The Paintings of Martin Berkovitz - For the last half-century art has been wedded, and I might say, imprisoned by Philosophical Materialism.
Essays / After Thought
For the last half-century art has been wedded, and I might say, imprisoned by Philosophical Materialism. This doctrine says in effect that we are only our physical bodies and our mind is only our physical brain. This reductiveness has had an immense influence on the visual arts and our culture in general. To make a start, a breakout from this constricting viewpoint is why I've written these pieces.
In this group of essays I make no claim to originality, the new or the innovative. What thoughts I've presented are meant only as a clarification of arts essential nature and function after a century of explosive change and experimentation. This has thrown a lot of dust into the atmosphere and only time will tell what was and wasn't of value as the era of modernism settles. In the meantime it is my purpose to isolate the simple criterion for art-making.
It is my hope that expressing ideas I've held for a very long time will help emerging artists to find a fresh (and timeless) direction and a freedom from the constraints of a modernism that, while originally liberating, has for several decades been hardening into a fixed ideology.
We stand at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the new century must have its new art.
