The Resurgence of Philistinism

The longstanding attempt to impose a moral paradigm on art is evidence of a crisis in aesthetic meaning which seeks to discover common rules and standards at the expense of subtlety and metaphor. The problems with such an approach are myriad, but at their most significant represent an effort to whitewash cultural expression by inserting its varied and heterogeneous products into a narrowly defined and sanitized set of well labeled containers. These receptacles are organized, often unwittingly, by levels of moral intervention—whose political orientations can be situated almost anywhere on the narrowly defined ideological spectrum lurking behind most value-specific discourses—and stress didactic codes of collective and individual ethical behavior consistent with popular conceptions of social equity and the restraint of unacceptable impulses. Yet, it is the imposition of such an overtly restrictive way of speaking about art, no matter how diffusely it is applied—mostly the result of conversations both written and verbal taking place within the more specialized areas of the culture industry, although it has always had a populist corollary in so-called public-discourse—that constrains and deforms the way it is perceived.

The most predominant form that such parsing of value in art has taken is peculiar in that it is not overtly concerned with morality, but rather with what is often referred to as problems in ‘craft’ or ‘mastery.’ The conception of these aforementioned characteristics is influenced by definitions derived from an almost anachronistic conception of ‘naturalism’ culled primarily from classical painting and sculpture. These forms are equated with supposedly value-neutral categories of ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’ of which most contemporary aesthetic productions are believed to be lacking. The assumption here, that approaches to form are somehow synonymous with normally evaluative issues of quality, presents the often restrictive normative standards that such discourse imposes on art as inevitable and universally transparent. And, while it isn’t inherently ‘value specific’ in its conception of the ‘ethics of art,’ it uses a similarly constructed aesthetic framework to address questions of import and value, often confusing the latter with superficial  assessments of stylistic criterion that privilege idealized and familiar forms over any sort of ‘self-indulgent’ experimentalism. Within this framework, the language of utility provides the superficial imprimatur of legitimacy to cloak arguments that are essentially attacks against the unconventional.

The problem with this approach is precisely its tendency to ascribe any kind of innovation to self-indulgence’—a generic catchphrase for any work whose conception, themes or materials are too novel, nuanced, or abstruse for the attachment of generalized sentiments regarding ‘feeling,’ or ‘meaning,’ or ‘quality.’ I do not enumerate this style of ascribing significance to isolate or make fun of it—these are, after all, fundamental ways that people make sense of the aesthetic—but I do wish to make a distinction between the tendency to assume that these are totalizing concepts, as opposed to a more complex understanding of how aesthetic presentations manipulate, effect and engage individuals. The notion of ascribing definite value—as if one were looking at something necessitating an almost empirical reduction into constrained categories and levels of appreciation—is invariably mistaken for the more multifaceted process of ‘beholding.’

This subjective and qualitative ‘beholding,’ which is amongst the most primary and essential aspects of seeing an artwork, in any form, has been referred to by the critic Lucy Lippard as “The Erotics of Engagement.” Such ‘erotics’ are not necessarily sexual, but sensual and engrossing, and owe much of their potential to transfix one’s attention to their unusual pedigree, which derives originally from the visceral qualities of the transcendent religious gaze. This way of understanding phenomenon outside the linguistic and conceptual boundaries of daily society’s more utilitarian rituals, is inseparable in many ways from that uncanny and nameless sense of interconnectedness and mystery often inspired by spiritual evocation.

However, as this very aspect of aesthetics was secularized long ago, the utilitarian ethos predominant in western culture orients various interpretive strata towards pragmatic considerations of use-value. Since ‘Art’ is not conceived to be ‘useful,’ in any ordinary sense, the confusion generated by the desire to ascribe a graspable meaning to a work of art, often leads to this very form of misattribution. The resulting leveling—an outgrowth of the subtle reification involved in transposing the aesthetic with the practical, so that the former can be more easily categorized within a known agglomeration of taxa—fossilizes art by replacing its organic constituents with a molecular aggregation of more easily grasped quanta. This quanta is the secretion from that aforesaid reification process, which invariably hardens into readymade clichés, themselves honeycombed with a largely irrelevant series of pragmatic prerequisites of aesthetic value. The categories that grow out of such practices, misrepresent the aesthetic by essentially placing it in the same category as aluminum siding, kitchen wallpaper and even  something as specific as the effectiveness of snow plows during a winter storm—all materially based objects and practices, whose aesthetic qualities are subordinate to their usefulness and appropriateness within certain functional environments. This is, on the face of it, an absurd misrepresentation of the aesthetic, as art does not perform work—at least not in the ordinary sense—is not conceived as an instrument of a larger apparatus or function; and, with the occasional exception of architecture, is not created for the sake of utility.

