Studying the life and work of Tolstoy to make an argument for the importance of understanding “populist art.”
Select passages from Vol. 4 of Arnold Hauser’s The Social History of Art:
“The entire philosophical speculation of the Russian hinges on [the problem of individual liberty] and the danger of moral relativism; the specter of anarchy, the chaos of crime, occupy and frighten all the Russian thinkers. The Russians see the great and crucial European question of the estrangement of the individual from society, the loneliness and isolation of modern man, as the problem of freedom” (142).
“The Slavophil inclinations of the radicals are to be explained above all by the fact that the Russians, still in the earliest stages of capitalism, are muchmore homogeneousas a nation, that is to say, much less divided by class differences, than the peoples of the West” (141).”
“The disintegration of the personality, in which the emotional conflict goes so far that the individual is no longer clear about his own motives and becomes a problem to himself, does not take place until the beginning of the last century. The concomitants of modern capitalism, romanticism and the estrangement of the individual from society first create the consciousness of spiritual dissension and hence the modern problematical character” (144).
“Tolstoy…rejects individualism on purely rational and eudaemonist grounds; personal detachment from society can bring no happiness and no satisfaction; he can find comfort and contentment only in self-denial and in devotion to others” (158).
“[Tolstoy] condemns modern culture on account of the differentiation and segregation which it produces, and the art of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Pushkin, because it splits men up into different strata instead of uniting them” (160).
“In spite of his prejudices and errors, Tolstoy represents an enormous revolutionary force. His fight against the lies of the police state and the Church, his enthusiasm for the community of the peasantry and the example of his own life are, whatever may have been the inner motives of his ‘conversion’ and his ultimate flight, among the ferments which undermined the old society and promoted not merely the Russian revolution but also the anti-capitalist revolutionary movement in the whole of Europe” (161).
“…[W]hile working at Anna Karenina, he loses [his] optimism, and above all his belief in art, which he declares to be absolutely useless, indeed harmful, unless it renounces the refinements and subtleties of modern naturalism and impressionism and turns a luxury article into the universal possession of mankind. In the estrangement of art from the broad masses and the restriction of its public to an ever smaller circle Tolstoy had recognized a real danger….Tolstoy’s rejection of the highly developed and refined art of the present, and his fondness for the primitive ‘universally human’ forms of artistic expression, is a symptom of the same Rousseau-ism with which he plays off the village against the town and identifies the social question with that of the peasantry…. [Thus] Tolstoy’s relationship to art can only be understood as the symptom of a historic change, as the sign of a development which brings the aesthetic culture of the nineteenth century to an end and a generation to the fore that judges art once again as the mediator of ideas” (165).
Thanks to the work of Tolstoy, it is now possible for me to move forward on an idea that I’d been kicking around for awhile. I had been looking to make the needed distinction between popular art and populist art, and Tolstoy’s communitarian-based critique allows me to do that. By in effect recognizing community to be the fount of individual character, Tolstoy is insisting that individual aesthetic preferences are the derivation of community aesthetic preferences. It is only when community breaks down that individual aesthetic preferences become distinct from those of the community. That breakdown is the result of market and nation-building forces’ penetration of both the public and private spheres of social life. As this occurs, the individual is less influenced by the cultural tradition of his community — its symbols, ideals, and ways of life — and thus is enabled to adopt what he believes to be his own self-wrought aesthetic preferences. Unfortunately, self-wrought aesthetic taste generally ends up being corporate-wrought aesthetic taste. For what might be termed populist culture has been usurped by pseudo-culture (popular culture) — mass-marketed products generated by the culture industries. Art once conceived as the language of tradition is transformed into a medium of exchange-value-driven manipulation — the voice of profits, not prophets. Art becomes another commodity, a tool of instrumental reason, divested of all autonomy.
