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Art and the Traditions of Men
In a post I wrote last month about individual freedom from an artist’s perspective, a member criticized the work of a famous performance artist as being just a bunch of pseudo-intellectualism—not real art. She called herself a traditional classical realist, so it would follow that she wouldn’t be too keen on abstract expressionism, even the powerful works of art like those by Franz Marc (one of my favorites).
That post got me thinking about the conservative community’s commitment to traditions, particularly in the art world. I find that among many conservatives, non-traditional art is too often met with silence or scorn for three reasons. First, some modern art is admittedly offensive, immoral, and blatantly designed to attack conservative values—and it gets government funding. Second, modern art springs from humanistic philosophies that inspire leftist politics. Finally, according to classical critics (especially those familiar with G.K. Chesterton), art is determined by the cumulative counsel of the ancients, not by the individualistic expression of the artist.
While the first two reasons make it clear why caution is warranted when considering modern art (particularly its substance), I would like to focus on the third reason and how conservatives often confuse the “cumulative counsel of the ancients” or “traditions of men” with absolute truth that is binding for all cultures, all people, and all times.
While some things in society never change, many things do, and as humans we hope to grow and be informed by the past—but we don’t necessarily stay there. Tradition should be learned from and valued, but it is not an absolute standard. Sometimes “traditions” can be outright wrong—even dangerous—or they can become irrelevant. The “tradition” of slavery, for instance, was very wrong. We certainly wouldn’t want the accumulation of the wisdom of the past to dictate what is true for us today on that point. Thank God for modern thinking!
Of course, the left uses this argument to undermine the Constitution; they treat it as a living document that changes as society “evolves.” In true relativistic form, they make the Constitution say whatever they want it to say — or they just ignore it outright. When I talk about the “traditions of men,” I’m not talking about the legal foundations of our society or transcendent truths. I’m focusing mainly on art and the freedom it allows for individual thinking and expression, freedom that opens up opportunities for people to connect with one another in new and unique ways.
Art is not just a vertical communication between man and the Creator (the kind of high art and music you find in worship, for instance). Art is also a horizontal communication between people, and it is on this level that unique expression—individuality—should be respected; traditions should not squelch that expression. Again, I’m not talking about morality here; I’m talking about form. Franz Marc was not immoral, but his form was obviously very different from Michelangelo’s. Different does not equal bad.
Traditions (classical realism, for instance) aren’t intrinsically objective. Tradition is an accumulation of subjective experience. A string of subjects does not create an objective reality (the irrationality of that is clear). It’s just broader and older and more tested. A place for wisdom—yes—but it’s not absolute or essentially authoritative.
Tradition is also something that we subjectively pick and choose. Which traditional past do you determine as authoritative? Western traditions? Eastern? How about the traditions of African tribes? Southern traditions?
If conservatives ever hope to impact the culture, they need to understand it for what it is and not judge it solely by their traditions (as if tradition equals absolute truth). There is a lot to be learned from abstract artists and indie musicians and modern poets. Art has become more about individual expression than about conformity to a traditional standard, and this can be a very worthy thing as connections are made through artistic expression that were never made before. Some might scoff at that notion, but it’s a value cherished in today’s culture and one conservatives need to take seriously as they try to communicate real truths to society. People long for human connection, and art is a means to that end.
A good example of this would be the performance art exhibition I cited in my post. The artist sat before the viewer being fully present, allowing herself to connect with the person sitting across from her. This was not a mere psychological exercise. It was communication. It was a statement—the artist’s statement—about presence in art.
What is it that makes the Mona Lisa great? Is it just the skill of the artist putting the paint on the canvas, the symmetry, the innovative technique? Those are certainly part of it. But what sets the Mona Lisa apart is the strange connection that comes from looking into her eyes. Da Vinci accomplished, through his revolutionary technique, human presence—human connection and life. The performance artist—by going through the physical trial of sitting perfectly motionless for hours while still being present—did something similar. Two very different forms. Both communicating presence and beauty. Both art.
