Jed Perl on "The Perils of Painting Now"

In his article in the September 24, 2015 issue of The New York Review of Books, Perl worries about contemporary painting and questions its significance. He finds it helpful to return to Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity (delivered as lectures in 1970 and published in 1972). These essays on art help Perl make sense of what troubles him about much of what people are now calling paintings.

For Perl, there may be too much authenticity (a painter's connection with her own inner life) and too little sincerity (a painter's sense of connection with and responsibility to society and artistic tradition). Contemporary painting might strike Perl as more meaningful if it showed that the painter was struggling, in the act of painting, with finding a better balance between sincerity and authenticity. Perl's words on Cezanne speak of what he is looking for:

For Cezanne, the sincerity of his commitment to traditional stylistic legibility was constantly challenged by the authenticity of his idiosyncratic experience of nature. It is Cezanne's double allegiance -- to the sincerity of tradition and the authenticity of his own perceptions of form -- that has made his work central for artists from Matisse, Picasso, and Braque down to our own day.

Perl's selection of a Diebenkorn painting illustrates the point. Diebenkorn "makes a painting that unmakes and then remakes painting's traditions." Diebenkorn shows the viewer both the idiosyncratic nuts and bolts of his studio through his depiction of his studio wall, and a timelessly elegant composition.

Check that painting out by clicking here.

Art criticism like this makes me want to rush back to my studio.