Integrity of The Picture Plane
A well-known phrase has accompanied many discussions of painting during the period of modernism. Coined by the influential art critic Clement Greenberg in his essay called "Modernist Painting", the phrase "integrity of the picture plane" has come to denote how the flat surface of the physical painting functions in older as opposed to more recent works. That phrase is found in the following sentence in his essay:
"The Old Masters had sensed that it was necessary to preserve what is called the integrity of the picture plane: that is, to signify the enduring presence of flatness underneath and above the most vivid illusion of three-dimensional space."
Greenberg seems to be referring to the way painting relates to the picture plane in both the modern period and the "Old Master" period.
Read more about this topic: Picture Plane
Famous quotes containing the words integrity, picture and/or plane:
“The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)