That the most powerful contradictions exist between the worlds of today
and yesterday is shown most cle-arly in the relationship between our art and
that of the past. Our ways of expression are in complete contradiction to
those of the previous generations: how could we see anything in common
between our art and that of the epochs of individualism? Art has always
been a subtle form of expression of new intellectual focuses. The art of our
own time also. however strange it may seem to some. is an expression of
ourselves. for it could only have happened in our own time
The value of the art of the past is not diminished by the art of today: it
would be childish to assume a "qualitative" development of art, or to
believe that only we had discovered "the" art. But every period that is dif
ferent from another - and which one is not? -creates a new form of
expression peculiar to itself and only to itself. Art is the sum of all these
individual utterances It follows that one must adopt a different attitude
towards the art of our time than towards that of earlier epochs. One does
not, after all, look at Renaissance art from the same standpoint as
Romanesque. The basic premiss of all modern art is that it can no longer be
representational. Previously art without a subject (real or imaginary) was
unthinkable. Today painting has cast off these chains: it strives to create a
RODCHENKO: Composition with black circle
(Verlag der Photograph1schen Gesellschaft, Berl1n-Charlottenburg 9]