When soldiers came home, when the Baby Boom happened, and then Vietnam, there was a massive cultural shift. Now paperback books were junk, while the REAL writers were supposed to write New Journalism; movies weren't to entertain, they were to slap you around and shatter your perceptions about the world.
Don't get me wrong--I love plenty of the products of the late-20th century era of "relevence"...but that's just the problem with art--since the mid-century in New York (check out Tom Wolfe's writing about this), art was looked at in this new era as something that was either one of the building blocks for cultural change or junk.
Someone working in the illustrative traditions of American magazines and pop art--Maxfield Parish or Rockwell--was not going to be capable of bring art out of the decorative tradition and bring it into this new age of "meaningful" art. That "old fashioned" art was actually just unpretentious art--the artists knew they weren't changing the world with their paintings. But they were part of the old that had to be cast aside, in favor of art that would be a blow against oppression and all the other stuff the artists' boho friends were into.
The first of these moldy "old" traditions to go had to be representation, which to these young turks had been corrupted by its common availability in entertainment magazines. Worse, it was available to MOM AND DAD!!! , the eternal enemies of the young turks. And since good and bad and all that "moral" crap was really silly, when these artists knew the world was gray, they certainly couldn't be painting purely illustrative visions of the real world as it was.
So if you knock off the most basic illustrative idea--this painted thing represents this real life object--what are you left with?
Nothing. Literally--when you discard the use of illustration, then the artist is free to create his or her own language...
...which of course means that since you've dropped the visual language EVERYONE knows, and you invent your own language, then NO ONE, naturally, knows what you're saying.
The true mark of success? No one (the public) "gets" your stuff. (I often think of Woody Allen, who decided Hannah and Her Sisters was a failure...because it made more money than his movies usually did.) The young artist gets bad reviews from The Man, his parents don't understand him--YES! SUCCESS! He high-fives his fellow artists, who also make this expressionist stuff that has to be translated, not appreciated.
And the only people used to reading this stuff and getting this are those others who do the same thing. The art as an aesthetic object is gone, replaced by what politics the artist has and then expresses in this art, which only those who think like he does enjoy seeing (because they already agree with what he's saying).
Have you ever noticed that whenever a book, or record, or movie is touted as "controversial" or "challenging" in the MSM it is NEVER something with a conservative point of view?
This stuff is never challenging to liberals...because all of this stuff is merely supporting the liberal orthodoxy. It's ironic how the libs are so quick to call others on propaganda, when all of their art merely supports their point of view.
And that's all modern art is now. The artists turn their back on the mainstream they loathe (because they never grew out of their useful rebellion, which is a phase one needs to pass through before making one's own decisions about what's right and wrong) and merely talk to other people who think just like them.
As opposed to just making something beautiful. Which is a lot harder than making something ugly that is valued because it supports someone's ideology.
I don't really think that art has ever been confined to decoration, over the centuries, starting right with cave art, it's served lots of purposes, with religion probably being the main one, politics second perhaps. And history has always been dominated by war and horror, though it's hard to argue that horror did not reach a peak with WWII.
In any case, I don't think I can dispute that modern art goes hand in hand with the cultural shift of the second half of the 20th century (though arguably modern art began with the Impressionist rebellion against the Academy), however we may account for that shift. I do distrust on principle those who wish to shape any sort of "shift" that's taking place, since they generally wish to include others in that "shift" whether the others want to be shifted or not.
RE midcentury art, I'm usually more inclined to enjoy the architecture, furniture, household and industrial art of the era, all of which are constrained by serving practical functions, than I do the so called "fine" art. I have a copy of "Painted Word," probably I should get it out again.
"So if you knock off the most basic illustrative idea--this painted thing represents this real life object--what are you left with?"
Yeah, agreed. I notice that the art departments at my alma mater, UM, along with the one at the other university in town, FIU, seem to be in some decline. Not surprising when one considers that a decision had been made not to teach actual skills any longer. You start to wonder why they bother with an art department, and in fact it seems that the powers that be at those universities have been wondering the same thing.
"It's ironic how the libs are so quick to call others on propaganda, when all of their art merely supports their point of view.
Also ironic to me is that once one has made the decision to abandon skills and technique, the end result is often obsession with the very thing that was meant to be abandoned, technique. It's interesting to note that many of the more well know representational artists, while acknowledging the importance of accuracy, warn against over concentration on technique.
"And that's all modern art is now. The artists turn their back on the mainstream they loathe (because they never grew out of their useful rebellion, which is a phase one needs to pass through before making one's own decisions about what's right and wrong) and merely talk to other people who think just like them.
Another irony is that in the art world, they are no longer the counter culture, they are the mainstream.
For myself, I agree, I'd like art to be something beautiful along with having the ability to evoke emotion and feeling.
RP, would you like to comment on this discussion, I know you might have a different viewpoint?
Darkwolf said: Art is still seen as decorative, as something "extra,"
Actually, that's been the American attitude towards art since the Puritans arrived. As a cheap Yankee, I have to say the only pieces of art in our house are the ones we inherited and what I make (which rotate quite a bit). Every now and then I buy a new piece. But there are millions of people out there. What is on their walls? Framed museum posters?
Tom Wolfe's writing is wonderful: we do The Painted Word in my Art Criticism class, but quite often students don't get the humor of it.
My feeling is that much of the wilder, crazier (shall we say "Steve Martin"?) art is becoming the academy. There is so much (often awful) installation work around; it's ubiquitous and empty.
My problem with illustration is that it often doesn't reach far into content, or meaning. (Same could be said of the new installation work as well.) Rockwell had some pieces that went deeper than the surface, but often they are amusing and that's about it. There is a love of honest brushwork, since the late 19th century, that has a great deal to do with the "quality" of art. The trouble is, there's a great deal of schlocky brushwork too; and more often than not, viewers don't know the difference.
Part of the problem is the lack of art education. The arts, and education of it, are seen as unnecessary. But the arts are a part of us as humans, and I see it as essential that we learn what was expressed in the past and how to judge the forms and content of it: from Beethoven to Pollock. Then people can make their own informed decisions.
Like Darkwolf, I see a lack of originality. There is nothing more lacking in originality than postmodernism. What an empty, pointless recycling of %#&@, but if supported with like-wise pointless, wordy criticism, collectors will feel intimidated and will probably buy it. And then the Smiths have to buy what the Jones' bought, regardless of how much they like it or how little it means.
Since the camera was invented, I don't have a great love of realistic work that is so busy replicating the "real" world that there are few personal touches within it. I really like abstraction and all its variations on a continuum: from almost "realistic" to completely non-objective (like Mondrain). The possibilities are endless.
I actually think that we may be entering a period of synthesis, much like that of Giotto and Masaccio. It took artists about 100 to understand and move beyond the work of Giotto. Perhaps the same could be said to be true of the early 20th century: from Expressionism and Cubism to Abstract Expressionism.
I hope to see more truly creative abstraction with deeply human content. I see it sometimes in the work of Elizabeth Murray, Anselm Kiefer, Melvin Edwards, Martin Puryear and others.