Jacques Barzun: The Cultural Historian Who Saw Modern Art as a Deliberate Destroyer
Jacques Barzun, Cultural historian and critic (1980)
In a 1980 interview, Jacques Barzun argues that modern artists since 1920 have been purposeful destroyers, using shock and parody to break down artistic expectations built over 500 years. He sees this as a historical obligation at the end of a masterpiece-heavy era, and suggests electronic music might offer the only genuine new path forward.
I think many modern artists have been purposeful destroyers. Through jokes and parodies and shocks -- the whole surrealist movement in painting is a good example, or John Cage in music -- the arts tell us 'you don't listen, you don't see, you're full of notions, you want nothing but copies of the great masterpieces, or derivatives from them: well, we're going to teach you better than that -- by fooling you, by shocking you, by making fun of you as audience.'