The performance artist has not created something entirely new. She has learned from tradition and human experience and has applied it in a new way. The same could be said for the jazz musician who expresses himself very differently from a composer in the baroque or classical periods. He has built on the foundation of those periods, learned from them, and created something new.
But if you hold to a traditional paradigm as being the only “right” one, you will fail to see this progression. You will fail to experience the joy of something new, and you will fail to understand how the culture thinks today not just about art but about life.
Conservatives will also miss an opportunity to capitalize on the culture’s love of artistic individuality and to explain how this relates to political and economic freedom—how big government suppresses the individual and and how limited government sets the individual free.
Are conservatives guilty of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater when it comes to art? Do you think conservatives need to do more to connect with the modern culture; to be open to it; to communicate with it; and, in turn, influence it? Or is it best to draw lines in the sand and stand on the side of traditions, making little impact on a culture that feels judged and rejected by those on the other side?
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Not necessarily true. We never see the portraits that were commissioned but ended up in the fire because the person who commissioned them thought they were crap.
You’re also neglecting all the artists who didn’t work for rich patrons, like folk artists and cartoonists, etc. Those people were artists as well.
If the guys who painted the murals in that video up top are artists, then so are the guys who created all the graffiti in Ancient Rome.
Also, historically, “crap” can come to be defined as “not quite as good as the best at the time”.
Very few people listen to Salieri’s stuff today, but objectively speaking it’s hard to call it “crap”. It simply isn’t Mozart.
Maybe the issue might be that what is presented to us as the “best” art today (Piss Christ, etc) is actually pretty lousy, but I think that’s an error of misdefining what counts as “art”.
In Mozart’s day, he was a pop musician. Today, the visual art equivalent to Mozart isn’t Piss Christ. It’s Pixar.
You are a Crony if what you do is bring down the banking system and use other people’s resources to crush the competition.
DaVinci accomplished much more praiseworthy than that.
I’ve never been a fan of modern art. I don’t like things that I have to “interpret” what I’m looking at. I like art that looks like something.
In “the Fountainhead”, Ayn Rand discusses one way to destroy a civilization’s traditions is to elevate the mediocre, and ridicule the meritorious. I believe modern art for the most part does this. OTOH, I have a friend that has a Peter Max, and I have to admit it’s pretty cool, so there’s wiggle room for innovation and personal taste. However, crucifixes submergred in urine are not art, the insult notwithstanding.
Now there, I have to disagree. It’s bad art. It’s terrible, worthless, pointless, and banal. But it’s still art.
Saying it’s not art means that “art” is a synonym for “good”, which I do not believe.
a) You don’t know that he didn’t use the money he got from the Medicis and the Sforzas to crush his competition. ;-)
b) The banking system of the time did eventually collapse. Who am I to say that grandiose expenditures from the public purse on fine art didn’t contribute as much then as spending on things like PBS, NPR, and the National Endowment for the Arts contributes to today’s financial woes?
Yes, that was my point 2, though you put it more bluntly.
I like Salieri. He is very good. Not Mozart, but not crap.
Until recently, there were not many artists who didn’t work for wealthy patrons, because they would starve and die. Not since the wealth created in the Western World in the 19th century, have so many been able to live so (relatively) well. A lot of people who would have been subsistence farmers/woodcutters/river dredgers now have some measure of disposable money and time.
As to the murals/graffiti business, if it’s commissioned or welcomed, it’s a mural and (maybe) art. If it’s defacing or political, it’s graffiti.
That’s just how I roll.
;-)
When did professional artists stop working for wealthy patrons?
I must have missed that development.
If the NEA doesn’t qualify as a “wealthy patron”, I don’t know what does.
I like art, but I don’t have a lot of money, so I don’t buy art. Necessities come first.
Sort out my money issues, and I would buy art.
I think that artists have always had to rely on Wealthy Patrons, in that one definition of Wealth would be having enough disposable income to spend on things that are not strictly necessary.
