# Theft of public sculpture to sell as metal scrap



## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

I read this editorial in the print edition of the Times on Christmas Eve. My brother has a subscription to the on-line edition, so when I visited him today I asked him for the article so that I could post it here. I think it speaks for itself:

*Our cultural treasures help us rise above the ugliness of poverty. Hide them away and our lives are diminished*

_Janice Turner_

In one of South London's grimmer postcodes, in the scrappy space between tower blocks where Colombian kids kick around a football and young men walk muscular dogs, is a work by Henry Moore. I came across Two Piece Reclining Figure No 3 when I lived nearby, on a street often blocked off to film gritty scenes for The Bill. I was astounded: a world-class piece of abstract sculpture on a council estate.

I suggest you visit it now. Because soon, one way or another, it will be gone.

Since Barbara Hepworth's Two Forms (Divided Circle) was stolen from Dulwich Park - a mile away in a wealthier bit of Southwark - probably to be melted down for scrap, the local council has fretted about the Henry Moore. To make removal more difficult they have fitted it with a grille, but since this partly obscures the work, a question hangs heavily: why not just move it before it is taken? Put it somewhere safer, grander, a place where it might be more "appreciated".

In a more idealistic age it was felt that art should belong to everyone, not only middle-class gallerygoers. In 1962, the London County Council believed that residents of its new showpiece Brandon estate deserved to look out upon such a statue. The Hepworth was placed in 1970 when Dulwich was a shabbier, scabbier place than today's Bugaboo-pushing bankers' redoubt. And yet an artist whose work stands outside the United Nations building in New York was not thought too good for the citizens of Southwark.

The theft of Two Forms, which I passed often on my pathetic jogs around the park, made me burn with anger. How many harsher recessions had occurred in the intervening 41 years without hacksaw-wielding scum dragging away something owned and enjoyed by all? What kind of short-sighted fool takes an artwork insured for half a million pounds and sells it for £1,000 scrap? What crass cultural strip-mining. And worst of all, this theft could kill for ever the idea that minor places - provincial towns, less-loved parks, poorer estates - can be entrusted with precious art.

One of the least-noted aspects of poverty is its ugliness. I did not grow up hungry but I did lack food for my soul. We had no Henry Moore, but there was - amid the utilitarian Lego-block 1960s estates - a beautiful house, a very minor stately home called Cusworth Hall, which, along with its parklands, had been handed over to Doncaster Council. It was half-ruined but more romantic for it: creamy stone, Palladian columns, a private chapel with frescoed ceiling. It was set on a high, landscaped hill with an ornamental lake below and a view over fields to faraway power stations. I could see for ever up there. I could see my escape.

There are perhaps only three things that help us to raise our heads above the everyday, to transcend our quotidian struggles and give us some succour in facing our inevitable death: religion, nature and art. Take your pick. A silent prayer, a hike over the Pennines, a sonnet or symphony or sculpture. Approaching his end, that arch-atheist Christopher Hitchens found solace in Larkin's bleak but humane Whitsun Weddings, a poem I often read after my father's stroke.

We are not just creatures who work and consume: we need sometimes to think about our place in the Universe, to marvel at how insignificant we are and yet how wondrous. And public art - art for the many, not the few - acknowledges this need and offers its fulfilment. The rich have always known it. Viscount Linley once recalled as a child his parents taking him to a gallery to look at a single work. To really look at it, extract all meaning and joy.

Back then only a princess would think it worth the entrance fee to see one painting. Now, thanks to free museum entry we can stare at a different Titian every day if we choose. Yet how many tenants of the Brandon estate take the short bus ride to either Tate?

But then plenty would ask what these barely literate Kennington single mums get out of a Henry Moore. It's a "difficult" abstract piece that they would never understand. Sell it to the Tate, put it in Hyde Park for the tourists. Let them watch X Factor!

Indeed almost as depressing as the philistines stealing the Hepworth have been those sneering at the work itself. "Look at that thing with its funny holes." "Half a million for rusty rubbish!" "What does it even mean?"

Strange how modern art disconcerts conservative minds even now, like those who vandalised Maggi Hambling's Scallop on Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk. But then dictators - Hitler, Franco, Stalin - all liked their art heroic, simple and realistic. They persecuted abstract artists, regarded their work as subversive or elitist. Certainly it threatens established perception and if you drag minds off the tram tracks of the obvious, who knows where they might end up?

But elitist? Hepworth was inspired by prosaic sights such as a woman carrying a child and wanted to evoke in her art how such sights made her feel. She wanted people to touch her sculptures, not admire them from behind silk ropes.

And Henry Moore, a Yorkshire coalminer's son, slept though the Blitz on Tube station platforms with bombed-out Londoners whose stoicism he drew. His sculpture moved towards abstraction to find new ways of perceiving landscape and the human body. "The knees and breasts are mountains," he said of Two Piece Reclining Figure No 3.

Maybe one passing child might see that, might perceive the world a little differently, might have the lid blown off his imagination. But if the Moore stays, the metal thieves will get it eventually - these most wretched and lowly of criminals, who steal not just copper and iron but our trust in each other.

Pillaging cables from railways, they endanger our lives; ripping off memorial plaques, they defile the dead and deface history. And in stealing art, they reduce every optimistic, transcendent thought down to a lump of base metal.

There should be a new crime on the statute books for the thieves - but more particularly for the dealers who fence the stolen metal, without whom there would be no market. In this age of economic hardship, they are like black marketeers in wartime. What they do is a form of treason, a crime against the people.

Let those who would reduce art to nothing be reduced to art themselves. Turn them into a public installation: in Trafalgar Square build a stocks upon the fourth plinth.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating stealing statues here, but that is a very superficial way of thinking. Let's put a pink band-aid on a gaping wound. To "rise above", you see.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

But what's the gaping wound? It's not just contempt for modern art. In this country, copper cable is being stolen from railway lines, and copper pipes are being nicked from hospitals. That's not just contempt for aesthetics--it's contempt for human lives. Copper, for a number of reasons, is becoming a black market commodity. The main ones are that, while it's cheaper than gold, platinum and silver, it is more broadly useful, generally less traceable, more easily stolen, and rising in price because the primary supply is gradually running out.

Not necessarily a doomsday scenario--there are substitutes for copper--but it's still something to think about.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

This is sad and speaks to the idealism of the post-WW2 age, and how we kind of sorely lack that. Art is now mainly in a "safe" place as the article says - eg. Hyde Park in London - or in an art gallery, or in the lobby of an office building. 

The best public art though addresses local issues or contexts. Often the council employs the artist to make it in consultation with the local community. A drawback of the post-war way of thinking was to say plonk a Henry Moore piece anywhere and think it would fit, think people would care about it. Well, this doesn't happen if the community doesn't "own" it or connect with it in some sort of way. 

Maybe we need to just go back to grassroots thinking, rather than of the past, eg. some bureaucrat deciding to plonk a sculpture or a mural somewhere for the populace to appreciate for the sole reason that it's art, despite it's probably being not relevant to that unique community. Doing that with the Henry Moore in the housing estate may well be just as ridiculous as say putting a statue of Alexander the Great there or something...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

This is why I have more respect for artists like Banksy than certain other installation artists or other gallery figures. Obviously, Banksy's works can't be stolen, but they are put out in a place for all eyes to see. Other people create art straight for an exhibition, feeding the same middle class consumers as always. I don't think it is necessarily elitist in that I don't think these artists are consciously excluding people from their work, but, as I keep saying, art is a social thing, and I think artists have a certain responsibility to try to reach different audiences. The more we perpetuate this idea of precious artworks behind glass in a special building, the more disillusioned and uncaring people in poverty will be.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

(click to enlarge)

Here's a pic of the Rollright Stones (not taken by me--I found it with Google, but I've been there to see the stones, though).

There's nothing really protecting this small stone circle, apart from a common consensus, by everyone who visits them, that they're an ancient monument which needs to be treated with respect. There's no graffiti on them, only lichen, and no work done on them, apart from erosion. You don't have to pay admission to see them. But you could easily kick each stone over with your right foot, if you wanted to.

