I just checked it out. I love Bouguereau's technique! However, when we bought our first true art piece, a signed print, we went for something with more social import:
Posted on 08/03/2003 8:35:07 PM PDT by Commie Basher
It is claimed by many on the right that good art will flourish in the free market. Most good products do, art being a product it makes sense that the right's presumption is cogent. In fact one would have a hard time convincing any conservative otherwise. The free market is the final arbiter of usefulness if not quality.
However, it appears to me that conservatives applying free market principles to art are disingenuous. I doubt that conservatives are ignorant of the artistic plight. They are poor, often under-nourished and for an honest artist, they are working not only general adversity, but also peer adversity borne of an industry dominated by the extreme left. The idea that there is a free market for art is laughable. In the U.S. or Canada, the left are the "artists" by default and subsidized by their respective governments.
Were art a product like a computer or a service, one could sympathize with leery investors who would rather put their money where the government isn't fostering unnatural competition. I wouldn't invest in cable television if the government subsidized satellite television. But, the fecundity of conservative values doesn't rest on the laurels of endless channel surfing. But they may fall to the wayside if it continues.
Television is dominated by deconstructionist, post-modern tendencies. Why do you think it is that everything the right holds dear is like gossamer, here in these modern times? Or that Rage Against the Machine can enjoy the unquestioned success in a system that they pretend to abhor? Likewise with Madonna. Simply, because post-modern art doesn't require consistency, but rebels against it and since examining po-mo smacks of construction this too is moot, the artist isn't required to rebut any criticism. It isn't required esthetically. The only way to combat post-modern art is to offer an alternative.
This is where the right fails. The conservative movement is long on words but short on visceral experience. I don't recall ever seeing a screen adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, though one exists for The Fountainhead, the former is more appropriate I think. I've never heard of Prometheus Bound being all the rage on Broadway. Shakespeare is appreciated more for authenticity and execution than moral value. Poetry, sadly has died a slow and painful death at the hands of post-modernism, modern poets being more like necrophiliacs than objective observers. I fear nothing will save it. Music, technically being outside the world of ideas, will always have a few bright sparks. But the left will always portray Beethoven as a narcissistic invalid and John Lennon as the patron saint of modern music.
But it can all change with a little patronage. Help an artist out. I'm not saying pay for his life. When you can help guide him in the right direction, do so. Does he need materials? What about books. Maybe he does need some food or next months rent. If you can afford it and the artist isn't taking advantage of you, why not? Your dollar is still the final arbiter, if the artist isn't a productive one, withdraw funding. No committees, no congress or parliament. Just you and your money. Stop pretending that good art will magically appear on the shelves alongside of Chumbawumba, The Others or anything by Michael Moore. Put it where you mouth is, and in time you'll have more than words to back up your free market ideas
If that's your attitude, don't complain when the Left dominates popular culture. And don't complain when the voters, influenced by that culture, vote against your interests.
But we know how many publicists and art critics will risk their professional reputations by signing the praises of the works of the rightishly inclined, now don't we?
They'd be banished. They'd be out of their minds!
To turn the tables, look at the success of Mapenthorpe --the man pee'd into an acrylic cross, stuck a bullwhip up his posterior, and he was hailed as a great genius!
There's a small number who know the score, yes, but the great mass of money-having people will simply go ahead and like what they're told is cool to like, and the American clerisy tells them to like garbage.
So they do.
The book is epic, and begging to be made into a movie. Average people see movies, though --they don't read long books. But the book remains a threat to The Glorious March to Socialism. Why wouldn't the left co-opt the right, and make it into a LEFTISHLY inclined movie?
The left is disciplined and shrewd.
Have you seen the Gary Cooper film? I've not read the book, but saw the movie; I'm curious your reaction.
It's a bit like how they titled leftist Bill Mahre's establishment-hailing show, "Policitally Incorrect".
That was very smart:
The power and insight behind the extremely handy term Politically Incorrect had to be blunted. The left got major airtime, and it left many average Joe's confused about what really is politically incorrect:
"Slamming people who dislike high taxes and foolish social programs is POLITICALLY INCORRECT...? Oh...I must be something ELSE..."
The crucifix was Andres Serrano. Point otherwise well-taken, though.
Your comment about "genius" reminds me of a movie scene in which one poker player is commenting to another how he's doing everything all wrong; the latter asks the former how come he (the latter) has a much bigger pile of money than the former. The former has no reply.
Whatever the merits of today's "modern artists", some of them sure do seem to have the money thing down pretty well.
I'm not aware of a huge conservative outcry for more real art. I just want my tax money to stop funding bad art. Since there doesn't seen to be a way for the government to differentiate between good art and bad art (or if they can they prefer the bad), I would prefer that neither be funded with tax dollars.
Sorry I'm not overly sympathetic to the plight of conservative artists - I would prefer that they get a real job if they can't make a living with their art. I just would like to see the liberal artists/feak shows become starving artists too, rather than living off the public dime.
I don't get the idea from anywhere. I didn't write this article. I do, however, agree with the general idea that conservatives will do better in the culture war by funding their own arts infrastructure.
Regarding Beethovan, you'd have to take it up with the author.
Regarding narcissistic invalids, I think that would be a compliment coming from the Left. They always protray self-absorbed artists as heros.
I just checked it out. I love Bouguereau's technique! However, when we bought our first true art piece, a signed print, we went for something with more social import:
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