Medium specificity

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Medium specificity is a principle in aesthetics and art criticism that developed during the period in art history called Modernism. According to Clement Greenberg, who helped popularize the term, medium specificity holds that "the unique and proper area of competence" for a form of art corresponds with the ability of an artist to manipulate those features that are "unique to the nature" of a particular medium^[1]. This translates into the utilization of techniques to manipulate materials to produce objects that the media in question particularly lends itself to. This utilization may coincide with the reason those materials and techniques originally came into use, or may involve some innovation.

Today, the term is used both to describe artistic practices and as a way to analyze artwork. Critic N. Katherine Hayles, for example, speaks of "media specific analysis." ^[2] As discussed by critic Marshall Soules, medium specificity and media specific analysis are playing an important role in the emergence of new media art forms, such as Internet art ^[3]. Medium specificity suggests that a work of art can be said to be successful if it fulfills the promise contained in the medium used to bring the artwork into existence. Much debate can remain as to what a given medium best lends itself to.

Applications of the principle appear throughout Modernist and Contemporary art.^{[citation needed]}