Now, imagine if these standing stones were made of copper. They'd probably be gone within a fortnight.

If that happened, what would we have lost?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

This is why I have more respect for artists like Banksy than certain other installation artists or other gallery figures. Obviously, Banksy's works can't be stolen, but they are put out in a place for all eyes to see. Other people create art straight for an exhibition, feeding the same middle class consumers as always.

Let's be serious here, Bansky's public art has greatly increased the value of his work. His patrons... like most gallery patrons... are not the middle-class consumers but actually the wealthy. A painting that involves 3 or 6 or 12 months of labor is not likely to be sold for a price that will make it accessible to the middle-class... let alone the poor... any more than it is likely that you will be able to raise enough money from the poor to stage an opera or symphony.

I don't think it is necessarily elitist in that I don't think these artists are consciously excluding people from their work, but, as I keep saying, art is a social thing, and I think artists have a certain responsibility to try to reach different audiences.

Why? Does the maker of high fashion (Versace, Gucci, etc...) or luxury jewelry or automobiles (Lamborghini) have the same "respnsibility" to make their product accessible to a wide array of audiences? Do we go even further and suggest that art should be accessible to the illiterate, ill-informed, and ill-educated masses. In other words... do we dumb down art to reach the masses?

The more we perpetuate this idea of precious artworks behind glass in a special building, the more disillusioned and uncaring people in poverty will be.

This is a legitimate point... and one frequently raised with regard to contemporary music as well as art. Is it fair to expect the poor and the middle-class to fund the creation and preservation of art that means nothing to them... that often seems openly hostile toward them?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Let's be serious here, Bansky's public art has greatly increased the value of his work. His patrons... like most gallery patrons... are not the middle-class consumers but actually the wealthy. A painting that involves 3 or 6 or 12 months of labor is not likely to be sold for a price that will make it accessible to the middle-class... let alone the poor... any more than it is likely that you will be able to raise enough money from the poor to stage an opera or symphony.


Maybe it's just because it's late, but I actually don't grammatically understand what the above means. 



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Why? Does the maker of high fashion (Versace, Gucci, etc...) or luxury jewelry or automobiles (Lamborghini) have the same "respnsibility" to make their product accessible to a wide array of audiences? Do we go even further and suggest that art should be accessible to the illiterate, ill-informed, and ill-educated masses. In other words... do we dumb down art to reach the masses?


It's telling that you should compare artists to businesses. No, I don't think art should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, but I am an old Romantic in my belief that art should embrace the 'vulgar' and make itself available to the widest audiences. Being cosied up in galleries does not allow this (and, on the topic of education, I don't think artists should create 'art' suitably worthless for an illiterate person to understand, but they should be advocating education and actively demonstrating why all levels of a class-based society can feel something for art - EDIT: I believe the best artists are the ones who create art for political reasons; not those who feel they have some special insight they'd like to share with us).


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

In Lithuania we have the Europe's Park (Presumably located in the center of Europe) which hosts a lot of art - from the abstract to the more traditional. It's open to everyone and there's no real protection against vandalism, but most of the sculptures still stand quite untouched to this day. I guess it is in some way due to the fact that it's not just art for Lithuania, but rather it makes us feel more important to this world (the centre of Europe!), especially after the long years under the soviet's belt that basically made us invisible to the world for centuries. A few years ago you wouldn't see much open space art in Lithuania, but in recent years it becomes more and more popular. For example there's quite a fair number of creations by Fluxus artists around Vilnius, we had a huge sculpture of Tony Soprano in one of the most popular city squares here, and a sculpture of Frank Zappa has been in the city centre for more than a decade now, made of metal and untouched (as the Fluxus works). 
During my short visit to Ljubljana a few years ago I remember that I was quite impressed by the city - mainly because of the amount of art they had placed in open space compared to my home country. But years after - the trend came to here as well. 
I frankly don't know why the open space art here is not being vandalised or sold as metal scraps - maybe the vandals don't care about it, maybe they have some appreciation or maybe they can get metal from somewhere else. The jewish graveyard is being vandalised more often. 
But as far as I care - the more art in open space the better, even if I am not really fond of Fluxus. And since Lithuania is always late in trends/art/technology compared to the western world, I hope this space art is going to bloom as long as it can.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

StlukesguildOhio:

Let's be serious here, Bansky's public art has greatly increased the value of his work. His patrons... like most gallery patrons... are not the middle-class consumers but actually the wealthy. A painting that involves 3 or 6 or 12 months of labor is not likely to be sold for a price that will make it accessible to the middle-class... let alone the poor... any more than it is likely that you will be able to raise enough money from the poor to stage an opera or symphony.

Polednice-Maybe it's just because it's late, but I actually don't grammatically understand what the above means.

OK...let's try rewording this. Banksy is not the first artist to use the public forum as a means of drawing attention to his work... and this increasing its financial "value". A couple of decades back we has Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the so-called "graffiti school". Picasso, Toulouse-Latrec, Daumier... even Dürer created prints and posters which were works of art in themselves... but also served to increase their recognition and subsequently the value of their works. As you stated on the Wagner thread, the majority of artists never saw themselves as visionaries, prophets, or "geniuses"... and I might add "revolutionaries". They were craftsmen... workers... and like those who create any product they expect and need to be paid for their services. The reality is that most "products" of the traditional "fine arts" are luxury items to a great extent. An artist might elect to work within a form that might be mass-produced (prints, comic books, poster design, film, photography) and attempt to sell these works to the mass audience... but the success of such an endeavor often depends greatly upon your marketing skills... and a publisher. If an artist spends months working on a painting or sculpture, however, he cannot afford to sell it at Wal-Mart for bargain basement prices and still pay rent and feed the family. The reality is that Banksy is just as dependent upon the wealthy patrons and any other artist. By the same token, most classical composers writing for orchestra or wishing to stage an opera are no less dependent upon wealthy patrons

Why? Does the maker of high fashion (Versace, Gucci, etc...) or luxury jewelry or automobiles (Lamborghini) have the same "respnsibility" to make their product accessible to a wide array of audiences? Do we go even further and suggest that art should be accessible to the illiterate, ill-informed, and ill-educated masses. In other words... do we dumb down art to reach the masses?

It's telling that you should compare artists to businesses.

Did you not bristle at the Romanticized notions of the artist as visionary, prophet, genius, or revolutionary who exist outside the realities that the rest of humanity deal with? Art is a business.

No, I don't think art should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, but I am an old Romantic in my belief that art should embrace the 'vulgar' and make itself available to the widest audiences.

OK... how does an artist achieve this? Obviously, the intended audience is not the same for all artists. The film-maker shooting the summer Hollywood blockbuster has a goal of reaching the widest possible audience. The painter who spent years upon this canvas:










... had a far more limited audience in mind: the patron, the sitter and their family, the educated art public who likely would attend the unveiling of the painting at the salon, the art critics, other potential patrons. Are we to assume that you see the Hollywood film-maker as having taken the higher moral ground?

Ingres painting is currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. One might give but a nickle to the museum to gain admittance. Coming upon the painting I cannot say that the uninformed will fully "understand" the achievement and relevance of this painting, but from my experience having visited the museum with non-art people, this painting has the ability to absolutely stun the first-time viewer. It is accessible to an audience without art experience just as Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is accessible to me in spite of the fact that I cannot read music and thus grasp certain musical structures or developments.

Being cosied up in galleries does not allow this...

So Ingres should have just hung the painting out on the street? What is the alternative considering that the artist needs to make a living from selling his or her art?

...and, on the topic of education, I don't think artists should create 'art' suitably worthless for an illiterate person to understand, but they should be advocating education and actively demonstrating why all levels of a class-based society can feel something for art.

Again... why is this the artist's responsibility? Returning to your earlier post, the artist is a craftsman who creates a work of art... not a visionary, prophet, genius, revolutionary... or salesman or educator. Do you imagine that artist have endless free-time in which to focus upon marketing their art and then engaging in public outreach programs intending to educate the public concerning art? And for what purpose? Are the middle-class or poor likely to be able to buy his art anytime soon?