I’d just include among the Wealthy Patrons the person who can afford to buy one painting or sculpture as well as the person who can buy a room full of them.
I might also include the landlord who can afford to accept a painting as a rental payment.
I am loathe to spend more time trying to suss out an artist’s message than he apparently spent trying to convey it.
An excellent attitude, one that I endorse, with one exception: public architecture, even when paid for by private means, should pay a certain amount of respect the public taste. Anyone can avoid art museums and concert halls if they like, but everyone’s gotta walk down Main Street once in a while. Let the most daring experiments in architecture be on private, wooded lots.
On the other hand, I do regret the suspicion that some conservatives bring to contemporary experiments. Remember, people, that a good Burkean conservative believes in evolutionary change. Not too fast, and not too slow.
Sometimes there’s the feeling that the whole modernist (or now, post-modernist) movement is just one big emperor’s-new-clothes conspiracy. Sometimes it is. Really! And sometimes it isn’t. Really!
I recently bought a painting which is non-representational. It’s a deep red with lots of whimsical ovals in thick textures. My kids absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, my. . .well, let’s just say some senior members of the extended family. . .simply didn’t get it. Furthermore, although they were polite, it seemed to vex them. They discussed at length how they might, against all sense and the manifest intent of the artist, rearrange the parts of the painting into a representation of something real. I found their reaction sad. One doesn’t look at the trim around a window or the shape of a car and insist they look like something. Why can’t a painting be allowed to be simply decorative? To be simply pretty?
What really burns in the art world is when a new style becomes established as an orthodoxy, with a priesthood eager to anathematize. Tom Wolfe talked about this happening in From Bauhaus to Our House and The Painted Word. It also happened with atonalism in music, which was a particularly quixotic battle against the laws of physics; i.e., a stubborn refusal to see how basic intervals such as the perfect fifth and major third are rooted in the overtone series. Music is my area, and I dealt with the after-effects of that attitude in the 70s and 80s; it still makes me angry when I think of it.
On the other hand, if an artist wants to experiment in a non-dogmatic way, let him! It can be easy to forget that most of what happens in art is not nearly as premeditated as it seems in retrospect. Most of the time, an artist proceeds by fumbling. Every complete, satisfying work of art sits on a vast manure pile of failed experiments. Please never forget that important fact. Unfortunately, Tom Wolfe sometimes seems to in the two books I mentioned above.
Wondering if any have read Sedlmayr’s Art in Crisis? He argues not from tradition. I find much modern art to be over-aestheticized. From Roger Kimball’s review:
One need not, I think, share Sedlmayr’s theological convictions in order to appreciate the power of his strictures about the search for autonomy. “The fact is,” he argues, “that art cannot be assessed by a measure that is purely artistic and nothing else. Indeed, such a purely artistic measure, which ignored the human element, the element which alone gives art its justification, would actually not be an artistic measure at all. It would merely be an aesthetic, and actually the application of purely aesthetic standards is one of the peculiarly inhuman features of the age, for it proclaims by implication the autonomy of the work of art, an autonomy that has no regard to men—the principle of l’art pour l’art.” Art has its own aesthetic canons of legitimacy and achievement; but those canons are themselves nugatory unless grounded in a measure beyond art. That is the ultimate, indispensable, lesson of Art in Crisis.
The definition of art used to include skill. Someone paints a landscape, or a portrait, I can tell that training and effort went into it. Someone… well, it’s the example of the hour, someone dunks a crucifix in urine all they have is a moderately clever way to generate outrage. To directly contradict the modern definition, just because an artist calls it art doesn’t mean it’s art.
Good for you and I wish you the enjoyment of your painting. I take no quarrel with beauty. Cars though; the shape of the car is constrained by the laws of aerodynamics. You can make cars that look substantially different, but they won’t get good gas mileage. Within that constraint though, there’s plenty of variation that allows for better–or worse–looking cars.
