On November 8, David Rosand, Professor of Art History at Columbia University, lectured on “The Lessons of Meyer Schapiro” at the Wexner Center of Ohio State University. According to Rosand, Meyer Schapiro was one of a group of Jewish migrs who came to New York and established himself as a brilliant scholar. He also was known by the breadth of his understanding in Art History, receiving a professorial tenure at Columbia University. He wrote books and essays on many periods of art-Medieval, Romanesque, and Modern.
In later years, he became well known along with Clement Greenberg as an enthusiastic promoter of abstract expressionism. Anyone who thrilled to the creative process shown in the film “Pollock” must wonder how such a radical departure in art was possible. It was possible in large part due to the theoretical writings of Meyer Shapiro, who explained the new art form.
Professor Rosand gives Erwin Panofsky’s standard art historical explanation of the evolution of painting up to the Renaissance and contrasts it with Meyer Shapiro’s different approach. Panofsky states that the Renaissance represents the apogee of pictorial achievement, with its creation of a mathematical system of perspective representation. Meyer Shapiro’s analysis of art was based on the subjective viewpoint of the artist involved. It was a form of inventive reconstruction in which he recreated the creative act of the artist by discovering and appreciating the choices that he made.
Professor Rosand tells some amusing anecdotes of Meyer Shapiro’s tenure at Columbia University. While visiting Willem de Kooning in his loft apartment, he discovered the painting “Women 1” rolled up and stuck under his sofa. He asked Mr. de Kooning what it was doing there, and de Kooning replied that it wasn’t finished, because he couldn’t resolve the pictorial problems. Mr. Shapiro took one look at the picture and said that it was finished, so it was featured in de Kooning’s next exhibition!
Meyer Shapiro and the other theoreticians of the abstract Expressionist movement were concerned about the dimunition of the individual and his freedom in modern “mass” society. This concern was turned into a metaphysical sanction of the movement.
In “The Liberating Quality of Avant Garde Art” (1957), Shapiro says, “This art is deeply rooted, I believe, in the self and its relation to the surrounding world. And the pathos of the reduction or fragility of the self within a culture that becomes increasingly organized through industry, economy and the state intensifies the desire of the artist to create forms that will manifest his liberty in this striking way.”