Now I agree that we are in a dangerous situation currently with an increased gap... even a level of hostility existing between the majority of the public and many artists. When the majority controls the purse-strings of the museums and other art institutions through tax dollars... yet the wealthy patrons and the "elitist" art "experts" control what is bought and sold and shown... and much of this is incomprehensible or even hostile toward the larger audience there is a distinct danger of a loss of funding for something seen as irrelevant, wasteful, and "not intended for me".

I'm not certain how to fully rectify this... and yet maintain an income for the artist and artistic integrity. I suspect part of what you suggest above is key: the merger of "vulgar" or popular and high culture. Picasso, in fact, argued for as much, suggesting that art was best created in the manner in which the Renaissance princes produced children and heirs: a merger of the aristocratic and the peasant classes.

EDIT: I believe the best artists are the ones who create art for political reasons; not those who feel they have some special insight they'd like to share with us.

I wholly disagree. The artists whose primary goal is political and social tend to be less than interesting as artist. An artist goes into a given art form because he or she is obsessed with that art form. As a painter I loved drawing and coloring things from the time I was a child. I am enamored of the way colors look next to each other. I love the flow of a line. What I choose to paint shall be that which speaks most or interests me most from the world around me. What of your idol, Brahms? Was he creating his chamber music for political reasons?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> OK...let's try rewording this. Banksy is not the first artist to use the public forum as a means of drawing attention to his work... and this increasing its financial "value". A couple of decades back we has Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the so-called "graffiti school". Picasso, Toulouse-Latrec, Daumier... even Dürer created prints and posters which were works of art in themselves... but also served to increase their recognition and subsequently the value of their works. As you stated on the Wagner thread, the majority of artists never saw themselves as visionaries, prophets, or "geniuses"... and I might add "revolutionaries". They were craftsmen... workers... and like those who create any product they expect and need to be paid for their services. The reality is that most "products" of the traditional "fine arts" are luxury items to a great extent. An artist might elect to work within a form that might be mass-produced (prints, comic books, poster design, film, photography) and attempt to sell these works to the mass audience... but the success of such an endeavor often depends greatly upon your marketing skills... and a publisher. If an artist spends months working on a painting or sculpture, however, he cannot afford to sell it at Wal-Mart for bargain basement prices and still pay rent and feed the family. The reality is that Banksy is just as dependent upon the wealthy patrons and any other artist. By the same token, most classical composers writing for orchestra or wishing to stage an opera are no less dependent upon wealthy patrons.


OK, I accept your summary, and I accept that artists need to make money, but I think we're just approaching the Banksy situation from two different angles, yours rather more cynical than mine. As far as I am aware, and as far as I judge it myself, Banksy does a fantastic job of bringing art to the streets, which is a place where art should be (as well as in galleries). Are you suggesting that Banksy does this _only_ to increase the value of his other works? Only then would I have a problem with it, but I don't know enough about Banksy to know if that's his actual goal.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Did you not bristle at the Romanticized notions of the artist as visionary, prophet, genius, or revolutionary who exist outside the realities that the rest of humanity deal with? Art is a business.


I don't think that rejecting romanticised pictures of artists necessitates that we view artists as business people. Only a very small number of people who would describe themselves as artists make a significant income from it, thus showing that the impetus is very rarely to make a living. People 'do' art because it's self-fulfilling; because they feel they have something say; but, in having these intentions, it doesn't mean that they are oracles, visionaries, and geniuses to be revered. I think it's similar to people who go into journalism so that they comment on our world; good artists do the same, but in a very different medium.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> OK... how does an artist achieve this? Obviously, the intended audience is not the same for all artists. The film-maker shooting the summer Hollywood blockbuster has a goal of reaching the widest possible audience.


It's an extremely difficult question, and I don't profess to have all the answers. All I can point out is what forms of making art do _not_ attempt to reach sufficiently wide audiences. One of the most difficult and most admirable aspects of art, in my opinion, is maintaining the beauty and complexity necessary for a piece to be considered a 'masterpiece' while simultaneously allowing a newcomer to love it instantly, only for them to fall deeper and deeper in love with its layers and layers of intrigue as they learn more about it.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> [on the canvas]... had a far more limited audience in mind: the patron, the sitter and their family, the educated art public who likely would attend the unveiling of the painting at the salon, the art critics, other potential patrons. Are we to assume that you see the Hollywood film-maker as having taken the higher moral ground?


I do not think that the Hollywood film-maker has taken a moral high-ground, and I also do not think that the canvas was truly art until acquired for public pleasure.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> So Ingres should have just hung the painting out on the street? What is the alternative considering that the artist needs to make a living from selling his or her art?


_If_ Ingres' intention was to inspire his fellow man with his art, then there would have been other things he could have tried in order to bring art to the people (visual art makes for a more difficult case than music, because music on the streets cannot be stolen!). However, Ingres' intention was obviously to provide a private service, which he happened to do with great flare and skill. It was not art in its original inception, inspiring and beautiful though it is.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Again... why is this the artist's responsibility? Returning to your earlier post, the artist is a craftsman who creates a work of art... not a visionary, prophet, genius, revolutionary... or salesman or educator. Do you imagine that artist have endless free-time in which to focus upon marketing their art and then engaging in public outreach programs intending to educate the public concerning art? And for what purpose? Are the middle-class or poor likely to be able to buy his art anytime soon?


For starters, if an artist is a businessman, then it is in their interest to educate as many people as possible because everyone is a potential consumer!  What is the dissonance between being a craftsman and being an advocate of good public policy? It's not about being a visionary, it's about being an active citizen in your society, which we all try to do regardless of our professions, so I don't accept that this encroaches on the artist's time. I'm not saying that an artist has to be on the front-lines, teaching and doing outreach themselves (admirable as that would be).



StlukesguildOhio said:


> I wholly disagree. The artists whose primary goal is political and social tend to be less than interesting as artist. An artist goes into a given art form because he or she is obsessed with that art form. As a painter I loved drawing and coloring things from the time I was a child. I am enamored of the way colors look next to each other. I love the flow of a line. What I choose to paint shall be that which speaks most or interests me most from the world around me. What of your idol, Brahms? Was he creating his chamber music for political reasons?


On thinking about my political comment last night, I think I was too hyperbolic in my meagre attempt to be iconoclastic, so I take it back.  More accurately, what I meant was not that an artist ought to be _political_, but that they ought to be engaged with the trends and culture of their time, and that I would be suspicious of any artist who professes to share some deep insight about human nature.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

OK, I accept your summary, and I accept that artists need to make money, but I think we're just approaching the Banksy situation from two different angles, yours rather more cynical than mine. As far as I am aware, and as far as I judge it myself, Banksy does a fantastic job of bringing art to the streets, which is a place where art should be (as well as in galleries). Are you suggesting that Banksy does this only to increase the value of his other works? Only then would I have a problem with it, but I don't know enough about Banksy to know if that's his actual goal.

Art should be in the streets? OK. I can accept this. But not all art is made for the streets or even suitable for the streets. Not all artists have something they wish to say in such a political venue.

Did you not bristle at the Romanticized notions of the artist as visionary, prophet, genius, or revolutionary who exist outside the realities that the rest of humanity deal with? Art is a business.

I don't think that rejecting romanticised pictures of artists necessitates that we view artists as business people. Only a very small number of people who would describe themselves as artists make a significant income from it, thus showing that the impetus is very rarely to make a living. People 'do' art because it's self-fulfilling; because they feel they have something say; but, in having these intentions, it doesn't mean that they are oracles, visionaries, and geniuses to be revered. I think it's similar to people who go into journalism so that they comment on our world; good artists do the same, but in a very different medium.

OK... let's look at history. Until literally the last century there were very few individuals who would have taken up working within the arts without a very real aim of earning an income from such. We now have an endless number of weekend painters, film-makers, poets, etc... most of who have little or no notion of actually making an income from their art. But this was not true during the Baroque or the Renaissance, etc... Why did Michelangelo or Rubens or Titian go into art? Was it simply because they had something to say?

OK... how does an artist achieve this? Obviously, the intended audience is not the same for all artists. The film-maker shooting the summer Hollywood blockbuster has a goal of reaching the widest possible audience.

