An artistic dialog
Tom- With all your great readings you still haven't figured it out yet with your absurd subservience to either pop trivia or inane patterns! So go ahead , do another fucking. Elvis !!
-Double Elvis, Ron English
Me- What you have failed to grasp is that subject matter is wholly irrelevant to aesthetic merit. Certainly, it is important to the artist... we must be interested... even obsessed with our chosen subject... and it is important to our understanding of the "meaning"...what the work is about... but in no way is it a measure of quality.
It is naive to think that we might easily create works of great profundity simply by choosing the right subject matter: grandiose narratives and tragic themes. Cezanne, Chardin, and Morandi created masterful works of art from simple everyday still life objects: apples, oranges, and empty bottles. Giorgione, Boucher, Degas, and Modigliani created equally marvelous paintings that at their heart were nothing more than pictures of pretty girls... nude.
"I think it is one of the artist's obligations to create as perfectly as he or she can, not regardless of all other consequences, but in full awareness, nevertheless, that in pursuing other values -- in championing Israel or fighting for the rights of women, or defending the faith, or exposing capitalism, supporting your sexual preferences, or speaking for your race -- you may simply be putting on a saving scientific, religious, political mask to disguise your failure as an artist. Neither the world's truth nor a god's goodness will win you beauty's prize."
Yes, even "lowly" Pop Culture can provide the themes for Art that can at time rise to the highest level. Horse races...
...burlesque and strippers...
...the operetta, ballet, and theater...
...and whore houses, etc...
-Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
How many masters of Modernism built upon these themes? The French Academy of the 18th and 19th century argued for a hierarchy of art, suggesting that certain themes made one work of art inherently better than another. By this measure, a grand historical painting was inherently better than a landscape. Is it?
The Benjamin West isn't bad, albeit a bit too melodramatic, but personally I find the Turner painting far greater, and I suspect you do as well.
The notion of the hierarchy of art went so far as to suggest that the portrait of an aristocrat... a king or queen or emperor was inherently superior to a portrait of the average person. Again... is this true? Is this portrait of Marie de' Medici by Peter Paul Rubens...
... in any way superior to this painting... also by Rubens... of his first wife?
So why would you assume that a portrait of Elvis might not be a great work of art. Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Max Beckmann and others painted portraits of popular singers of their day. Many of Yousuf Karsh' most iconic photographs were of popular film actresses:
All of this is true because "meaning" in a work of art does not lie in the subject matter. Indeed, I hate the very term, "meaning" because when someone asks what a painting "means"... or a middle-school teacher tries to explain what a poem "means"... they are attempting to reduce the experience of a work of art to an easily digestible definition... a sound-bite. "Meaning" in the experience of any work of art lies in the experience itself. In many instances "meaning" is either non-existent or almost impossible to define. What is the "meaning" of this:
Oh, I know what the subject matter is, but what is the "meaning" that makes this painting so profound?
Or what is the "meaning" of this?
I don't rush to the end of a novel or a symphony so I can "get it". "Meaning" in art lies in the experience itself just as does "meaning" in life. It's the experience itself not some reward at the end.
The aesthetic or artistic value of a work of art lies in its form... in HOW the subject... whatever it is... is realized and subsequently experienced by the audience.
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T.S. Eliot's Wasteland was an elegy to what he saw as the decline of Western Civilization due to the decline of relevance of "High Art" and the loss of a shared "high/serious" narratives. What Eliot failed to see... like yourself, Tom... and what he would have despised even more had he recognized it... was that he was not witnessing the end of a shared culture/shared narratives. Rather, he was seeing the rise of the new popular/populist narratives. These were becoming more relevant as a combined result of mass production and mechanical reproduction of art (especially music, film, literature, and photography) which was making popular art increasingly accessible and the Industrial Revolution, which led to a population that was increasingly literate, educated, and had the luxury of spare time and money to spend.
In the 1700s (and before) there were certainly popular folk singers. But they would have only been accessible to the audience who frequented the taverns and fairs where they performed. Without the ability to "record" let alone broadcast their music, it failed to reach a broader audience or traverse time. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven, on the other hand, were able to "record" their music through written scores. As such, their music could travel across Europe during their life-time... and survive the ages and travel across the globe.
With the innovation of sound-recording and audio transmission (radio, TV, etc...) musicians who would have lived out their lives in relative obscurity, and then be forgotten, were suddenly able to reach a larger audience... and see their efforts (if worthy) survive time. The term "Classical Music" (as applied to the whole of music written out and scored by composers mostly in the service of the wealthy and the aristocracy), first came into common usage at this time. It was an attempt to convey a value judgment: the music of the wealthy and the aristocracy was deemed "classic"... "great"... while the rest was not. But time has not shared this judgment. Is Johann Strauss II ("the Waltz King") or Borodin or Francesco Geminiani or Johann Fasch or Louis Spohr or Anatoly Lyadov really greater than Duke Ellington or Miles Davis... or even Johnny Cash? I don't think so. J.S. Bach and Mozart may be greater... but they are greater than almost anyone... other “classical” composers as well. The best of popular music... and the popular arts as a whole... has survived and will continue to survive and enter the ranks of the "classics". Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and Johnny Cash and Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” continue to have an audience... many born well after those artists enjoyed their peak... or even after they have died. They are studied in courses in college. I suspect they will far outlast any number of "serious" classical composers like Xenakis, Ligeti, Stockhausen, etc...
