In the Unites States of the 1950’s, where Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns started to being recognized as prominent artists, on the political scene, the Cold War was raging. The American population was afraid of communists inside their own country. McCarthy started having a considerable amount of influence and commenced to pursuit people under the assumption that they were communists. Gays were also persecuted by this doctrine. On the art scene, the dominant form of art in the Unites States was Abstract Expressionism with its protector, the art critic Clement Greenberg. The kings of painting would be artists like Pollock, de Kooning, Neuman, Gorky, etc. Greenberg would act as a despot with very strict views about what art should and shouldn’t be. He claimed that everything that wasn’t Abstract Expressionist wasn’t art. For him, painting had to be differentiated from other types of art, such as sculpture, and have strict characteristics. A painting had to be flat, have an all-over presentation, a clean modern look and being masculine in an American way in order to distinguish itself from other art markets such as the French one. When Rauschenberg and Johns became widely known, they caused a stir because of their denial to follow these rules.
When Rauschenberg created his ‘White Paintings’ in 1951, he sent right away a big opposition to the Abstract Expressionist painters. He opposed the main purpose of Abstract Expressionism: outward expression. As Hopkins describes them,” they were passive receptors, awaiting events rather than prescribing sensations”. (p. 42). They were void of any expression; they were what their title really meant, they were white paintings. This brought forth the thought of how art should be perceived. Instead of overflowing the spectator with huge canvases of massive drippings and expressive lines, Rauschenberg left it to the spectator to feel what he would like to. Nothing was imposed to him; he was part of the art himself, creating and building it as the artist did. It is not about the spectator to seek the feeling inside the painting but to really feel it because the painting provokes him to. One could say that the White Paintings are also an attack to the Abstract Expressionist painters themselves because white represents purity and virginity, totally the opposite of the other American painters who where know to be heavy drinkers, womanizers and violent people (Hopkins, p.50). In fact, Pollock was following therapies because of his heavy drinking when he did his famous all-over paintings. Even though, Rauschenberg’s White Paintings do not oppose every aspect of the Greenberg doctrine, such as the all-over characteristic, it does critic its core element.
Another piece of work by Rauschenberg, which’s reputation is based on its impact it had on Abstract Expressionism is that of ‘Bed’. This piece created 4 years after the ‘White Paintings’ is a much more chaotic scene. The first American painters sought to liberate themselves from European influences in order to create a real, pure American art. For example, Pollock used primitive and native American art “as a wedge between himself and his awareness of Europe”.(Lynton, p.230). Greenberg was a fierce defender of this. Though, Rauschenberg travelled a lot in Europe, especially in France and Italy, where he was influenced by Alberto Burri to use body fluids as stains in his paintings as though it was part of the painting (Hopkins, p.49). This is very present in ‘Bed’ since this use of body fluids gives us metaphors of sexual connotations related to the object. Right from the start, Rauschenberg opposes Greenberg’s doctrine because his painting is not purely American, it has some European touch in it. By using body fluids, or at least what looks like it, Rauschenberg goes much farther than the Abstract Expressionists because, even if these artists sought to use ‘a full bodily involvement’ (Lynton, p.237) to reach full expression, Rauschenberg uses actual parts of his body in his paintings. Greenberg sought into Abstract Expressionism a purity of paint where it stood as a fine art, not mixing with others in order to make it independent. In ‘Bed’, Rauschenberg mixes various types of art and even objects of everyday life to join heterogeneous elements into one single work of art. This is what he will call his ‘Combines’. ‘Bed’ mixes painting, with sculpture and crafts. This was to be an unusual practice at the time. Moreover, the fact that he spreads and drips paint in a very abstract expressionist manner on top and leaves the bed sheets on the lower part criticizes the manly character that these American painters were very proud of. Indeed, Rauscheberg opposed the macho attitude that the abstract expressionist painters had by contrasting it with the bed sheet who would usually be a woman’s work. Even if this opposition is more present in ‘Erased de Kooning Drawing’, it is still translucent in this work. Finally, ‘Bed’ proposes the question about the use of art. Where Greenberg stated that art was to be for the experience of feelings, Rauschenberg raises the question in a Duchampian way. Even if ‘Bed’ is an expressive and stimulating piece of work, can it still be used, since its name hasn’t changed; it remains a bed, a dirty, tainted bed. Or did it become a work of art just because we put it in a vertical position. Rauschenberg All of these questions caused quite a stir in the American art scene because of their opposition to the most important art critic at the time.
Jasper Johns is another artist who had a certain disrespect for aesthetic boundaries and who sought to oppose Greenberg’s point of view regarding art. One of Johns’s works of art counterbalancing Greenberg’s theories is ‘Target with Four Faces’. The first contradiction with the critic’s point of view is the mix of arts. Even if in its majority, this work is a painting, on top of it resides four casts of faces. Johns purposefully overpasses aesthetic boundaries by mixing these two contradictory means. First of all this work of art is in 3D, where Greenberg wanted paintings to be flat. Though, it is important to decide what it is exactly, and how to perceive it. If we see it as a painting, were going to put aside the four casts. On the other hand, if we see it as a sculpture, then we would be cutting most part of the work. This sent a real controversy to the art world because it questioned Greenberg’s doctrine. Indeed, if we analysed this work as Greenberg wanted, it would be incomplete and misleading.
Maybe so, Greenberg’s way of seeing and cutting art is not as accurate as it used to, mediums can actually mix themselves to create homogenous works of art. Moreover, within the painted part of the work itself there is an opposition to the critics doctrine. Where Greenberg saw painting as being flat and clean, Johns gave him a painted surface that seemed flat and clean, but really wasn’t. Even if the lines of the target were totally flat, because they were concentric, the viewer would have an optical illusion and see the circles as being 3D. The technique he used, called encaustic, also gave it a sense of profundity and of dirtiness. Finally, this piece of work also challenged the way the viewer would relate to the work. Where Greenberg saw a more passive viewer, experiencing the artist’s expression of his inner feeling, Johns presented to us a work of art where the viewer would interact with the work. He could open and close the box covering the faces, thus modifying the work as he pleased.
In conclusion, Johns and Rauschenberg challenged the American artistic context of their time by doing works such as ‘Bed’ and ‘Target with four faces’ that opposed the major art movement of America and questioned the views of the dominant critic and rule maker of the art scene in the US in the 1950’s.
Bibliography
Hopkins, David, After Modern Art 1945-2000, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Lynton, Norbert, The Story of Modern Art. Ithaca, New York: Phaidon, Cornell University Press, [c. 1980] 1994.