It's an extremely difficult question, and I don't profess to have all the answers. All I can point out is what forms of making art do not attempt to reach sufficiently wide audiences. One of the most difficult and most admirable aspects of art, in my opinion, is maintaining the beauty and complexity necessary for a piece to be considered a 'masterpiece' while simultaneously allowing a newcomer to love it instantly, only for them to fall deeper and deeper in love with its layers and layers of intrigue as they learn more about it.

Yes... I fully agree that art should be able to grab the average audience on some level without the need for experience and prior knowledge. If we consider, however, that all art involves the use of a "language", the aim at reaching the largest possible audience limits our possibilities with regard to exploring or stretching the boundaries of an artistic language.

I do not think that the Hollywood film-maker has taken a moral high-ground, and I also do not think that the canvas was truly art until acquired for public pleasure.

So "Art" is defined by the masses?

However, Ingres' intention was obviously to provide a private service, which he happened to do with great flare and skill. It was not art in its original inception, inspiring and beautiful though it is.

Again you seem to be presuming that the masses are the sole measure of art. By this logic the Hollywood blockbuster was "Art" from the start while the Ingres was not... not until it was accessible to the larger public. So if this mass public defines art, why should we not accept their value judgments concerning the Hollywood blockbuster film vs Ingres... or Lady Gaga vs Brahms?

SLG- Again... why is this the artist's responsibility? Returning to your earlier post, the artist is a craftsman who creates a work of art... not a visionary, prophet, genius, revolutionary... or salesman or educator. Do you imagine that artist have endless free-time in which to focus upon marketing their art and then engaging in public outreach programs intending to educate the public concerning art? And for what purpose? Are the middle-class or poor likely to be able to buy his art anytime soon?

For starters, if an artist is a businessman, then it is in their interest to educate as many people as possible because everyone is a potential consumer!

Are they? Really? How many people among the general public could even afford my paintings at $5000 let alone a well-known artist with a following? I doubt that Lamborghini markets toward the general public. They know just who can and cannot afford their product.

What is the dissonance between being a craftsman and being an advocate of good public policy?

Why is making art for everyone good public policy? Do you imagine everyone even wants the paintings by Jasper Johns or the poetry of Anne Carson or the music of Philip Glass? Art is ultimately an elective affinity. We choose what art is or is not important to us... what we are willing to invest out time or money in. I couldn't even afford one of my own paintings... but I can see Jasper Johns and Ingres in the museum.

It's not about being a visionary, it's about being an active citizen in your society, which we all try to do regardless of our professions, so I don't accept that this encroaches on the artist's time. I'm not saying that an artist has to be on the front-lines, teaching and doing outreach themselves (admirable as that would be).

Again the question is how? How does Anne Carson or Geoffrey Hill make her poetry accessible to all (physically and cognitively?). How do I spend two months on a single painting, invest in the materials, pay my studio expenses and utilities, and then make my art accessible to all in terms of context and price?

On thinking about my political comment last night, I think I was too hyperbolic in my meagre attempt to be iconoclastic, so I take it back. More accurately, what I meant was not that an artist ought to be political, but that they ought to be engaged with the trends and culture of their time, and that I would be suspicious of any artist who professes to share some deep insight about human nature.

Well I fully agree. I think that art must engage art and life. Cezanne stated that the road to the Louvre was through Nature... but the road to Nature was through the Louvre. Of course I also agree to a great extent with Salvador Dali who suggested that while being of one's time is essential to an artist... it is also the aspect that you need least concern yourself with... for the simple reason that you almost cannot help but be of your time. Even working in a reactionary manner involves responding to the trends of the time. I think it is only the artist whose work is a pastiche of the past... based upon the work of some part era that he or she believes represented some sort of unsurpassed "ideal" could be so criticized. I think, for example, of contemporary realist or Impressionist painters such as this:










or this:










In neither instance is there the least hint that the work is at all from the 21st century. The artist could have chosen a contemporary subject matter, employed modern light (ie. from the TV, computer, light bulb, etc...) modern colors. The artist could have let on in some way or form that he or she was not oblivious to the last 100+ years of artistic development.

While none of these are my cup of tea, they clearly show that the artist is not living in some notion of an ideal past:











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Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content










By the same token, this "painting" builds off of a past style... but does so in an ironic manner that is clearly of today... and even uses today's technology (the "painting" is actually realized through CGI):


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## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

Fsharpmajor said:


> To make removal more difficult they have fitted it with a grille, but since this partly obscures the work, a question hangs heavily: why not just move it before it is taken? Put it somewhere safer, grander, a place where it might be more "appreciated".


Just adding my bit here. Art theft happens within the walls of very safest, grandest and best musemes. Although not a work I would go gaga for I did read about this a few weeks ago and was quite saddened. I don't think the location had anything to do with it's theft. I had a statue stolen from my garden not to long ago and I live in quite an affluent area. Theft is theft regardless of the variable factors, people see an opportunity and take it.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Art should be in the streets? OK. I can accept this. But not all art is made for the streets or even suitable for the streets. Not all artists have something they wish to say in such a political venue.


I don't think _all_ art should be in the streets, obviously. That is just one manifestation of art that aims to have a wider audience than middle class gallery-goers. As I said, I don't have all the answers as to how to widen that audience.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> OK... let's look at history. Until literally the last century there were very few individuals who would have taken up working within the arts without a very real aim of earning an income from such. We now have an endless number of weekend painters, film-makers, poets, etc... most of who have little or no notion of actually making an income from their art. But this was not true during the Baroque or the Renaissance, etc... Why did Michelangelo or Rubens or Titian go into art? Was it simply because they had something to say?


On the contrary, I think your perception of history is affected by new media. We get the sense that people in the past who made art did so because the career possibilities allowed it, but that sense is made only because the remnants of the commercially unsuccessful don't survive. Just imagine how many unsung amateur poets and artists and musicians there would have been. Just today I was reading an article about a number of 19th century scientists who turned their hand to poetry for the sheer love of it! I imagine a more significant historical factor would be illiteracy; not career opportunities (and I still accept that making money from art _is_ a goal for many artists, but is rarely the most important reason for doing it).



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Yes... I fully agree that art should be able to grab the average audience on some level without the need for experience and prior knowledge. If we consider, however, that all art involves the use of a "language", the aim at reaching the largest possible audience limits our possibilities with regard to exploring or stretching the boundaries of an artistic language.


The key is in "largest _possible_ audience" - i.e. "within the parameters of the art-form", not "the largest number of humans you can manage." This opens debate as to how esoteric the parameters should be, which is why I talked essentially about widening the parameters without lessening the art.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> So "Art" is defined by the masses?


I think that art is defined by its availability to the masses.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Again you seem to be presuming that the masses are the sole measure of art. By this logic the Hollywood blockbuster was "Art" from the start while the Ingres was not... not until it was accessible to the larger public. So if this mass public defines art, why should we not accept their value judgments concerning the Hollywood blockbuster film vs Ingres... or Lady Gaga vs Brahms?


You're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying availability to the masses makes something art; I'm saying that availability to the masses is one (of many) necessary conditions for something to be considered art.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Are they? Really? How many people among the general public could even afford my paintings at $5000 let alone a well-known artist with a following? I doubt that Lamborghini markets toward the general public. They know just who can and cannot afford their product.


Again, this is a problem with art-from, visual art not being my area of expertise. A poetry anthology costs far less than a painting, as does a concert.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Why is making art for everyone good public policy? Do you imagine everyone even wants the paintings by Jasper Johns or the poetry of Anne Carson or the music of Philip Glass? Art is ultimately an elective affinity. We choose what art is or is not important to us... what we are willing to invest out time or money in. I couldn't even afford one of my own paintings... but I can see Jasper Johns and Ingres in the museum.


I didn't say that making art for everyone is good public policy; I said that the foundational education you need to appreciate art is good public policy.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Again the question is how? How does Anne Carson or Geoffrey Hill make her poetry accessible to all (physically and cognitively?). How do I spend two months on a single painting, invest in the materials, pay my studio expenses and utilities, and then make my art accessible to all in terms of context and price?


