Art history’s bold rejections changed everything
Art history is the history of rejecting best practices. Calvin Ross Carl on how Impressionism, Cubism, and Minimalism were called wrong until they proved otherwise.
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl describes art history as the history of rejecting best practices over and over again. He points to Impressionism and Van Gogh, then to Cubism pulling shapes apart, and to Minimalism responding by stripping away all possible excess. Each movement reacted against what had quickly become the best practices of its time. Calvin compares them to brands making bold decisions: rejected at first, deemed wrong, until they proved it.
Highlights
- Art movements rejected the best practices before them.
- Impressionism, Cubism, and Minimalism each broke with the standard of their time.
- Each was called wrong until it proved itself.
Key insights
Every movement is a reaction
New art movements define themselves by refusing whatever had just become the rule.
Being wrong first is normal
The ideas that changed art were dismissed before they were celebrated.
Detailed analysis
Calvin uses art history to show that rejection is part of how culture moves forward. Each movement treated the prevailing style as something to push against, much like a brand that refuses its category’s conventions. The pattern also sets expectations: if you break the rules, expect to be called wrong before you’re proven right.
Conclusion
Breaking from best practice has always looked wrong at first. That’s how the big shifts start.
Art history is basically the history of rejecting best practices over and over and over again. You have Impressionism, from Van Gogh—someone’s going to correct me and say, “No, it’s Van Go.” But you know what I mean. Or when you look at Cubism, a complete falling apart of shapes in art, and then the response to that was something like Minimalism, where it was about stripping away all possible excess. They were always in response to what had quickly become the best practices before them. All of these art movements were basically making decisions about their brands, where they rejected everything, and they were deemed wrong at first until they proved it.