The «socialist realism» was a tricky phenomenon. Most of the time, Soviets didn't force artists to paint combines and factories at the gunpoint (although there were lots of nudging and scolding), and people didn't get sent to the gulag just for painting still lifes (people could get in trouble for wrong «class origin» or wrong contacts, but not just for a painting of two apples and a vase).
An artist in the Soviet land was faced with a choice:
- perfect one's skills, make non-ideological art, never acquire much fame or money, die poor; some people took this route;
- acquire somewhat decent skills and take a shortcut and create politically correct art (the Soviet term roughly translates as «ideologically correct/committed»); but there were underwater rocks on this route, too...
...because Soviet art establishment was corrupt as hell, and one had to have the right connections to get the right reviews. There weren't enough laurels for everyone, and naturally many were disappointed.
Enter Western (CIA) offer. Abstract art! Essentially an shortcut to a shortcut. It requires even fewer skills and supposedly less ideological commitment. What they didn't tell, however, was that there won't be enough laurels for everyone able to throw paint at canvas, either.
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whew, that was the longest comment I'd written recently. hope I closed all the parentheses ;)
As to Aristotle, in Book VIII of the Politics he did say: "Figures and colors are not imitations, but signs, of moral habits, indications which the body gives of states of feeling. The connection of them with morals is slight, but in so far as there is any, young men should be taught to look, not at the works of Pauson, but at those of Polygnotus, or any other painter or sculptor who expresses moral ideas." So he did make a connection, but he thought that literature and music were more closely connected to flourishing and fulfillment than the visual arts...
Count me intrigued. Having written my share of poetry and music, I would consider the idea that the creation of art is the ultimate form of fulfillment (my preferred Englishing of Greek eudaimonia) for the artist. However, I don't think that the spectator, reader, or listener can experience nearly that depth of fulfillment, because the creative act actualizes so many, and such deeper, human potentials.
I like your input but don’t feel that way, rather my love of art as an audience has been the most powerful feeling of exaltation I have experienced, even when I have been lucky in love. Puccini, Bach, Rembrandt, Monet, and Michelangelo have taken humanity to zenith of what is possible.
As an artist myself I resonate strongly with this post. Many moons ago I was shopping my art around galleries in LA. It was soundly rejected as too pleasant and photographic. At the time what passed for art in these galleries were these beige abstracts where somebody had swirled hundreds of dollars worth of oil paint with a palette knife to create this moody atmospheric scene of...nothing. Or maybe of something that vaguely resembled a Ukrainian flag. I couldn't imagine who in their right mind would want to hang such atrocities up in their house. The art world had morphed by this point into a money laundering vehicle for the ultra rich and on an even darker note became used as a signalling vehicle for pedophile network. That's why still living victims of Satanic sexual abuse were preferred artists of images.
Going back to these beige atrocities of swirling paint, though, I marvelled that the "artist" of such pieces must already be rich or from a wealthy family. Many were dolloped with hundreds of dollars of oil paint alone and would require a dedicated space to wait for the paint to dry in rent intensive Los Angeles. My guess is that it became a big club that had nothing to do with art. Actually I think they preferred the art to be vile...
Perhaps the link between good figurative art and the ability to transcend terrifies them?
I love your ongoing deep explorations of art and eudaemonia.
Thank you Michael, deeply appreciated.
And I delightedly keep finding new nuances of light and shadow in your Space Series paintings each time I see them. Wonderful!
The «socialist realism» was a tricky phenomenon. Most of the time, Soviets didn't force artists to paint combines and factories at the gunpoint (although there were lots of nudging and scolding), and people didn't get sent to the gulag just for painting still lifes (people could get in trouble for wrong «class origin» or wrong contacts, but not just for a painting of two apples and a vase).
An artist in the Soviet land was faced with a choice:
- perfect one's skills, make non-ideological art, never acquire much fame or money, die poor; some people took this route;
- acquire somewhat decent skills and take a shortcut and create politically correct art (the Soviet term roughly translates as «ideologically correct/committed»); but there were underwater rocks on this route, too...
...because Soviet art establishment was corrupt as hell, and one had to have the right connections to get the right reviews. There weren't enough laurels for everyone, and naturally many were disappointed.
Enter Western (CIA) offer. Abstract art! Essentially an shortcut to a shortcut. It requires even fewer skills and supposedly less ideological commitment. What they didn't tell, however, was that there won't be enough laurels for everyone able to throw paint at canvas, either.
---
whew, that was the longest comment I'd written recently. hope I closed all the parentheses ;)
As to Aristotle, in Book VIII of the Politics he did say: "Figures and colors are not imitations, but signs, of moral habits, indications which the body gives of states of feeling. The connection of them with morals is slight, but in so far as there is any, young men should be taught to look, not at the works of Pauson, but at those of Polygnotus, or any other painter or sculptor who expresses moral ideas." So he did make a connection, but he thought that literature and music were more closely connected to flourishing and fulfillment than the visual arts...
Thanks for that information which shows where I part with Aristotle, my take, which is that art is the ultimate expression of eudaemonia.
Count me intrigued. Having written my share of poetry and music, I would consider the idea that the creation of art is the ultimate form of fulfillment (my preferred Englishing of Greek eudaimonia) for the artist. However, I don't think that the spectator, reader, or listener can experience nearly that depth of fulfillment, because the creative act actualizes so many, and such deeper, human potentials.
I like your input but don’t feel that way, rather my love of art as an audience has been the most powerful feeling of exaltation I have experienced, even when I have been lucky in love. Puccini, Bach, Rembrandt, Monet, and Michelangelo have taken humanity to zenith of what is possible.
As an artist myself I resonate strongly with this post. Many moons ago I was shopping my art around galleries in LA. It was soundly rejected as too pleasant and photographic. At the time what passed for art in these galleries were these beige abstracts where somebody had swirled hundreds of dollars worth of oil paint with a palette knife to create this moody atmospheric scene of...nothing. Or maybe of something that vaguely resembled a Ukrainian flag. I couldn't imagine who in their right mind would want to hang such atrocities up in their house. The art world had morphed by this point into a money laundering vehicle for the ultra rich and on an even darker note became used as a signalling vehicle for pedophile network. That's why still living victims of Satanic sexual abuse were preferred artists of images.
Going back to these beige atrocities of swirling paint, though, I marvelled that the "artist" of such pieces must already be rich or from a wealthy family. Many were dolloped with hundreds of dollars of oil paint alone and would require a dedicated space to wait for the paint to dry in rent intensive Los Angeles. My guess is that it became a big club that had nothing to do with art. Actually I think they preferred the art to be vile...