Beginning with Harrison- he defines modernism as "intentional rejection of classical precedent and classical style." Modernism distinguishes between the classical and the transformation of art in the 19th-20th centuries through industrialization, urbanization, and mechanism (taken from Amy's blog- thanks!). The artist in the modernist realm believes that the most important thing about art is it's aesthetics and rather than simply being a kind of artist- the modernist is a critic who has a certain set of beliefs about art and it's development.
In Greenberg's Modernist Painting, he states that modernism is "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in the area of competence." Modernist photographers included members of f/64- a group that focused on highlighting the sharp detail in which a photograph can render it's subject- rather than making photographs that look like paintings. Michael Fried- a follower of Greenberg in turn attacks minimalist art for producing effects that do not derive from within the work itself, but instead are dependent on the viewer's relationship with the object (Art and Objecthood, 1966). This, he insists, "is now the negation of art". According to Fried, these minimalists took Greenberg's plea for purity too far; instead of exploring medium, all they do is present the materials for what they are.
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