Last night I was re-reading Leo Steinberg's fine essay, 'Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of his Art', and was caught short by the section on the implications of making an art which is 'impersonal'. His point is simple, yet very perceptive:
"For the assumption of a realism of absolute impersonality always does fail - if taken literally. That assumption is itself a way of feeling: it is the ascetic passion which sustains the drive of a youthful Velazquez, or a Courbet, while they shake the emotional slop from themselves and their models."
"Ascetic passion"... a memorable oxymoron.
and the fox doing the rounds...
