A Fight For Reality

Mention the Romantic era painter, Bougereau, to a contemporary artist and he will make a face as if he's been forced to sniff a pile of cat poop. Try to discuss the merits of Sol LeWitt's work to a traditional painter and he will likely flip you the bird. Ever wonder about this antagonism? It's a case of sibling rivalry.

For now, I'm going to conflate Modernism with Post-modernism and the Contemporary art era for simplicity's sake-- mainly because most people tend to lump them together even though they are formally separate art periods. The Modern era of painting, as we learn in every Art History 101 class, was mainly a response to the sweeping changes brought by Industrialization. Artists and writers (as well as many other folks) were really disturbed by what they perceived as the impersonalization of mechanized life.While artists had borne witness to political and social issues in the past, this particular upheaval was so encompassing it drove the artistic output of great numbers of creatives. Many artists began to question traditional academic standards, embrace new materials (paints in tubes and the camera), and experiment with new techniques. The mid-1800s marks two artistic movements: the Romantic era and the beginning of the Modern era. Let the cat fight begin.

The Romantic movement was not just a backlash to the rise of the industrial complex, but a rejection of the Enlightenment era's rationalization of nature and man. The modern world threatened to become something monstrous and people looked for ways to escape from it. Disgusted with the smog and soot of the cities, artists painted works that emphasized the beauty and wonder of nature, while adventurers immersed themselves in it physically. Writers and philosophers elevated emotion and intuition as "natural" sources of "authentic" information. Belief in the supernatural enjoyed a resurgence in the form of galvanism, and occultism was popular. (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a perfect example of the fear that the innovations of science would change our basic human nature.) Politicians embraced traditional values and found that folk tales reflected this ideology, and an interest in the practices and beliefs of the medieval period and European historical ancestry sparked elements of nationalism.  This escape into the fantasy world away from modern fears marks the beginning of the Fantastic/ Fantasy genre in literature and art.

During the same period, the Modern era of art and literature was beginning. Artists' initial response to the industrial world was to turn a level gaze toward modernity and criticize its injustices and ugliness. Embracing new materials, ideas, and techniques (ie. photography), Modernists experimented and dispensed with traditional ways of painting and seeing. These artists were discovering new ways to see the world and thus, redefining what was considered aesthetically "beautiful." The artist's eye turned critically onto the world and all of its social and economic ills seemed to be just the opposite of escape.

And now things get really disagreeable between proponents of traditional painting and proponents of contemporary art:

Traditionalist painters, collectors of illustration, and that segment of the population that honors the Romantic era and all of its traditional values propose that contemporary art has abused Reality with its skewed perspectives and flat spaces, abuses of anatomical drawing, liberties with color, its lack of archival materials, its insistence on Wagnerian scale, and just a general disregard for beauty. All of these abuses, the traditionalists say, run counter to making "real" art, the beauty of which is thought to enhance human happiness by giving form to untrammeled nature, the fit human body, and the principles of visual reality (light, shadow, color, perspective).

Contemporary Artists would say that it is the traditional painters who have lost touch with Reality and are hiding their heads in the sand. The practitioners and admirers of contemporary art value the perceptions and experiential aspects of Art over the "Object" itself.  A work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction, where any singular, unique piece of work can be reproduced over a gazillion gazillion times loses its preciousness as it should.  "Beauty" is subjective; the "sentimental," overrated. The traditionalists' escape into fantasy and fiction, the contemporarists say, is an an affront to Reality, which can often be ugly, but can also be fascinating and educational. Science is welcome here and Art is democratized and demystified; anyone can do it.

So who's right?? Where does that leave you in all of this?
Next: More Fighting