Art exists largely for its own sake, and loses its self-contained integrity when subordinated to another purpose. This assertion at first seems like the preface to a manifesto of self-indulgence, and would surely anger those who believe that art should ‘enlighten’—in the sense of ‘educating’ viewers. The latter notion would cover the entire spectrum of ‘politicized’ art from the puerile simplicities inherent in The Book of Virtues, to the political agit-prop of the more didactic forms of ‘activist-art.’ The problem with such work is not so much its subordination of form to ideology—certainly a difficult proposition in an aesthetic production, as it tends to freeze the work in the contextual amber of topicality—as its surrender to the didactic ethos of pedagogy. Once the intention to teach has been transformed into aesthetic action, the aspirations of the work become utilitarian and self-limiting. Art, because it is based around metaphors, is ineluctably transformed into a different organism—at worst a platform for catechism—when used to frame lessons and specific ideas. As an instrument utilized to achieve tangible ends, it shrinks proportionately to the size of the concrete and literal-minded dimensions of simple sloganeering and exhortation.

Cousin to this tendency is the practice of framing art within moral parameters. This approach is often packaged as purpose-oriented, and favors arguments that contextualize aesthetic production as something which should enlighten and exalt. At its most extreme, these critical polemics insist that art must elevate the soul while providing a workable paradigm of values. Aside from the fact that conceptual tropes such as ‘the soul’ are mystifications of the self, the idea that art should be uplifting is a commonplace sentimentalization, often utilized by artists in various contexts, that disguises the frequently brutal and amoral forms intrinsic to many historically revered aesthetic productions.

The desire to frame, and provide closure by dressing difficult work in the judge’s robes of moral didacticism has a long history in American popular culture. This tendency is vividly illustrated in both early pulp literature dating back to the nineteenth century, and the structuring of anti-vice films from the 1930’s, whose appeal was primarily based on the very seductions that they were ostensibly produced to warn people against. Of course, the moralistic framing of lurid details, in drug and sex films—later seen in pulp comic strips, themselves influenced by the ‘dime-novels’ of the previous century—was an obligatory inoculation against the criticism that such forms were inherently subversive. A more common approach, not necessarily confined to the tricky terrain of self-conscious marketing, is often seen in commercial cinema, when auteurs explain their own work in terms appropriate for moral parables. The Hughes brothers, for example, reacted to strong criticism of their ground-breaking Ghetto-Verite masterpiece, Menace II Society, by citing, in an interview segment provided in the film’s video release, an underlying moral architecture framed around a principle character whose criminality eventually leads to his violent downfall. This lesson in the liabilities of incorrigible behavior is made explicit in the film’s final scene, when Caine rhetorically comments on the misguided nature of his cavalier attitude towards crime and violence.

Such built-in explanatory structures are common, particularly in domestic cinema; and, are used to contextualize the often blatant acts of violence—both unprovoked and in self-defense—presented on screen in such powerful fashion in films like Goodfellas, Casino, Hamburger Hill, and even Saving Private Ryan. The strategies employed within the structures of these and other movies are specific to their individual plot-lines, narratives and audience expectations. Thus, in Martin Scorsese’s morally complex universe, the gangsters themselves frame the action with over-dubbed narratives that provide the ironic contrast of hindsight to accompany the sensuous and violent actions highlighting the films. In sharp contrast, Steven Spielberg frames the innovative intimacy and physicality, which heighten the moral ambiguity of films such as Munich and Lincoln, with introductory remarks designed to pre-emptively respond to criticism, while circumscribing his narratives with a moral clarity not always available within the ethical-corridors of various geographies and historical periods. This common form of ex-post facto moral gerrymandering is largely an attempt to preempt the most obvious criticisms of the cinematic portrayal of libertine excess, but far from the most frequent.