With time it has been recognized that judgment of aesthetic worth is no longer reserved for the "elite"... the aristocracy, the rich, and their servants. Works of art enter into the "canon" or the "classics" as a result of the opinions of 3 different audiences: the "Experts", subsequent artists, and the art audience. All of these audiences involve individuals who have put forth time and effort in the study, appreciation, interpretation, and even preservation of given art forms. The "Experts" would include professors and other academics, curators, critics, historians, etc... the "Art Lovers" are comprised of the passionate and informed audience of given art forms... the "Artists" are obvious.
Some artists enter the canon based upon the unanimous opinion of all of these audiences. Shakespeare, Mozart, Monet and many others are beloved by the "experts", subsequent artists, and the larger audience of art/music/literature lovers alike. Others enter the canon based upon the opinions of one or two of these audiences. Edmund Spenser and James Joyce survive and are deemed canonical based largely upon the opinions of the "experts"... and to a lesser extent, subsequent artists/writers. The novels of Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, and Dracula remain canonical based almost wholly upon the opinions of the audience of readers.
What is interesting, Tom, is that you virtually despise all three of these audiences... and there's a sort of comic element there. Perhaps, instead of reading all those dry historical texts, you should be reading 18th and 19th century German philosophy. Johann Herder might be of interest. He was one of the first to put forth the notion of the new strata of modern society. He posited that there were three primary groups: the Aristocracy & Ruling Class, the Intellectuals, and "das Volk" or the "bourgeoisie". Artists might fall into any one of these groups. There were writers, painters, and composers who came from the aristocracy or ruling classes; there were artists who were certainly "intellectuals", and there were artists who were of "das Volk". The intellectuals themselves, Herder recognized, were in most instances members of "das Volk" themselves or das Volk der Gelehrsamkeit (the folk or people of learning) Unlike some Romantic-era artists and thinkers, Herder did not dismiss or despise “das Volk" or the bourgeois. Rather, he called them "the Salt of the Earth"... the most useful segment of society. Herder added a fourth grouping... a sub-category of "das Volk" that he termed "the Rabble". What separated them from the rest of "das Volk" was their ignorance and socio-political impotence. Herder didn't blame the Rabble themselves, but rather argued that they were the "harvest of persistent and wilful neglect" by the ruling elite"... and to a lesser extent, "das Volk"... who failed... often intentionally... to properly educate these individuals.
Tom, you argue that the Popular/Populist art... that which aims for a larger audience... is crude and vulgar. That may be true of much of it. But I would also point out that while a great deal of Popular/Populist art may be crude and vulgar, an equal percentage of what passes as "High Art" is dry, academic, ossified... and largely irrelevant. Picasso recognized this. Picasso was THE Modernist par excellence in part due to his recognition of the paradigm shift wrought by the 20th century.
Robert Hughes begins his classic text on Modernism, The Shock of the New, by looking at an academic sculpture intended to memorialize an automobile race. The work was wholly, albeit unintentionally comic, in that the artist attempted to employ a 19th century vocabulary to the 20th century event. The car race... all about blurred motion... speed, smoke, and dust... were represented as a static, monumental marble sculpture was ridiculous as the old concepts of time and space came apart.
Picasso recognized not merely the new realities of time and space which would fuel Cubism... but also the new realities of the dichotomy of "High" and "Low" Art. Famously, Picasso suggested that while Popular Art was often "Low" and "Vulgar", he also recognized that Art left to the academies... the "elite"... soon became stagnant, academic, and ossified. He argued that the finest Art was always created in the same way in which the Italian Renaissance Aristocracy created their children... through a merger of "High-born" and "Low." We have now reached a point in time where the boundaries between "High" and "Low" have become so blurred as to be meaningless.
This paradigm shift of Modernism which T.S. Eliot dreaded, Picasso embraced, and you (Tom) despise, is not something without precedent. With the fall of the Roman Empire the world witnessed a move away from a shared culture based primarily upon the Greco-Roman Mythology and Historical Narratives. These narratives had grown rich and sophisticated over the centuries... but many of these narratives and individual characters were replaced/transformed/absorbed by the new cultural power: the Christian Church.
Our image of God with his flowing white beard flying through the clouds comes straight from Jove/Jupiter. Apollo, the Sun God/God of Healing/Shepherd became Jesus, the Light, the healer, and the "good shepherd". Michelangelo's Jesus comes right out of the muscular images of Apollo such as the famous Apollo Belvedere.
Christmas... marking the birth of the new God was assigned to late December... replacing the Winter Solstice, marking the birth of the new year as the days become longer pointing toward Spring. Easter, celebrating the rebirth of Christ replaced the pagan holiday of Spring Festival celebrating the rebirth of nature.
Many of the popular narratives of the Modern/Post-Modern era build upon/allude to/replace narratives of the previous "High" narratives of Western Civilization. What is Superman if not a new Christ/Apollo? Wonder Woman, the Amazon whose name is Diana, combines elements of Artemis/Diana and the male God of War, Mars. Is it surprising that Wonder Woman/Diana is often linked... even Romantically... with Superman just as the Greco/Roman Diana was often linked with Apollo?
How many can identify this goddess? Can you?
But I know you... and anyone else... can recognize her:
If art is to have an audience it must employ a language comprehensible to that audience. If your attitude to simply give them the finger and say "Fuck the audience," then you shouldn't be the least surprised when the audience says "Fuck you," in return.
As "meaning" or rather aesthetic merit of a work of art lies in the form of the work... the work itself and not some imagined profundity of the subject matter... why not paint Elvis... or anything you like? Of course if you desire to hold firm to your attitude and to simply give the audience finger and say "Fuck them all!” then you can also paint whatever you like... or whatever you suspect will offend the audience... but again this doesn't strike me as likely to result in an audience embracing your work in return... and unless your passion is really for creating such art... for the given subjects... I'd find myself asking what is the purpose?