Populist art would in effect be a retrieval of non-commodified tradition--culture left untrammeled by state and corporate forces. Shoring up those traditions entails a rehabilitation of community, thus allowing tradition to do its work. In doing so, the end result would be the reconstitution of true, community-embodied selves and the delimiting of manipulation. To apply Tolstoyan terminology, one might say that taste would be henceforth not perverted by counterfeit art, and the likelihood of infection enhanced.
Arnheim’s work on perception could also be incorporated into a populist conception of art. As Arnheim has noted, an observer’s wishes and tastes influence their perception (24–25). This is an allusion, I believe, to culture, which would shape those hopes and fears. A fundamental component of culture is religious belief or tradition. Given this, I’d argue that the unspoken perception that preoccupies Arnheim is a religious perception, which according to Tolstoy is relative to a given “age.” One might then conclude that cultural changes produce changes in an individual’s perception. Tolstoy wants to argue, however, that modern art does not reflect the religious perception of its age. While changes have indeed occurred, they have happened at a level that has not destroyed the potentiality of infection. The assumption of change is what produces counterfeit art. Modern art thus lacks sincerity.
Hume, it seems to me, provides the foundational logic for the “anything goes” approach to art. Hume’s “common sense” theory lacks common sense. For common sense assumes a standard that the individual brings into an aesthetic experience. Hume' would like us to believe that we arrive at this experience free of any cultural “baggage,” and thus the experience is the “all” of what we derive. There is no interplay between an already-constituted self and the art form. The experience, according to Hume, informs the self. Since, according to Hume, we all experience art in the same way (provided we speak the same language and are free of deformed sense organs), our standards of appreciation are likely to be the same. What differences we do have are only “humours” and not impediments to the universality that Hume seeks. Ignored are the differences that exist among a people of even the same language. These differences often prove to be substantial, viz. the American Civil War and current culture wars. Tolstoy’s “out” is religious perception that demands standards and submits criteria. Hume' in effect dodges both. Both men, however, are wrong-headed in their attempts to subsume particularity — the very essence of culture. Thus even Tolstoy’s religious perception must be regarded as culturally-specific.
Taylor’s acknowledgment of the tension that exists between the individual subject as artist and the object relations that he lives within is a welcome innoculation against Hume’s empirical approach to art. The art-historical context is given its due. While I would agree with Tolstoy that one need not be an expert to appreciate art — to be infected, as he puts it — understanding our present dilemma does require a study of art history--even of what Tolstoy might refer to as “counterfeit-art history.” The study of art may not necessarily enhance one’s aesthetic experience, but it does abet a situating of the self, as does the study of any aspect of history. This sort of understanding of ourselves and where we are located within our communities may in fact heighten one’s perception, which could then potentially impact one’s appreciation, albeit indirectly.
Every gushing opposition is characterized by the fact that on occasion it perceptively exposes the contradictions of capitalist society, that it combats them with genuine embitterment and apt mockery, but also by the fact that it is incapable of comprehending the essence of this society. In most cases this results in an exaggerating distortion of the problems and leads to a point where true criticism turns into a social untruth.” — George Lukacs
With this paper, I will be going against the grain of what I believe to be the general direction or drift that this class has taken with respect to aesthetic critique. By this I mean that instead of focusing on the formal elements or aspects of a given painting, I will address the issue of context, which, as Joshua Taylor has noted, has the potential of “sharpen[ing] our awareness of the subtleties of [an artist’s] vocabulary and often reveal[ing] new content which to our direct view may not have been accessible” (139).