The critical aperture of moral opprobrium is both the most pervasive and least subtle of the qualities that characterize the resurgence of philistinism in aesthetic criticism. Admittedly, this quality is more visible in the world of pop-culture analysis and amongst those ordinarily predisposed to avoid anything that might garner the formal appellation of ‘Art.’ Nonetheless, it can be encountered, in its various guises, in museums, journals, and blogs— of course—as well as within the discourses of activist politics. It is also quite prominently displayed in the often self-righteous discourse on African American musical culture, particularly Hip-Hop music which has achieved prominence because of its often garish honesty and its linguistic inventiveness. Both, of course, have played a role in its demonization by an assortment of Church and civic leaders, as well as politicians and other would-be guardians of public morality. However, Hip-Hop’s Chutzpah is only one of its many supposed transgressions against good taste and morality; and, moreover, it is only the latest African American cultural form to be accused of such slights against the larger culture. In fact, both blues and jazz were, in their’ time tarred with a similar brush by the establishment of the Baptist church and even the NAACP, who saw these forms in terms of the degradation of the image of their respective communities. Similarly, Rap Music is often cited for its violent lyrics, blatantly sexual content and grisly realism—all of which, with the possible exception of the latter, although it is often quite grisly, are actually considered obligatory elements in most operas—but these are qualities that have grown out of the longstanding cultural practice of ‘Signifying’ also known as ‘Playing the Dozens, ‘ whose provenance stems back to the early days of slavery, and certain practices seen in slave auctions. As with many cultural adaptations, these methods of accommodation and personal affirmation were both inventive and empowering, and have provided a template into which Hip Hop is merely the latest successor.

Part of the reason for why older forms become acceptable as newer innovations are subject to the bulk of such familiar moral and aesthetic criticisms, is attributable to the way age confers antique status upon various styles of cultural expression. Even more importantly, however, is that changing social contexts make visible certain gaps in the narrative and structural conventions of any art-form—often more difficult to discern when such stylistic innovations are initially received within a given cultural sensibility—lessening the appearance of verisimility, and conversely, making it more acceptable as a result of this perceived inauthenticity; often complicated by its sentimental resurrection as a true-essence or cultural voice. This is as much a reflection of a failure to acknowledge culture’s inherent and vital level of artifice, as it is a misreading of aesthetic production as a form of ethicized moral reflection. In fact, it is the former which shapes and adapts the latter, usually without regard to the hierarchical teleology intrinsic to popular notions of moral development.

Works such as Delacroix’s Raft of the Medusa, Gericault’s Wreck of the Hesperias, and Giovanni Bologna’s Rape of the Sabine Woman, are only three of an innumerable array of western artworks whose use of  images from antiquity eroticize and sensationalize violence by fetishizing its effects—a tendency that also illuminates the intricacies of various forms of suffering and transgression. This is not an aesthetic criticism as these are works of penetrating vision and impeccable technique; but, frank acknowledgement of one of the often overlooked functions of art, particularly during the centuries preceding the Enlightenment: namely, facilitating the prominence of the phallocentric gaze. This ‘gaze’ was certainly evident in the sensuality of many works across the centuries—such as Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, for example. However, its inherent eroticism is most famously on display in one of the first paintings to confront and challenge that gaze, Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass; whose reclining nude—offset, as was typical of such paintings, by clothed, and hence, empowered male figures—looks back with a penetrating frankness at the viewer. Such indelicacies were major artistic scandals of the time, precisely because they questioned predominant attitudes regarding sexuality and cultural subordination; but, they were presented as transgressions against “decency’ and “good taste.” The fact that neither of the latter two animals has had much input into the vagaries and vicissitudes of human relations or the development of culture—except as covert and disingenuous ways of perpetuating certain forms of ideological and social hegemony—has often been overlooked by both official, and self-styled, moralists.

One should not confuse an inherently phallocentric framework with the notion that western art is therefore sensationalistic and shallow. Rather, these qualities reflect the innate aspects of the discourse in which such works are embedded, and do not foreclose on the possibility of a profound exploration of the human condition. In fact, much of the substance of these works reveals that, while the tendency to evaluate an object morally may imply a separation between the aforesaid qualities, they are often inextricably intertwined. An artwork, is a culmination of a particular vision rendered at a particular historical moment by a specific sensibility, and is, thus, a combination of many qualities; to parse them out separately, is to artificially break them down into discrete analytical categories that do not explain or necessarily enhance one’s understanding of a work. It is therefore important to take the holistic quality of these aesthetic artifacts into account before attempting to reconcile them to a particular moral or ethical position in reference to subject matter and portrayal.

