Comments on: Art and the Right http://newledger.com/2009/10/art-and-the-right/ The New Ledger on News, Politics, and Market issues of the day. Welcome to the Know. Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:51:04 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: micahmattix http://newledger.com/2009/10/art-and-the-right/comment-page-1/#comment-1031 micahmattix Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:57:49 +0000 http://newledger.com/?p=19629#comment-1031 Chris:<br><br>Of course artists come from both sides of the fence and sometimes sit on it. That was not my point. It was that the *majority* of *contemporary* artists and critics are left-leaning and that most conservatives are overly dismissive of contemporary art *as a whole* because of this. No doubt there are exceptions, but a quick skimming of almost any art history that deals with the 20th and 21st century, or a visit to almost any major museum or art center, will confirm this leftist influence. <br><br>And I would leave Darwinian terms out of any discussion of art history. Natural selection did not give us "traditional skills" that allowed us to "dig deeper into the human condition," and art does not progress through evolutionary leaps, as you seem to imply. Chris:

Of course artists come from both sides of the fence and sometimes sit on it. That was not my point. It was that the *majority* of *contemporary* artists and critics are left-leaning and that most conservatives are overly dismissive of contemporary art *as a whole* because of this. No doubt there are exceptions, but a quick skimming of almost any art history that deals with the 20th and 21st century, or a visit to almost any major museum or art center, will confirm this leftist influence.

And I would leave Darwinian terms out of any discussion of art history. Natural selection did not give us “traditional skills” that allowed us to “dig deeper into the human condition,” and art does not progress through evolutionary leaps, as you seem to imply.

]]> By: Chris Brobeck http://newledger.com/2009/10/art-and-the-right/comment-page-1/#comment-1030 Chris Brobeck Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:43:42 +0000 http://newledger.com/?p=19629#comment-1030 What a wonderfully wrong-headed article! Micah - artists have always been on both sides of every fence (and, more often than not, painfully sitting astride it). The classic case is, of course, the artistic wars that went on in the Salon in the 1800's - most of the participants, as well as the winners - the "establishment" artists of the day, have long been forgotten (or relegated to minor status), the ones remembered and still shaping artistic conciousness spent a good part of their careers on the outside.<br> <br>And that's where conservative artists are now. What's the real counter-culture these days? Who is really pushing boundaries? By definition you won't find that in the work pushed by the NEA, simply because it exists to foster a closed artistic group-think, the same way the Salon culture did. Everybody and anybody in the established art world is simply doing variations on the artistic Luddism that was tiresome even 50 years ago.<br><br>If there's any boundary to be pushed these days, it's the celebration of the creative, self-directed, self-reliant individual. Conservative artists look to the development of traditional skills - not because skills are somehow magical, but because traditional skills have, through a very Darwinian process - given us the ability to dig deeper into the human condition and express findings in an accessible way. They then use those skills to work what ever way they want, but generally the focus is on subjects that also interest their audience (which is pretty much everyone except those regurgitating inanities like Alma Thomas being "nuanced").<br><br>Finally, with regard to looking back in history - remember the greatest leap in Western art came during the Renaissance, when artists combined a new awareness of long forgotten traditional skills (of the Romans and Greeks) with new technological discoveries. Whether something similar is happening now is best left to history (which, after all, is really the sole arbiter of what is great art); in the meantime I'm more than happy to look to Rembrandt rather than Pollock for inspiration....<br><br>Thanks for the chance to rant :) What a wonderfully wrong-headed article! Micah – artists have always been on both sides of every fence (and, more often than not, painfully sitting astride it). The classic case is, of course, the artistic wars that went on in the Salon in the 1800's – most of the participants, as well as the winners – the “establishment” artists of the day, have long been forgotten (or relegated to minor status), the ones remembered and still shaping artistic conciousness spent a good part of their careers on the outside.

And that's where conservative artists are now. What's the real counter-culture these days? Who is really pushing boundaries? By definition you won't find that in the work pushed by the NEA, simply because it exists to foster a closed artistic group-think, the same way the Salon culture did. Everybody and anybody in the established art world is simply doing variations on the artistic Luddism that was tiresome even 50 years ago.

If there's any boundary to be pushed these days, it's the celebration of the creative, self-directed, self-reliant individual. Conservative artists look to the development of traditional skills – not because skills are somehow magical, but because traditional skills have, through a very Darwinian process – given us the ability to dig deeper into the human condition and express findings in an accessible way. They then use those skills to work what ever way they want, but generally the focus is on subjects that also interest their audience (which is pretty much everyone except those regurgitating inanities like Alma Thomas being “nuanced”).

Finally, with regard to looking back in history – remember the greatest leap in Western art came during the Renaissance, when artists combined a new awareness of long forgotten traditional skills (of the Romans and Greeks) with new technological discoveries. Whether something similar is happening now is best left to history (which, after all, is really the sole arbiter of what is great art); in the meantime I'm more than happy to look to Rembrandt rather than Pollock for inspiration….

Thanks for the chance to rant :)

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