My adoption of this particular tack reflects the frustration that I have experienced thus far in attempting to adopt a personal criteria by which to judge art. While a few of our readings have ameliorated some of my frustration, our recent sojourn to the Art Institute only served to pique that frustration once again. For still missing from our face-to-face meetings with our chosen masterpieces was any reference to a given artist’s life — his or her times, whom he or she associated with, whom their influences may have been, and so on. In other words, the sort of stuff Taylor elaborated upon in his discussion of the French painter Jacques Louis David (140–8). It is here that the author addresses the important question related to the subject of art-historical context; that is, “How much of the artist’s style is his own, and how much does it simply hold in common with the time” (140)? It is questions like these that most most interest me, and while Taylor certainly acknowledges their immanent centrality to aesthetic critique, the fact that he accords such concerns second-class status. I guess this is where I would differ with those who would claim that Taylor’s book is devoid of ideology, or free of a particular ax that the author sees fit to grind. Because, after all, the privileging of one area of aesthetics over another (e.g., form over content/context) could hardly be characterized as free from controversy; and it’s my estimate that Taylor is taking a side in this controversy via Learning to Look.
Obviously our trip imposed certain unavoidable logistical restrictions upon what we could actually examine at the Art Institute; that doesn’t mean, however, that it wouldn’t have been “nice” to have had some art-historical context injected into our analyses, nor, I hasten to add, would it be so “horrible” to make this area of inquiry part of our presentations.
In light of our recent trip, I’d like to outline a “counter-experience” to what we had, which I would appreciate some feedback on:
Pick just one artist whose work interests you and you’d like to know more about
Obtain biographical and autobiographical works on or by the particular artist
Research the movement that the artist may have been associated with
Research the history of the times and places that the painter worked in
And then finally unite all of the above with the formal tools obtained via our class readings and discussion
It’s my contention that if one doesn’t take steps similar to these, our analyses remains at the level of style only, and thus we miss the artist’s outlook and ultimately fail to truly appreciate his body of work.
This is not, however, the method I used to critique Blume’s painting, ‘The Rock.” I did implement the method when viewing the overly-hyped Georgia O’Keefe exhibit some years ago, which I thought was a perfect antidote to the “sight-bites” that most fellow attendants seemed perfectly happy with. And in the end I unmistakably benefited from the enhanced experience that my method brought me. Unfortunately, as I just noted, the exigencies attached to this particular paper prevented me from adopting this holistic approach here. But in my view, with Blume, not much is lost in the process. For in a way the painting “speaks for itself,” to borrow the rather worn cliche; and a deeper examination, while certainly potentially providing us with added insight, may not in the end contribute all that much to an analysis of such a transparent work.
Now before criticizing me for seemingly contradicting myself so brazenly, let me explain. As I see it, there is something about the very nature of Blume’s painting that mitigates the need for a deeper examination. And this I believe is its overt political message.
As the caption in our book tells us, Blume was responding to the aftermath of World War II, in particular, I suspect, to the devastation that was was wreaked upon Europe. The depiction of people of various nationalities in the painting would seem to lend credence to this observation. Moreover, given the extent of the destruction portrayed, in particular the leafless trees in the background, it might be argued that Blume had some knowledge of atomic bombs. The damaged Coca-Cola sign in the foreground would seem to implicate America at some level as well. In fact, it’s difficult to ignore the feeling that the painting doesn’t so much depict a European apocalypse as an American one, with “the rock” at the center perhaps being a European apocalypse as an American one, with “the rock” at the center perhaps being a metaphor for the atomic bomb, and the rest of the painting symbolizing what the United States may in the future reap as a result of what it was (in 1948) in the process of sowing. Minus any biographical data on Blume, one can only speculate on such matters. But if we recall the early documentary film of U.S. nuclear tests, sampled in contemporary agit-prop films like “Atomic Cafe,” placing “The Rock” within this context does not seem so far-fetched.
With this much in mind, clearly Blume’s painting is meant to convey an anti-war message--be it nuclear, or what we now refer to as “conventional.” This is what I meant earlier by the “transparency” of this painting. Its politics are loud and clear. And at this point I’d like to return to the quote of Lukacs’s that I began my paper with. I would argue that Blume’s painting epitomizes the sort of art that Lukacs finds problematic. His argument is rendered particularly salient in light of the hindsight acquired in the fifty years that have elapsed since the work was completed. Not only has Europe successfully rebuilt itself, but he Cold War is over; and with the U.S.S.R. having been perestroiked out of existence, the threat of nuclear Holocaust and the much-anticipated reign of the “road warrior” have been dispensed with into the dustbin of history. Blume’s painting was an “exaggerating distortion” in the forties, to use Lukacs’s words, and must certainly today be regarded as a depiction of a “social untruth.”