An example of this holistic quality can be found in the work of Michelangelo, whose paintings and sculpture seamlessly combine the immediate sensuality of eroticism with a transcendent and organically unified moral vision. One may, at first, wonder if such a concatenation of qualities can exist within any individual work simultaneously. The problem however, is not in the unified nature of aesthetic production, but in the fragmented system of categories which western reason imposes upon it; thus, the notion that art must either be morally unified—and perhaps even didactic—or saturated by eroticism and excess, is a false dichotomy: Instead, aesthetic works contain various elements that are often ambiguous. This is clearly illustrated in the forms of Michelangelo’s most famous works, such as his robust, marble, David, and his figures on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The religious and humanistic nature of his informing vision is clearly obvious, as is the inherent sensuality of these images. This sort of eroticism need not be located personally as a manifestation of some discrete idiosyncratic quality which the artist separately infuses into his work. Instead—and particularly in contrast to Freud’s reductive reading of the Chapel ceiling, which ignores the conventions of early sixteenth century Italian art, and locates the significance of Michelangelo’s figures in his supposed, and largely irrelevant, homosexuality—the work is of a piece, indivisible into separately conceived thematic and symbolic components unless one imposes an artificial paradigm whose results would largely reflect its own compartmentalized structure. Thus, the tendency of historians to break these works into discretely anatomized parcels creates the artifact of essentialized “meaning,” mistakenly assumed to be a transparent reflection of the observer’s own inquiry.

The thematic coherence seen in cultural artifacts of diverse types—including western art, up until the middle of the nineteenth century—is a product of a relatively unified metaphysical viewpoint. This should not be equated with a vision of cultural harmony, but with the existence of more prevalent master narratives. Once the culture of the enlightenment succeeded in fractioning the very perception of such a world into discrete analytical compartments, aesthetic production gradually became alienated from its own sources of traditional inspiration; a factor which was incorporated, as a new and disturbing form of knowledge, into the aesthetic process as well. The subsequent restructuring of reality, inspired by the works of Descartes, Linnaeus, Freud, and Marx, amongst others, fragmented western perceptions into parameters which created strong resistance through their systematic denial of the primal realities that had always informed the wellsprings of art. Hence, artists, now freed from various overriding aesthetic and ideological conventions, explored these new ironies through an expanded and innovative approach to meaning and form.

This subsequent fracturing of aesthetic unities also inspired a resurgence of the desire to morally recuperate the past through a return to what were popularly conceived of as the eternal verities of the ‘masters.’ This privileging of the naturalistic conventions of Renaissance art, as the ‘true’ epitome of aesthetics, was based on a subtle mistaking of the supposed truths represented by illusionism, and its strict rules of mimeses, with the moral certainties attributed to a past era retrospectively characterized as having a seamless metaphysical unity. The gradual transmutation of this manifestation of ethicized nostalgia into a set of often reductive casuistic principles, to be applied equally in all areas of contemporary life, has become an institutionalized aspect of the ongoing discourse about art in the western world. This enhanced version of a familiar one-size-fits all approach to criticism, is prevalent in all of the performing and fine arts, although the sophistication of the actual arguments vary widely. It also bears repeating that this super-imposing of a moralistic framework is not ideologically unified—as merely the province of the religious right, or cultural conservatives—but is dispersed across the political and social spectrum; and, has become even more diffuse as its basic assumptions have been subsequently adopted by a heterogeneous assortment of variously positioned individuals and organizations.   

As such it has not restricted itself to contextual representations of diverse approaches to ‘morality,’ across the spectrum of the arts themselves, but has also complicated the already byzantine analysis of the inherently anachronistic world of high-scale art patrons, collectors and investors. It is important to bear in mind that the market value of art is not a reflection of aesthetic value, but rather the result of the often self-contained nature of the world of artists and collectors, which has reacted to the rapid shifts in both the technological applications used in aesthetic production and the often self-referential sophistication of contemporary conceptual paradigms. The resulting tendency, to fetishize anything that appears to bear the imprimatur of the ‘artist,’ often results in exponential increases in the value of such works. This does not necessarily reflect badly on the work in question, it merely implies an almost desperate predisposition amongst art collectors to read grandiose gestures into works whose subtleties tend to conceal such anachronistic intimations of grandeur. Thus, anything that even appears to commune on such hallowed epic ground—with allowances made to ostensibly take into account newer and more complex conceptual approaches—is often the focus of art-world hysteria, even though such reactions tend to be short lived. Nonetheless, they can rapidly increase the monetary value of the artwork in question. This has led some moralistically inclined critics and observers to find the fault within the work rather than in the machinations of the art-world’s somewhat antediluvian system of patronage and private financing. This is a classic case of blaming the artist for the idiosyncratic economics of the culture of art collectors, which spins on its own peculiar axis and resonates to a separate, albeit tangentially related, rhythm from that which regulates the metabolic fluxions of the collective realm of the artists themselves.

