ABSTRACT
The painter and critic Luis Trabazo challenges Alfred H. Barr’s claim that the American artists shown in La nueva pintura americana (Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporaneo, July–August 1958) do not “show any preoccupation with the traditional aesthetic of plastic values”. Trabazo concludes that La nueva pintura americana represents the most important event in Madrid since the Spanish Civil War, not because of an accidental novelty, but because of its “free” and “honest” style, which updates classical sources for the use in new art. Barr adds: “Nor is there in theory any preoccupation with the traditional aesthetics of ‘plastic values’, composition, quality of line, beauty of surface, harmony of color”. The New American Painting exhibition would merit a more detailed review, painting by painting. James Brooks, in a display of sensibility, intelligence, and strength, especially strength, pays no mind to the tyranny of rationalist abstractionism that reduces the world and painting to a few sugar cubes.
