ginnboonmiller wrote:[in honest response to my question of whether he was judging Williams based on his own taste] Yes, as far as I'm concerned. I think that's true for all of us.
This is the nut of the issue, I think, and it comes up in a range of other art discussions.
It is quite common for non-intelligentsia to complain about the art of the intelligentsia, but without any understanding of what makes the art worthy in the first place beyond what they like.
I would expect an academic in the arts to be concerned about what makes art worthy, so as to construct theoretical models of same for further study. That makes it possible to contextualize art so that others can learn its value and begin to appreciate it. That's what academics do, it seems to me--put knowledge in context to make advancement possible. I would expect a mere practitioner not to construct models, but to exemplify the principles meaningful to that artist. They would leave it to others to construct the model of their work, if it's worth the effort. They probably don't care about it much. Trying to create art on the basis of a model is challenging, and trying to criticize art without those models is fruitless.
I suspect that much of the complaining about mere practitioners by those who have deeply thought through some of those models is that they become committed to the models in ways the practitioner does not care about. For those critical thinkers, that robs the result of its value. But I would still expect the critical thinker to be able to describe why the art doesn't fit the model, and why the model is valid even when widely appreciated art doesn't fit it.
And it has been shown in the theory of criticism in other arts that what we consider worthy in art is built on the sum of our experience with art. So, worthiness in art moves with the times, building on what went before. Many contemporary forms of art can only be appreciated after building up to it by learning to appreciate prior forms. Those who have studied those prior forms sufficiently to build that appreciation may look down their nose at those who don't care to learn to appreciate contemporary stuff, of course. And academics are professional studiers, so they are most likely to have trod that path. But part of being an academic is contextualizing that contemporary stuff so that it can be understood as a step in a series, rather than being "good" versus "bad". And when art form progresses in that fashion, as it must because appreciation is built in layers on appreciation for prior forms, the notion that someone's musical techniques (as opposed to their tangible compositions) could be stolen becomes a little hard to support. It may be re-appropriated and given a new context that is separately meaningful.
I fear that in efforts to validate the latest contemporary work, we feel compelled to lose our appreciation for music that does not explore that limit. We become committed to the notion that art is and must be revolutionary. Practitioners are almost required to hold that notion--it's what drives them to innovate. But academics should see things a little more broadly, it seems to me. When academics practice, they have to overcome their models so that what they are expressing is not mere theory.
Maybe a different art form will help illustrate my point without further goring any local oxen.
What about a painter who paints in the Impressionistic style? That style is over a century old at this point. It was itself a reaction to Romantic representation. Modern art was the revolution that overcame Impressionism. And Post-Modern art has supplanted Modern art. Even "Po-Mo" art is now half a century old. It is quite common for a person who appreciates Mark Rothko, or Jasper Johns, or Barnett Newman, or even Jackson Pollack to disregard artists like Andrew Wyeth. And given that it takes quite a lot of study to appreciate those post-modernists, those who have that appreciation are often academics. And I've heard them say all the same things about Wyeth that I have seen you write about Williams. For them, art must have a certain kind of metaphysical, psychological, nihilistically emotional, or political relevance that they see lacking in Wyeth's work. Those features are now part of their model of what makes art worthy, and they judge art on the basis of those features. That's what academics are paid to do: Give us ways to contextualize art. That's what makes it possible to develop appreciation for art beyond one's current level of development. It would be good if they could do so without negatively judging art that was made according to a different, even if they consider it out-dated, model of worthiness.
So, which do you like more of the two attached images, both painted in the same year, by artists of similar age who came to their artistic maturity at about the same time, and who lived within 200 miles of each other? Which of these painting is more
worthy? Does either one rip off prior forms or art?
Christina's World Andrew Wyeth, 1948.
Onement 1 Barnett Newman, 1948.
Rick "who sees art at multi-streamed and evolutionary, which makes 'ripping off' a required feature of advancement, even by those who think they are starting over from scratch" Denney
