[PEN-L:2443] Re: Ben Shahn links (addendum)

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

    I would note that socialist realism did not begin with 
the Stalinist period in the USSR.  It has a long and 
conscious history in the nineteenth century with such 
French painters as Gustave Courbet prominently associated 
with it.  This tradition in turn draws on much older but 
less consciously political traditions of painting common 
people in everyday scenes by such French painters as 
Chardin and many of the Dutch and Flemish painters.
     BTW, many of the recent reviews of the Ben Shahn show 
have been very negative, characterizing him as out-of-date 
and political naive.  Hmmmm.  Says more about the critics 
than him, I think, although some of the critics who come 
from leftist Jewish backgrounds fondly reminisce about 
their youths in houses where Ben Shahn pictures hung while 
people listened to Pete Seeger and the Weavers and indulged 
in other icons of fashionable 1950s leftism.
Barkley Rosser
On Thu, 21 Jan 1999 16:55:54 -0500 Louis Proyect 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Cyberexhibits of Shahn's work can be linked to from:
> 
> http://www.auburn.edu/~folkegw/univ/arboadva.htm
> 
> Louis Proyect
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]