Greenberg on André Marchand

Whatever you think of Greenberg’s views on art (and they’re better than recent fashion allows), he really is one of the most powerful writers of the 20th century.

Here’s an excerpt on André Marchand that made me laugh out loud. Looking at some of Marchand’s paintings on the web, I find I don’t mind them as much as Greenberg does, but his description is still brilliant:

“André Marchand is presented as one of the best of the younger generation of Parisian painters. In him the pleasure principle according to the physical tradition is revealed nakedly and decadently. Marchand’s drawing owes almost everything to Picasso, while his color has absorbed all that is rich and juicy in French painting since Renoir and boiled it down to slick, fatty tones through which shine brilliant and exquisite but meaningless intensities of hue. Not all Marchand’s tact, expertise, and taste can save his art from being confectionary.”

I especially love the concept of “brilliant and exquisite but meaningless intensities of hue.”