Your point about the experimental nature of all art is well taken, however we’re generally not talking about the failed experiments. It isn’t just the artists, it’s the critics who are telling us that this particular piece is brilliant and provocative. The critics, the papers, the intelligentsia, everything but my own lying eyes. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it.
I can both agree and disagree. Yes, the crucifix submerged in urine is considered “bad” art, and everyone has their own opinion of “good” art and “bad” art. But that is the problem.
My old dictionary defines art as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, [especially] in the production of aesthic objects.” When I look up “aesthetics”, I find “the branch of philosophy that deals with the beautiful and with judgments concerning beauty.”
I contend that art originally was meant to be good (beautiful), but now the definition has been perverted to mean that someone with no skill or creativity can produce a picture of a crucifix submerged in urine and call it “art”. Even unpleasant scenes such as paintings of Hell can be art because they are beautifully rendered.
Bottom line? Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.
Denise, I linked this post in a comment under this post: The Rule of Credentialed “Experts”
Oh, Lawdy Lawdy, Denise. Do we really want to open this can of worms?
I guess I do. OK: my first R-rated film was “Alien,” with its now-infamous conceptual art and monster design by the recently-departed H. R. Giger. If you do a Google image search, you’ll find that Alien’s conceptual design was Giger being tame. Now consider that I saw “Alien” when I was a 14-year-old boy.
To your question: is there conservative value in addressing Giger’s work head-on? I’ll argue that there is: Giger’s extraordinarily discomfiting blend of biology and machine—in particular, erotic biology and machine—coming primarily in the 60s and 70s, prefigured society’s uncomfortable relationship between technology run rampant and the facets of being human that we instinctively experience as being directly tied to intimacy. To the extent Giger’s work seems mechanical, it shouldn’t turn us on. To the extent it turns us on, it shouldn’t seem mechanical. Its ability to push us into that disquieting space—undeniably inhuman, undeniably erotic—challenges us conservatives to explain our experience of it and perhaps to offer a moral backdrop to that experience.
“A more useful Metric is this: was this artist successful? Was he or she an artist, or an licensed electrician who painted on the side”
By this metric, Thomas Kinkade was a better painter than Van Gogh.
EPG,
I have sent out Christmas cards with Thomas Kinkade’s’s work on them. I buy the bargain boxes of mixed 30 from Duane Reade or Rite Aide after the holidays.
Thomas Kinkade may not be a better painter than Vincent Van Gogh. I doubt, for that matter, that Bob Ross was. But both of us know people who like his work, and liked Ross’s show. When push comes to shove, these people are likelier to have a Thomas Kinkade on their wall than even a museum print of a Van Gogh, even though a good print of Van Gogh is arguably cheaper than an original Kinkade.
Thomas Kinkade and Bob Ross were and are more successful than Van Gogh. This is a known fact, which cannot be argued against.
That Van Gogh was a better painter is still a matter of opinion, even if a lot of people have that opinion. The most useful Metrics are the ones that can be proven.
Gravity is real. Climate Change is still open to debate. Evolution is as proven as any theory can be.
Comparing artists based on the quality of their work? Non disputandem de gustibus.
Don’t confuse my careful separation of my opinions with what I assert as fact to be weakness on my part, EPG,
What I am willing to offer as a strong opinion, strongly enough to say that they are probably true, is not the same as what I am willing to assert as fact, because there is a sufficient evidence to support the assertion.
I got into trouble with fans of Maya Angelou suggesting that she was a mediocre poet but a masterful marketer of her work. Being a poet is more romantic than being a salesperson. There’s a time and place to be romantic.
There’s too many Progressives and Liberals willing to assert their strongly held opinions as indisputable facts for me to start taking up that odious habit, especially in matters as fluid as art.
Until two months ago, I held “Tagging” and “Grafitti” in very low regard. Then I saw in Toronto what the best Grafitti artists can do with good material and set free to create murals in public spaces. (Mind you, you do see some such murals in New York, but you see a lot more vandalism with spray paint.)