One example of how this blame game works can be found in the controversy over Andres Serrano and his by now notorious photograph of a crucifix soaked in urine, aptly named, Piss Christ. In 1989, this widely misunderstood photograph became a galvanizing exhibit in the far right’s philippic against funding for supposedly “immoral” art. In a letter originally published by the Richmond News Leader—and reprinted in C. Carr’s, One Edge: Performance at the end of the Twentieth Century—in March 1989, an angry reader criticized The Virginia Museum for displaying and promoting the work:

The Virginia Museum should not be in the business of

promoting and subsidizing hatred and intolerance…

Would they pay the kkk to do work defaming blacks?

Would they display a Jewish symbol under urine?

Has Christianity become fair game in our society

for any kind of blasphemy and slander?” [p-285]

The irony of this missive is that the artist in question used his funding to underwrite a series of profoundly disquieting, and yet moving, photographs of North Carolina Klansman in full regalia—and later, without their hoods. While this may, initially, appear to reinforce the letter’s content, it was the way in which the humanity of the photographer’s subjects and his desire to capture it through their masks, projected compassion rather than prejudice which sets these photos apart from mere propaganda. This is more obvious, when one realizes that Serrano is a gay person of color, whose desire to explore the common humanity in all people transcends even these differences. This exhibit was interspersed with pictures taken of homeless New Yorkers—a theme he has more recently returned to, showcasing various panhandling signs in his latest project—to emphasize both the humanity and the moral diversity of the dispossessed and marginal. That no one would have anticipated such a follow up to his critique of organized religion is a testament to both the creativity and inherent humanism of art; and the way that its often forward thinking, paradigm violating portrayals function counter-intuitively to make new observations about seemingly familiar things.

One might accuse Serrano—in light of the political nature of the Piss Christ photograph—of subordinating content to politics. In this case, however, the distinction would be an artificial one, as the theme of the work is integrated with its presentation into an organic whole. This is no mere attempt at post-hoc justification but recognition of the way that political art—of any ideological stripe—is distinct from political art that subordinates content to message. The issue, of course, is the level of didactic content, and how well the work resolves as an organic entity. This would also apply to older moralistic works such as David’s Oath of the Horatii, and Death of Socrates, both are political paintings promoting a set of idealized qualities, yet seamlessly integrated without noticeable cant. One might suggest that such qualities are in the eye of the beholder, which is true in the abstract sense; but, any perusal of Western art produced during the last two millennia quickly reveals the difference between morally infused work and aesthetic production acting as a handmaiden to a specific message. The latter tends towards an extreme narrowness of vision, is rarely transcendent (although it may privilege transcendental values), and quickly tarnishes with age.  

That those inclined to make snap judgments by virtue of an ideologically induced tunnel vision might miss the broad diversity of an artist’s vision is not surprising. It is a sad testimonial however, to a lack of imagination, particularly on the part of moral conservatives who seem to conceive of intent and scope in rigidly circumscribed terms that do not allow for the possibility of a more catholic diversity of choices and tangents. This is certainly not confined to those on the right; but their frequent lack of any awareness of causality, makes their objections seem narrower than those of their also rigidly ideological counterparts of the liberal left. Of course, in neither case does the criticism transcend an equally restrictive moral casuistry, that when applied to aesthetics gives way to an unremarked upon tendency towards familiar catechisms.

In both cases part of the confusion arises from the idea that art should enhance humanity by essentially ennobling people and cultural practices. This is a longstanding fiction, as laudatory as it is invalid, which any quick perusal of an operatic libretto will usually make clear. Unfortunately, it has spawned a diverse array of moralistic progeny that function similarly to a collectively expressed and historically prevalent anxiety towards the unconventional. And, regardless of how it cloaks itself—or of how heartfelt some of its instinctual recoiling may appear to its advocates—it smacks of the advance guard of a familiar form of reactive authoritarianism; one now wearing the updated vestments of the new guardians of cultural decency, even when they purport to reflect the values of fair mindedness. One must remember, of course, that order and restriction always has the appearance of a silver lining—which gleams like a brightly reflective pair of handcuffs, and that presents its essentially inhibitory circumspectness as a form of utopianism. When faced with such direct assaults on our collective rights, as people and practitioners of culture, to be contrary, divergent, or even solipsistic— especially when it concerns artists, whether they are recognized officially or not—we should remember the words of Andre Breton, who was referring to an overall seismic shift in culture more far reaching than any single manifestation of aesthetics, when he said:

“Art will be convulsive, or it will not be at all.”   

 

JZRothstein (first completed draft) 1/25/2014