familiar yet puzzling manners of viewing a world whose diversity is still astonishing and above all stimulating. From that point onwards, the art world fell largely into repetition, make-believe and navel-staring. And most dramatically, the extension of the domain of art to include everyday trivia made the notion of art itself nonsensical.
For European painting, the subtleness of viewpoint, coming from a geographically small but still highly dismembered whole, created optimal conditions for innovation and creativity. Encounters with differently formed sensibilities brought dynamism to individual work, akin to the beneficial ‘melting pot effect’ that New York City enjoyed after the second world war thanks to a highly multicultural population. It is no wonder that the very last really creative acts of the abstract movement, and as such of the modern art movement as a whole, took place in such circumstances.
An international style has emerged, supplanting old concepts of regional schools and national manners. As everything went global, so did inevitably art. In the recent revival of painting this evolution is striking. Nothing in contemporary painting will make a particular cultural reference evident. For some time already, cultural precisions such as ‘European’ or ‘American’ have become meaningless.
About the Author:
The author is an expert on Modern European Painting. See further European Fine Art, European Painting and Wise to Art - a blog on the online art market
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