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I perceive a number of discordant and destructive forces at play in contemporary art, art criticism and aesthetics. Peter Burk wrote in The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy, that “every society erects obstacles to the expression of the creativity of some groups…” Within the fields of contemporary art, art criticism and aesthetics, an “obstacle to the expression of the creativity of some groups…” has arisen over the past forty years, supported by those who once struggled against the norm and now fight to maintain a new status quo.

Following World War II and up until the beginning decade of the 21st century, the predominate polemic in and about the fine arts has shifted back and forth between two principle philosophical constructs. One of the two theories grounded in the construction of works of fine arts unifying form to content; the content text of the piece. As a sensory-based phenomenon of creation and interpretation, this structurally based concept also determines the relationship between the compositional elements, referenced objects (models) and their interactive association with the works content-text. This theory establishes a reasoned application of the compositional elements revealing the work as a unified whole directed to presenting the works content-text. This theory I identify as Modernism.

The competing theory, the new canon, often identified as Post-Modern, which I believe to be more clearly Anti-Modern, has had little or nothing to do with works of art as physical entities and more to do with self-reflective talk. Self-reflective talk centered on a type of non-structural, non-phenomenalistic cognitive relativism, wherein the ability to manipulate conceptual symbols and signs conceived apart from concrete realities, specific objects or actual instances, is identified as a higher order of reasoning. Superior,that is, to the production of denotative signs and symbols.

It has been my observation that this Anti-Modernism has overly emphasized a subjective self-consciousness about the making of things. I used the term thing(s) here to refer to physical entities such as paintings, drawings, sculptures, as well as literary works, performance pieces such as plays, concerts or anything that exists objectively rather than speculatively.

Rather than creating thing(s) in this Anti-Modernist theory more importance is placed on subjective speculation about the possibility of actualization rather than actualization itself. For Anti-Modernism the notion of some ephemeral speculation, held in a person’s mind as a non-material conjecture can be equated to and assume the same status of an actualized objectified material form. This mental speculation requiring nothing more than verbal description. The idea that one can "talk" a painting.

Although it has tried to cloister itself in philosophical, intellectual and empirical terminologies Anti-Modernism has been fundamentally anti-intellectual, anti-philosophical, and anti-empirical and in some instances, based on political ideologies hostile to the very existence of art itself.

For the past thirty six years, as a practicing artist, and professor of art with a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) I have been dedicated to the principle that the goal of the artist is to unify the theoretical with the actual, form to content, identifying a methodology which enables the movement of ideas (concepts) from the realm of the mind to the physical domain of sensory experience. I reject, out of hand, the idea that art is simply non-materialized ephemeral hypothesis requiring only an explanation through self-reflective language, set apart from and lacking a demand for objectified form united to physical content.

The questions posed in this shifting polemic are not that dissimilar from those faced by artist living and working during the 15th century. Therefore I propose a series of articles challenging the assertions of Anti-Modernism. These articles will look at how Modernism has established a direct and compelling relationship between the elements of composition and the content text of works of art. For the title of these articles I have selected, Il Nuovo Camerata Fiorentino: The New Florentine Camerata.

By entitling these articles Il Nuovo Camerata Fiorentino The New Florentine Camerata: I am intending to show respect and admiration for the efforts of the 15th century Florentine Camerata, that group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence that gathered to discuss and guide trends in the arts.

It has been my great and good fortune to be able to spend a great deal of time in Italy and Florence in particular. I have come to think of Florence as my second home. The use of the term Il Nuovo Camerata Fiorentino is in no way an attempt to usurp an Italian identity from these great ideas, but rather to employ their methods and work toward similar achievements within a contemporary environment.

This series of articles is intended to involve all interested and concerned visual artists, humanists, musicians, poets, intellectuals and anyone who is committed to the development of the fine arts. I look forward to your comments and hope that we, as a community, can establish a dialogue that develops insights into the aspects of process, product and response, as well as the applied contextual concepts for the arts and humanities in the 21st century.