s a result, language is haunted by what is not, or cannot be, said
This is incredibly important to understand, primarily because language itself limits knowledge. Things that cannot be explained have no language, and therefore can never be communicated or discussed. This is why I believe all people should live in a way that calls to metaphysics and existentialism so that we can better perfect language before trying to perfect our understandings through language.
For them, the notion of the paradigm neatly encapsulates the idea that truth and knowledge are relative, and depend upon the larger system of assumptions and relations from which they emerge.
I think that it's very valuable for human kind to consider knowledge and truth as relative. Considering language itself limits our communication, what we believe to be truth could potentially limit our understandings of the world. All of this philosophical talk reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in which those who live in the cave know nothing but the cave. We, as well, may rely too heavily on what we know in the world.
he dismal outcome of theutopian ideals that opened the twentieth century have played a big role in undermining such beliefs.
This, I believe, is emphasizing the writers original point that postmodernism requires modernism. In order to critique a discipline, we must first watch the discipline play out. In this case, we first had to create ideologies of a utopia in order to discuss the faults of the utopia.
Every artist worth his salt has "discovered" these things.
This statement seems to discuss the individual nature of art, as it requires an artist to personally "discover" colors and shapes in his/her own way before perfecting his/her own individual use of these things.
This was his conscious artistry at work, and it makes him a part of the traditional community of painters.
I find it interesting that even 'action paintings' or unconsciously driven paintings still require some level of consciousness, or else you are left with a piece which lacks technicality and meaning simultaneously.
America was celebrating a "sanity in art" movement
This confuses me a bit. I wonder what "sanity in art" is referring to. Possibly the artistic era of realism and art that included subject matter? As opposed to abstract expressionism which represents not a subject, but portrays an emotion.
It is understood, I hope, that in plotting out the rationale of Modernist painting I have had to simplify and exaggerate.
I believe that this sentence is reflective of the indescribable nature of art in its existence. Art and it's movements cannot necessarily be defined because of how individualized the practice is at its core.
It can be said, rather, that it happens to convert theoretical possibilities into empirical ones
In other words, Modernist thought cannot come from circumstances that don't exist; Modernism relies on evaluating processes which already occur.
a close reading of what he writes will find nothing at all to indicate that he subscribes to, believes in, the things that he adumbrates.
I believe the writer is trying to state that although an artist/writer may convey a certain message in their work, it does not mean that they are committed to or bond to the beliefs of that message. For instance, a realist film-maker may make a film which comments on the current state of their nation, without actually supporting or negating that current state.
Modernism criticizes from the inside, through the procedures themselves of that which is being criticized.
This reminds me of how in modern America, we are now beginning to understand and criticize certain systemic issues because we can watch the issues play-out within the foundations which we have created. Legal systems, social systems, and other systems are being criticized internally by the people who must live out the systems.