What Blume’s painting gives the lie to and what Lukacs criticizes is the notion that art can be effectively used as an instrument of or for political expression. In effect, art in the hands of the likes of Blume is a tool — one other media by which to coax people out of their apolitical stupor. Unbeknownst to Blume and apparently a good number of his students, the idea of “using” art for a political end negates what art must forever be: useless. By this I mean “autonomous,” and free from the instrumentalizing effects of capitalism, whereby the logos of the market — its “means-ends” rationality--is resisted. By turning art into what amounts to a banner, albeit without the requisite slogans inscribed upon it, Blume and company not only fail in their attempts to resist capitalism, they merely mirror a process that is constantly going on behind their backs: the commodification of culture. Art during the “hyper-capitalist” phase of market society is not only flattened into a means by which products are sold, but it becomes a product itself, mass-manufactured and advertised. Thus, we not only hear Baroque music being used to sell beer, but we find reproduction after reproduction of original works being sold to “middle-brow” consumers. “Art” is now everywhere but may as well be nowhere. Instead of retaining its uselessness to society, art reverts back to its original form. In ancient societies art was used to impart tradition and to serve ritual purposes; today, however, it is devoid of tradition and serves a myriad of purposes, none of which escape the reach of the many-tentacled market.
The concept of autonomous art, outlined above, and propagated my more than a few critics and practitioners, does not stand freely from its own immanently-derived critique, however. If taken to its logical conclusion, autonomous art must forever be dodging the co-opting capacity of what T.W. Adorno has termed the “culture industries.” In music, it is referred to as a musician or band resisting the temptation to “sell-out”; that is, signing a contract with a major recording corporation, and thus refusing to compose dissonant music. In art, works become more and more abstract or absurd. In the end, both “alternative” music and other so-called “bohemian” or “counter-cultural” art forms either find themselves limited to complete obscurity, and are therefore ignored; or they become caught up in the desire to “shock” society “by whatever means necessary.” Neither trend is very conducive to a much-needed theory of art. In the first case, the relationship between art and society is nullified, and in the second, it is reduced to a pseudo-conflict. A revised theory of art, it seems to me, needs to pose an alternative to both of these flawed aesthetics. And this is where the title of my paper comes in.
For all of his book’s flaws, Tolstoy’s What Is Art? at least points us in the direction of a third way. For not only does Tolstoy have the gall to insist on criteria by which we are to judge art, he has the wisdom to remind us that art has had an intimate historical relationship with cultural tradition. He understood, in my view, that art must have an intimate relationship with the society from which it emerged. Not only that, but he recognized that art should not have a relationship with only the elite of society. In other words, he thought that art could have and should have mass appeal, but in doing so did not have to be reduced to the pablum of mass culture.
One artist who seems to be in this vein is Thomas Hart Benton, a painter best known for his murals of the 1930’s. A writer of similar temperament would be James Agee, author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Benton’s vision--the hope for an art rooted the regional and local cultures of the United States--, along with the tradition of writing represented by Agee and others--a “tradition that is native, rooted in local customs, and challenging in form and substance” — should be held up against the political Right’s glorification of “patriotic” art, as well as the likes of Blume and others, who for all intents and purposes kowtow to the avant-garde. As my friend Kevin Mattson has written, “A populist culture should be neither dismissive of people’s values nor degenerate into schmaltz.” And that native American tradition is out there, just waiting to be recovered. This paper should be regarded as a gingerly-laid step in the direction of that very process.