Price is not my concern, form is. Even given that, as I've mentioned a few times now, the balance between form and accessibility is a matter of personal aesthetics for each individual artist. I'm just saying it's a value I think an artist should have; I'm not telling the artists how to do it or precisely what it should be.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> So "Art" is defined by the masses?
> 
> 
> Polednice said:
> ...


Tractatus 7:


> Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Polednice-I don't think all art should be in the streets, obviously. That is just one manifestation of art that aims to have a wider audience than middle class gallery-goers. As I said, I don't have all the answers as to how to widen that audience.

OK. I have no problem with the notion that we as a culture should utilize education and funding for the arts as a means of making art accessible to a wider audience. Where I have a problem is with blanket statements concerning what individual artists SHOULD do.

SLG (quoted)- OK... let's look at history. Until literally the last century there were very few individuals who would have taken up working within the arts without a very real aim of earning an income from such.

On the contrary, I think your perception of history is affected by new media. We get the sense that people in the past who made art did so mainly for the career, but that's because the remnants of the commercially unsuccessful don't survive. Just imagine how many unsung amateur poets and artists and musicians there would have been.

OK. Let's start with poets and writers. As you note, in the past such as endeavor would have been limited by literacy... still we have amateur poets. The aristocratic poets such as Sir Walter Scott would be a prime example. During this period the ability to write poetry was a means of proving one's wit and intelligence among an aristocratic inner-circle not unlike the classical Chinese poets. Of course the very notion of a professional writer or poet would have been impossible prior to the means of publication... with the exception of the playwright or the court poet/historian, etc... No matter what, the author would have needed to have been literate, highly educated, and wealthy enough to have not only afford the paper and pen (we'll go into that later) but also that most rare of commodities: free time in which to write.

Music was a different beast altogether. Prior to the technology of sound recording, the ability to play an instrument would have been almost required of many among the upper classes... especially women. The ability to play the piano or lute well would have been as marketable as the ability to sew well for the young lady seeking a husband. Amateur musical societies abounded with private concerts. The lower classes would have had their own music. Some may have been professional musicians who played in taverns and inns and traveled town to town. Obviously some may have written their own tunes, but most would have improvised upon existing music. This would have been true of the higher classes as well. There are examples of the amateur composers such as Oswald von Wolkenstein, but there is little evidence of a vast amount of amateur compositions... let alone amateur attempts a composition of musical forms involving a larger number of performers.

The visual arts would have been the most closed. Now I will acknowledge that housewives may have embroidered tablecloths and made quilts and husbands may have carved a decorative wooden mantelpiece and painted simple decorations within the home... but the ability to paint or sculpt within the accepted notions of the visual arts demanded highly specialized training. First of all, the access to fine arts training would have been strictly controlled by the guilds. The guilds controlled how many artists a given town needed and the education and training. The notion of the amateur artist would have been greatly limited by access to the materials. Paper was very expensive... to such as extent that even artists prior to the 1500s and the development of cheaper rag and paper-pulp paper rarely made sketches is the manner we think of from Leonardo onward. We won't even discuss the cost and difficulty of employing oil paint or egg tempera... in the days prior to commercially produced art supplies.

I agree that the poor and middle classes would have had their art as well... but I suspect that this would have been not too much unlike today. The change that I see is that mass production, mass communication, increased education, and increased "free time" has made the arts more accessible to more people than they ever have been... and at the same time, this has broken down many of the barriers of social class concerning the arts. Some of these still remain, however. The wealthy simply have greater options with regard to what they can afford, what they can support, and what they have the time to study and develop an appreciation for.

I still accept that making money from art is a goal for many artists, but is rarely the most important reason for doing it.

Samuel Johnson would have disagreed, stating that "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.":lol: I will agree with you in the sense that most artists... even those who do see their art as a profession... did not go into art with the idea of making money as their first priority. A lawyer and a business major quite likely chose their profession with the notion of making money rather than out of a love of the law or a love of selling some product. Most artists choose a career in art because they love art and have loved art since they were children.

If we consider, however, that all art involves the use of a "language", the aim at reaching the largest possible audience limits our possibilities with regard to exploring or stretching the boundaries of an artistic language.

The key is in "largest possible audience" - i.e. "within the parameters of the art-form", not "the largest number of humans you can manage." This opens debate as to how esoteric the parameters should be, which is why I talked essentially about widening the parameters without lessening the art.

OK... I agree here. Obviously a public art form such as film is capable of reaching a far larger audience than a painting, which only exists in one place at one time and can only be seen by so many. There is also the question of the conceptual accessibility of the work of art. If we are honest we must recognize that without a degree of effort and education Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, T.S. Eliot remain largely inaccessible to many. Where I agree with you is in regard to the stance taken by many within the avant-garde in accepting the notion that the "problem" concerning accessibility is solely that of the audience's shortcomings... let alone those who take an openly hostile view of the audience as if they are all a bunch of morons unworthy of the artist's genius.

So "Art" is defined by the masses?

I think that art is defined by its availability to the masses.

Wouldn't that mean that Beethoven's late quartets are not Art? That the Sistine frescoes were not Art until they were opened to the public? That James Joyce is still not Art?

Again you seem to be presuming that the masses are the sole measure of art. By this logic the Hollywood blockbuster was "Art" from the start while the Ingres was not... not until it was accessible to the larger public. So if this mass public defines art, why should we not accept their value judgments concerning the Hollywood blockbuster film vs Ingres... or Lady Gaga vs Brahms?

You're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying availability to the masses makes something art; I'm saying that availability to the masses is one (of many) necessary conditions for something to be considered art.

This still leaves us with the idea that Ingres was not creating Art nor was Vermeer nor was Edmund Spenser or Virgil or Michel de Montaigne... while Lady Gaga and Spiderman II and the Harry Potter and Twilight novels were Art right from the start... although the question of how good that art is remains open to dispute. I would suggest that the masses are not the sole audience (nor even the main audience) who establish artistic merit

Are they? Really? How many people among the general public could even afford my paintings at $5000 let alone a well-known artist with a following? I doubt that Lamborghini markets toward the general public. They know just who can and cannot afford their product.

Again, this is a problem with art-from, visual art not being my area of expertise. A poetry anthology costs far less than a painting, as does a concert.

Yes... tickets to the theater or concert hall or the purchase of the mass-produced book remain far less expensive than the cost of a painting, sculpture, print, etc... Some visual artists have made attempts to make their art more accessible through the use of mass-produced forms such as lithography and photo-lithography, silk-screen, comic books, photography, etc... The problem is that traditional art forms such as painting, sculpture, drawing, etc... cannot be mass-produced. Only the photographic reproduction can be mass produced... and the photographic reproduction is far removed from the actual art object.

I didn't say that making art for everyone is good public policy; I said that the foundational education you need to appreciate art is good public policy.

But there are many who would argue against this. They would ask how it is that we can waste money, especially during times of economic unrest or shortages, teaching Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Michelangelo when students need to master practical skills related to getting a job.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> OK. I have no problem with the notion that we as a culture should utilize education and funding for the arts as a means of making art accessible to a wider audience. Where I have a problem is with blanket statements concerning what individual artists SHOULD do.


Well it depends what the context of the word "should" is. Am I saying "artists should do this or be killed"? No. Am I saying "artists should do this or be fired"? No. What is meant by my statement is "artists should do this or I have little respect for them." My respect is of no value to any artist, of course - all I was doing was making a statement of personal principle.



> OK. Let's start with poets and writers. As you note, in the past such as endeavor would have been limited by literacy... still we have amateur poets. The aristocratic poets such as Sir Walter Scott would be a prime example. During this period the ability to write poetry was a means of proving one's wit and intelligence among an aristocratic inner-circle not unlike the classical Chinese poets. Of course the very notion of a professional writer or poet would have been impossible prior to the means of publication... with the exception of the playwright or the court poet/historian, etc... No matter what, the author would have needed to have been literate, highly educated, and wealthy enough to have not only afford the paper and pen (we'll go into that later) but also that most rare of commodities: free time in which to write.


