The Tradition of the New

New York: Horizon Press Inc., 1959. Half-cloth, 285 pages; 22 cm. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Expected browning. Dust jacket, with light shelfwear, protected in a mylar cover. A collection of essays by art critic Harold Rosenberg, leading champion of the Abstract Expressionists (which he called "action painting"), especially Willem de Kooning (who designed the jacket for this book). His nemesis was fellow New York Jewish intellectual Clement Greenberg. This is his most influential collection of essays. CONTENTS: Parable of American painting; The American action painters; Extremist art: Community criticism; Virtual revolution; Everyman a professional; Revolution and the concept of beauty; French silence and American poetry; The profession of poetry and M. Maritain; "Oh this is the creature that does not exist"; The comedy of the divine; Character change and the drama; The resurrected Romans; The heroes of Marxist science; Politics as dancing; The fall of Paris; Couch liberalism and the guilty past; Death in the wilderness; Pop culture: Kitrsch criticism; The orgamerican phantasy. . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo.