Avant-garde Art Theory

Poggioli's work, Theory of the Avant-Garde, serialized in four
parts in the journal Inventario in the late 1940s and published
as a book in 1962, is the first comprehensive study to examine
the avant-garde as a sociological phenomenon in Western art and
literature. Poggioli conceptualizes the common denominators of
movements that, from the late 1800s when the adjective
"avant-garde" began to be used to describe certain tendencies and
movements, until the mid-20th century, challenged tradition and
classicism in the field of art and literature, and made deviation
from aesthetic (and sometimes moral) norms a norm in itself. He
thoroughly examines the attitudes and tendencies that allow these
movements to be described as "avant-garde," drawing from their
manifestos and declarations. By evaluating the "hostile" reactions
of society in general, and the art public and critics in particular, to
these movements and their artists, he traces the alienation that
marked the avant-garde. He reveals the convergences and divergences
between the avant-gardes of art and literature and the pioneering
forces of politics; he compares the revolutionaries of art with the
revolutionaries of politics. He problematizes the relationship of the
avant-garde as a product of modernity with "modernolatry." Finally,
he argues that the avant-garde, which was already being declared
"over" by some circles, "is a law of nature for contemporary and
modern art." Theory of the Avant-Garde creates a comprehensive
roadmap for evaluating the concept and phenomenon of the avant-garde
in art history and contemporary art.