I think if we're going to start taking this road (and I can't even remember what the fundamental point we were debating is), then we're going to end up running into the question "what is art?", which would be a massive waste of time. What about those familiar with poetry, unable to afford writing implements, who composed their own poetry simply by speech and memory? What about people totally unfamiliar with poetry who nevertheless felt a natural instinct for the playfulness of language and so used it in a personally poetic way? What about nursery rhymes and riddles which, though removed from a distinct creator, still have significant cultural impact in their circulation? A lot of people are probably engaged in art without even knowing it because it's fun and enlightening, not because it puts food on the table.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> OK... I agree here. Obviously a public art form such as film is capable of reaching a far larger audience than a painting, which only exists in one place at one time and can only be seen by so many. There is also the question of the conceptual accessibility of the work of art. If we are honest we must recognize that without a degree of effort and education Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, T.S. Eliot remain largely inaccessible to many. Where I agree with you is in regard to the stance taken by many within the avant-garde in accepting the notion that the "problem" concerning accessibility is solely that of the audience's shortcomings... let alone those who take an openly hostile view of the audience as if they are all a bunch of morons unworthy of the artist's genius.


I'm glad we agree on this. Always, always, always, I return to the preface from the 1798 _Lyrical Ballads_ on this question. It is undeniable that Shakespeare and Milton wrote great art, but the revolution of using 'vulgar' language, without being steeped in references to classical civilsation or other areas of knowledge usually only accessible to the well-educated, I think achieves an even higher art. Of course, today, we don't hear the vulgarity that was in the Lyrical Ballads to a contemporary audience. What would be the equivalent today? Txt speak?! I hope not! This is something I am always thinking about and reformulating as it informs my own amateur writings, but there is no clear answer.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Wouldn't that mean that Beethoven's late quartets are not Art? That the Sistine frescoes were not Art until they were opened to the public? That James Joyce is still not Art?


I think that my point is nuanced by the above point. They are all still art, but I think the highest forms of art are those that make themselves appreciable to the largest possible audiences without sacrificing their beauty. Of course, I don't want to be so simplistic as to say that it is _purely_ a numbers game - there are many other factors - but what is the point of the artistry inherent in _Ulysses_ or something as finely wrought but even less famous when it is read by so few people? Art is part of culture; something that is not read or looked at or listened to _cannot_ be part of culture.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> This still leaves us with the idea that Ingres was not creating Art nor was Vermeer nor was Edmund Spenser or Virgil or Michel de Montaigne... while Lady Gaga and Spiderman II and the Harry Potter and Twilight novels were Art right from the start... although the question of how good that art is remains open to dispute. I would suggest that the masses are not the sole audience (nor even the main audience) who establish artistic merit.


I'm distinguishing two things here: one is artistic merit, and one is art as cultural impact. Something never seen by anyone but its creator could have the most artistic merit of anything on this earth, but without cultural impact it is not _Art_.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> But there are many who would argue against this. They would ask how it is that we can waste money, especially during times of economic unrest or shortages, teaching Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Michelangelo when students need to master practical skills related to getting a job.


Normally I would ignore such people because there is no getting through to them, and I'm sure you know plenty of inspiring rebuttals against the notion that we should focus our lives on working in meaningless jobs to raise money for food and mindless entertainment, keeping the corporate and economic machines spinning. We need something better than ourselves to look up to.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

_OK... I agree here. Obviously a public art form such as film is capable of reaching a far larger audience than a painting, which only exists in one place at one time and can only be seen by so many. There is also the question of the conceptual accessibility of the work of art. If we are honest we must recognize that without a degree of effort and education Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, T.S. Eliot remain largely inaccessible to many. Where I agree with you is in regard to the stance taken by many within the avant-garde in accepting the notion that the "problem" concerning accessibility is solely that of the audience's shortcomings... let alone those who take an openly hostile view of the audience as if they are all a bunch of morons unworthy of the artist's genius._

I'm glad we agree on this. Always, always, always, I return to the preface from the 1798 Lyrical Ballads on this question. It is undeniable that Shakespeare and Milton wrote great art, but the revolution of using 'vulgar' language, without being steeped in references to classical civilsation or other areas of knowledge usually only accessible to the well-educated, I think achieves an even higher art. Of course, today, we don't hear the vulgarity that was in the Lyrical Ballads to a contemporary audience. What would be the equivalent today? Txt speak?! I hope not! This is something I am always thinking about and reformulating as it informs my own amateur writings, but there is no clear answer.

But can we not say the same of many great writers? The early novelists challenged the artifice of the "romance" and the epic and poetry to create a narrative that was accessible to a wider readership. Dante wrote his masterwork using the "vulgari eloquentia", Chaucer turned his back on the French used at the royal court and employed the "vulgar" language of London English, and Shakespeare wrote for a public audience that was far more representative of the larger populace of England than the audience of John Donne or the courtly poets.

_Wouldn't that mean that Beethoven's late quartets are not Art? That the Sistine frescoes were not Art until they were opened to the public? That James Joyce is still not Art?_

I think that my point is nuanced by the above point. They are all still art, but I think the highest forms of art are those that make themselves appreciable to the largest possible audiences without sacrificing their beauty. Of course, I don't want to be so simplistic as to say that it is purely a numbers game - there are many other factors - but what is the point of the artistry inherent in Ulysses or something as finely wrought but even less famous when it is read by so few people? Art is part of culture; something that is not read or looked at or listened to cannot be part of culture.

Then how many people does a work of art need to be accessible to before it merits the highest level of consideration as art? You are seemingly placing art in the utilitarian service of politics and by doing this you forget two essential facts: the history of employing art for political aims has not been a story kind to many artists, and not all artists embrace the same political aims as yourself. You might be surprised to discover artists who are conservative extremists, Islamic militant extremists, Israeli militant extremists, anarchists, fascists, etc... The danger of judging art by non-art standards such as politics, religion, social class, etc... is what the "art pour l'art" movement set about to abandon.

_This still leaves us with the idea that Ingres was not creating Art nor was Vermeer nor was Edmund Spenser or Virgil or Michel de Montaigne... while Lady Gaga and Spiderman II and the Harry Potter and Twilight novels were Art right from the start... although the question of how good that art is remains open to dispute. I would suggest that the masses are not the sole audience (nor even the main audience) who establish artistic merit._

I'm distinguishing two things here: one is artistic merit, and one is art as cultural impact. Something never seen by anyone but its creator could have the most artistic merit of anything on this earth, but without cultural impact it is not Art.

This should lead you to ponder the cultural relevance of your beloved Brahms vs that of Lady Gaga or Madonna or the Harry Potter or Twilight novels.

_But there are many who would argue against this. They would ask how it is that we can waste money, especially during times of economic unrest or shortages, teaching Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Michelangelo when students need to master practical skills related to getting a job._

Normally I would ignore such people because there is no getting through to them, and I'm sure you know plenty of inspiring rebuttals against the notion that we should focus our lives on working in meaningless jobs to raise money for food and mindless entertainment, keeping the corporate and economic machines spinning. We need something better than ourselves to look up to.

And yet here you are... studying something with as little comparative cultural relevance as literature with the end goal of what? Producing more literature. Attaining a lovely professorial post in some liberal arts college. Certainly either of these will help immensely in eradicating starvation, war, and genocide in Africa and Latin-America. And how are you paying for this all? Through the assistance of the taxes levied against all those individuals leading meaningless lives and working meaningless jobs?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But can we not say the same of many great writers? The early novelists challenged the artifice of the "romance" and the epic and poetry to create a narrative that was accessible to a wider readership. Dante wrote his masterwork using the "vulgari eloquentia", Chaucer turned his back on the French used at the royal court and employed the "vulgar" language of London English, and Shakespeare wrote for a public audience that was far more representative of the larger populace of England than the audience of John Donne or the courtly poets.


I'm sure the same can be said of many writers (though I might quibble a tiny bit with your assessment of Chaucer), I just come back to the Ballads as a useful tool because the ideology of it all was laid out explicitly (when I said "revolution", I didn't mean to pinpoint it in time with Wordsworth and Coleridge; I meant to point to the general idea which has indeed manifested at various points throughout history).



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Then how many people does a work of art need to be accessible to before it merits the highest level of consideration as art? You are seemingly placing art in the utilitarian service of politics and by doing this you forget two essential facts: the history of employing art for political aims has not been a story kind to many artists, and not all artists embrace the same political aims as yourself. You might be surprised to discover artists who are conservative extremists, Islamic militant extremists, Israeli militant extremists, anarchists, fascists, etc... The danger of judging art by non-art standards such as politics, religion, social class, etc... is what the "art pour l'art" movement set about to abandon.


As I said, I don't mean to get into a numbers game because it's not an argument that can be rationally made. There is no magic number. Again, as I said, something never seen by more than one person can have the greatest artistic merit, but cultural impact increases with larger and larger audiences. So the artistic _value_ of something to a society (as opposed to its intrinsic skill) naturally increases with each extra person that it touches. I'm not quite sure where you gained the idea that I am therefore judging art through a political lens.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> This should lead you to ponder the cultural relevance of your beloved Brahms vs that of Lady Gaga or Madonna or the Harry Potter or Twilight novels.


Indeed, I know full well that Lady Gaga has much greater cultural relevance than Brahms, and it's a sad fact! But this brings us back to that line being trodden between artistic merit and cultural impact. Lady Gaga, Madonna and Harry Potter, as important as they are in our societies, sacrifice many of the traits found in the best of music and literature. With Brahms, however, what remains is _potential_ for cultural impact. It's not that his music is so obtuse that it's impregnable; the problem is that people aren't exposed to him; people aren't properly musically educated; people care more about the most immediate, visceral, commercial forms of entertainment. It's not a problem with Brahms's music. Inherent in this argument is a big flaw, I understand: could this not be true of any obscure work of art? That, no matter how difficult, it's just a question of educating the audience to increase its cultural impact? Well, for various reasons, I don't think that's always the case. I think it takes very different amounts of education to increase the cultural impact of different kinds of arts and styles, and the music of Brahms (and Romanticism in general) is something that can be made appreciable to large groups of people with very little education and effort. This cannot be said of many other types of music.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> And yet here you are... studying something with as little comparative cultural relevance as literature with the end goal of what? Producing more literature. Attaining a lovely professorial post in some liberal arts college. Certainly either of these will help immensely in eradicating starvation, war, and genocide in Africa and Latin-America. And how are you paying for this all? Through the assistance of the taxes levied against all those individuals leading meaningless lives and working meaningless jobs?


This is something I think about all the time, and it actually concerns me a great deal. I am often thinking about what I will do with my degree, but I know that it is culturally pointless. Very few people will ever come across any contributions I might happen to make; it's an academic vacuum that allows people with obscure literary passions to make a modest income off esoteric research. One way of bettering this, as you suggest, is writing my own literature. The professor/writer duality is indeed the thing that most appeals to me, with the writing being of _far_ more importance. That is what would give me cultural relevance which matters so much more.

A lot of the time, I think I would much rather be a physicist, pushing at the boundaries of human scientific knowledge. That too has comparatively little cultural relevance, but I think it is the grandest of all endeavours, so the trade-off is better. Would I be eradicating starvation and other woes? Of course not. I can do my best through charity, but I don't hold political power, and nor would I want to. But do the precious taxpayers, whose money I'm scrounging, do a better job of charitable work? Not at all, so I'm not quite sure what relevance that particular criticism has.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

_SLG-This should lead you to ponder the cultural relevance of your beloved Brahms vs that of Lady Gaga or Madonna or the Harry Potter or Twilight novels._

Indeed, I know full well that Lady Gaga has much greater cultural relevance than Brahms, and it's a sad fact! But this brings us back to that line being trodden between artistic merit and cultural impact. Lady Gaga, Madonna and Harry Potter, as important as they are in our societies, sacrifice many of the traits found in the best of music and literature. With Brahms, however, what remains is potential for cultural impact. It's not that his music is so obtuse that it's impregnable; the problem is that people aren't exposed to him; people aren't properly musically educated; people care more about the most immediate, visceral, commercial forms of entertainment.

Thus art is a two-way street. I agree with you concerning the extremes of the avant-garde that essentially ignore the audience... or even take a hostile position toward the audience... but at the same time art demands an effort on the part of the audience if it is to be appreciated. Some art forms and styles are more immediately accessible because we are continually exposed to them. Where the Expressionism of Van Gogh or Munch or Matisse or Max Beckmann initially shocked the audience, we have grown up exposed to similar "expressionist" distortions in cartoons, comic books, and advertising. Where the fragmentation of collage and montage and Cubism once left the audience baffled, we have grown up with MTV and the continual use of montage and editing in film, with collage and Cubist-inspired fragmentation in commercial art.

Ultimately there is the problem of education. The arts are virtually the first thing to be cut in times of financial unrest... both in schools, but also in the form of community outreach programs... programs that support free admission for poor children to the opera and orchestra... programs that bring working artist into the schools and community centers. Ironically, what is ignored by these fiscal conservatives is the amount of money gained for each tax-dollar/pound/euro spent in the form of tourist dollars, etc... Everyday thousands upon thousands stand in line on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, they pay for parking, they dine out in the city, they buy posters and books in the book shops, etc... but our moronic politicians are largely uncultured and inanely short-sighted. To them support of the arts is a largely "elitist" endeavor. They argue that the Oak Ridge Boys and Beyonce and Lady Gaga never need tax-payer support... and they reach a far larger audience. And often as artist we are our own worst enemies with avant-garde extremists openly showing disdain for the audience while holding out their hands for a hand-out to support their latest installation of excrement and used condoms or their latest concerto of electronic noises and fingers on the blackboard: "Dear Mr. Taxpayer; hand over that money. You wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. What am I planning on making with it? Don't you mind, now. Just run along. You're to stupid to recognize genius anyway. I'll call when I need another hand-out."

_And yet here you are... studying something with as little comparative cultural relevance as literature with the end goal of what? Producing more literature. Attaining a lovely professorial post in some liberal arts college. Certainly either of these will help immensely in eradicating starvation, war, and genocide in Africa and Latin-America. And how are you paying for this all? Through the assistance of the taxes levied against all those individuals leading meaningless lives and working meaningless jobs?_

This is something I think about all the time, and it actually concerns me a great deal. I am often thinking about what I will do with my degree, but I know that it is culturally pointless. Very few people will ever come across any contributions I might happen to make; it's an academic vacuum that allows people with obscure literary passions to make a modest income off esoteric research. One way of bettering this, as you suggest, is writing my own literature. The professor/writer duality is indeed the thing that most appeals to me, with the writing being of far more importance. That is what would give me cultural relevance which matters so much more.

Now you see, this never concerned me because I saw my role as an artist as being that of creating art. I never saw the role of the artist in socio-political terms.

There is a tale I read somewhere, possibly apocryphal, of the elderly W.B. Yeats visiting the creative writing department of an esteemed university where he is presented by the faculty with three students with a desire to become poets. Yeats asks each student, "Why do you want to be a poet?"

The first student responds that he has spent years studying the achievements of the great masters. He loves Homer and Virgil and Dante and Baudelaire and he has learned to master all the various forms of poetic meter and structure. As such he can see no higher goal than to join the ranks of these greats. The elder Yeats replies, "You do not have the passion of the poet but of the academic. I advise you to focus upon your beloved poets with the aim of gaining a position teaching... transmitting your love of poetry to the next generation."

He then turns to the next student. This student declares that his goal is to employ his abilities as a poet to draw attention to social inequalities, to racial strife, and to gender issues. He hopes that through his art he might help to alleviate war and rape and famine and poverty. Yeats replies, "You are not interested in poetry but in public service. My advise to you is to immediately change your major and focus upon going into the law, social work... or politics. You will have a thousand-fold more chance to impact society in this way that as a poet."

And then Yeats turned to the final young poet-in-making. She immediately declared, "poetry is the only thing that seems to make sense to me. Since I was a little child I have loved playing with words... and the sound of words. I have loved putting words together in unique combinations and even inventing words. Sometimes I don't even know what these words "mean" but they seem right to me... they suggest something I can't otherwise define."

Yeats say back and then speaking lowly said, "You may just be a poet... if you can keep at it regardless of what others think... If you can keep writing while struggling to hold down two meaningless jobs in order to support yourself... you may just be a poet."

Beyond this tale, I am reminded of Tolstoy's notorious disdain for Shakespeare. Much like his great predecessor, Plato writing after Homer, Tolstoy surely recognized that he could not surpass his great predecessor in aesthetic terms... and so the debate turned to morals. Tolstoy was a great moralist... a man who saw himself as a prophet. Shakespeare was an immoral writer. He paints the world as it is: good and evil. Good does not always come out on top. Evil is not always ignorant and ugly.

As an artist I am of Shakespeare's (and Homer's) side. I have been profoundly inspired by the ideas of _art pour l' art_... the rejection of the judgment on art based upon non-artistic concerns. Oscar Wilde, Theophile Gautier, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Proust, Rimbaud, Verlaine, de Nerval, Walter Pater hold far more interest for me than Tolstoy... the artist as prophet. I have seen far to often the dangers of judging art based upon politics, social concerns, or religion. Indeed, I rather swear by Wilde's introduction to Dorian Gray:

*The artist is the creator of beautiful things.* To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. *The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.*
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. *Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.* This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

*There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.*

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. *The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.* From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. *All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.* Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. *We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.*

A lot of the time, I think I would much rather be a physicist, pushing at the boundaries of human scientific knowledge. That too has comparatively little cultural relevance, but I think it is the grandest of all endeavours, so the trade-off is better. Would I be eradicating starvation and other woes? Of course not. I can do my best through charity, but I don't hold political power, and nor would I want to. But do the precious taxpayers, whose money I'm scrounging, do a better job of charitable work? Not at all, so I'm not quite sure what relevance that particular criticism has.

I teach is a poverty-ridden urban neighborhood. I did not choose education out of any noble calling. I saw it as a means of earning a living employing my love of art, perhaps passing this on to others, but ultimately leaving me adequate time to create my own work. My career has had those rare fulfilling moments: when a child suddenly "gets it" and want to come back; when a student comes back years later and looks me up and tells me how he or she is doing. But largely it is a career laden with frustration and stress. Over time it is also a career that has become increasingly politicized until teachers, who were once held among the highest esteem, are now blamed for a majority of societies woes and painted as underworked and overpaid. I would advise anyone thinking of a career in education to look elsewhere.

My experience has been valuable, however, in that it has given me a view of the realities of poverty and politics that goes far beyond any youthful idealistic views of egalitarianism... but also cuts through the ** of self-serving, greedy conservative extremists. There are aspects that both those on the Left and the Right have wrong... and have right.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Thanks for that wonderful post StLukes. I think my major problem is that I am all three of Yeats' students in roughly equal measure, rolled into one, and perhaps need to learn to separate my 'personalities'. This will give me much to mull over tonight.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I've been thinking about it some more this afternoon and wrote a little blog post to help me work things out. Here's the general gist, which pulls together some ideas I've already sown in this thread:

On reflection, I determined that I am in fact a mixture of all three types, in roughly equal measure, rolled into one. As a student of medieval literature, I am endlessly in love with the craftsmanship of the literary greats that precede me and, of course, in writing my own works I aspire to demonstrate a fraction of their skill. At the same time, as an engaged citizen of my society with firm beliefs about the fundamental nature of our world and the way people ought to be respectfully treated, I feel the urge to fight my cause with whatever methods I can, one of those being art. And it should go without saying that I have an intense passion for the playfulness and sonic joy of words. Part of my fascination with evolutionary musicology is the interplay of linguistics and music, which in turn has a significant impact on the poetry and music I write.

But regardless of my outlook, is a fulfilment of all these roles at the same time possible? And are they all the roles that exist for the artist? I’m inclined to believe that most of us would be a mixture of all of them, able to combine them too, and there is certainly precedence for this. Percy Shelley said that poets are unacknowledged legislators given the power that socially reflective literature can have; it’s also clear enough that many writers frequently acknowledged their predecessors, striving to emulate them while retaining a unique voice; and all of this is achieved without sacrificing the essential beauty of the art.

So, I see myself instead fulfilling a fourth role not mentioned in the anecdote; one that would not have been thought relevant or even possible before our own time. It comes from the fact that I frequently see myself as a wayward scientist and am sometimes concerned about my choice of vocation, yearning instead to be a physicist pushing at the boundaries of human knowledge (that sounds fanciful, but it was once a possibility). Because of this, I have an intense fascination not for what is beautiful about human creations, but for what is beautiful about our world, specifically in scientific rather than purely aesthetic terms. This is something that, to date, art has not fully exploited, preferring amorphous mystery over intricate explanation. So I hope to write for the sheer pleasure of creation; for the sense of elated achievement when I manage skilful execution; and to demonstrate to society that science is one of our most precious endeavours, and that the method that underlies it should inform our thinking in all areas far more than it does today.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Someone please let me know when the abridged version of page 2 is available.


"sign the Mona Lisa with a spray can, call it art..."


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

It's not just works of art - think about this - people are stealing MANHOLE COVERS to sell for scrap, in fact the theft of anything metal has increased alarmingly. Just imagine cruising down main street going home from the opera and your left wheel/tire hits a deep hole designed for a grown man to climb down. Hello Earth's Core. 

Edit: I responded to the OP before looking around the curve in the road. I read all of your dialogue StLukes and Polednice and enjoyed it very much. Lots of things to think about, indeed.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Most, if not all, "new public art" that I've seen is garbage by any definition. For instance, would theft and/or recycling of something like this be such a bad thing?

All in unison now..."NO!" LOL










Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*@ Nighthawk *- Yes, the stealing of metal from many sources is an issue here Down Under as well. Must be some kind of price hike in the metals markets that have bought this on? Let's hope it's artificial and things will get back to normal.

*@ Vaneyes *and others sceptical of good public art works. There are many here in Australia, many good ones. Some duds as well, but that's life. The best ones are site-specific, relating to the history of the site or the local community, etc. Some as simple as mosaics set in street pavings, mosaics about local identities or places of significance.

Eg. like THIS, next to Eveleigh railway yards, where the trains were made in c19th buildings which are still there.

Or it can be whimsical, like "the purse" in Melbourne, a comment on consumer society, perhaps?










Or the Edge of trees outdoor instillation in front of the site of Sydney's first government house (now the Museum of Sydney), a collaboration between two artists, one of them being Aboriginal. The poles are inscribed with Aboriginal words and hold plastic boxes of things like shells which they used to trade, and there is also sounds of words spoken in Aboriginal local dialect coming out of the poles from inbuilt speakers, if I remember correctly...


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## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

Sid James said:


> *@ Nighthawk *- Yes, the stealing of metal from many sources is an issue here Down Under as well. Must be some kind of price hike in the metals markets that have bought this on? Let's hope it's artificial and things will get back to normal.


Huge price hike but I'm surprised it's a problem down under if I was a metal thief (I'm not) I'd steal from the mining companies there but perhaps I'm to adventurous. I've had to move some of my jewelry out of the house as people have been targeting house's like ours looking for gold to melt down. I quite liked the stolen piece, it hans't turned up on *eBay* so I fear it will be melted down.


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## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

kv466 said:


> Someone please let me know when the abridged version of page 2 is available.
> 
> "sign the Mona Lisa with a spray can, call it art..."


I LOL'd :lol:

Bad news that is the abridged version... :tiphat:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Someone please let me know when the abridged version of page 2 is available.

:lol: I did make mention that Proust is one of my favorites, so I do not fully accept the notion that brevity is the soul of wit. Besides... I don't think the Bard half believed that himself. :lol:


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> *@ Vaneyes *and others sceptical of good public art works. There are many here in Australia, many good ones. Some duds as well, but that's life. The best ones are site-specific, relating to the history of the site or the local community, etc. Some as simple as mosaics set in street pavings, mosaics about local identities or places of significance.


Of course you're right, Sid. One of few favorites is The Wave in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Appreciation for its function, more than appearance. I enjoyed seeing how much fun kids were having while riding it.


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