Closed canons and the current state of the arts

Great Debates
21

[E]very year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful.

And there are things that replace other art. Ansel Adams’ photography. The iconic shot of the little afghan girl.

The Beatles are on their way to being canonized, as are Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

We simply do not have enough perspective on our own time to decide what will be judged worthy to join the immortals. We can make guesses, but you never will really know.

22

I disagree with your rosy assessment. That canons thrive because of genuine recognition. Canons are as much a tool of cultural subjugation as anything else. The works that make it into a canon are the ones that curry favour of those particular circumstances when they attract attention. Paintings found at Hussein’s palaces during the war raids were called “kitsch”. That is nothing but pandering to the sense of “good begets good” and vice versa.

There never was anything close to an ideal canonizing process that recognizes works with timeless potential simply because we can never judge that. The problem this creates is that past works that might delight audiences today but were unappreciated during their times, are unlikely to be discovered. If you carry out an hypothetical thought-experiment like this: Get a decent-sized group of readers who have never been exposed to any literature from a certain time period and unaware of the canon originating from within. Present all works discovered and ask them to select the best. There’s exists a decent chance that the “canon” and their selections might diverge substantially.

Shakespeare is culturally entrenched as the premier playwright. There are plenty of readers who don’t like him, but cultural inertia, a lack of access to all and awareness of competing works, and cultural bias that disallows a “blank slate” for judgement, would prevent any unseating that might take place.* Today’s works are no different. You have bestseller lists, book clubs, box office collections, award shows and book prizes among other things. The difference from a century ago is that education is more widespread and media dissemination is much easier and widespread, hence there exists less of an overriding unity in the canonizing process. I don’t see this as a bad thing. At all.
*Unless there was some huge Anglo-Saxon backlash in the future, like that which happened for Jews by the Germans, or Nazis by the world.

23

Yes, this is true. The problem I see is that whole categories of art (poetry and painting) are not being recognized by society at all. For I also have a theory:

That art which is not recognized in its own time by an elite or a large number of people or both as excellent cannot be recognized in a later age as excellent by a large number of people.

Which is to say, so long as it’s in print or in a usuable format, it might have a fan or two, but it will not be recognized by large groups of people. I myself like plenty of music and poetry that others have never heard of, and I have had little success in convincing others that it is good.

Well, I would agree that we can’t be sure what will remain popular. “Share of mind” is always a limited thing. Longfellow was a god in his own day but is mostly dissed by the critics of today. A few hundred more years and he’ll probably be forgotten totally.

Yes, this is true. But I also feel that certain works are of such quality that they would tend to be picked.

Yep. Also I also personally think Shakespeare is great, there is a kind of downright laziness that prevents us as a society from giving equal due to other playwrights who could write as well: Ben Johnson’s Volpone, to me, is better than any other Shakespeare play but Hamlet. But who are the “great” English playwrights? Uh, Shakespeare, and, uh, I guess that’s it. Share of mind, baby.

I think the bad thing is how disposable it all is, how soon great things are forgotten.

BTW, I didn’t get your statement about Jews/Nazis–would you care to explain?!

24

That cultural mores influence acceptance and judgement of art. Nazi philosophy and literature are not looked upto. Had Nazis succeeded, the opposite might be the case, atleast in Germany for some time after.

This seems pretty simple. The reason is turnover. There are new movies released every week. Restrict to 5 movies a year and people will remember those movies much better.

And the prolific output is not indicative of the rate of genuine innovation. In movies, you have template scripts where the specifics are changed, but the theme and screenplay structure remain the same. By itself, this is not a major problem. But when you look at the rate of new releases, the devouring public becomes more (unconsciously) aware of these stale devices and consequently, movies that would have been considered ‘good’ in isolation, become ‘yet another slasher/chick flick/mindless action…’ This pares down the works that are considered ‘good’. There is a bonus added to works that are ‘different’, even if, again, a hypothetical group were to judge the standard-template work superior to the ‘different’ work, in isolation.

25

Johnson and Marlowe are certainly recognized members of the canon. However, they are not the bright and shining example of the very best that Shakespeare is. Oddly, someone tends to be chosen as best in a popularization of canon, which is what this thread is talking about, really, and the rest tend to fade away to the attention of specialists, as, unfortunately, schools do not have the time to teach three year courses on british playwrights.

And, as far as unpopular political philosophy… actually, both Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will are easily canonized as high art, no matter how disgusting their contents.

26

Well, as a former poetry board moderator, I think I can say with some assurance that the “genuinely talented” won’t be hurt by dogma. They’ll only be hurt by the overwhelming waves of poetasters who believe that nothing is important except “writing from the heart” because that’s what “true poets” do. Oh, sorry, that’s ~True Poets!~

If anything kills poetry, it will be the idea “oh, I could do that!” This is making me flash back to yosemitebabe’s recent pit thread.

Julie

27

Ok, listen closely Aeschines. You have taken a wrong track.
A “canon” such as that of Art can only be understood
in terms of its temporal value to a particular culture.
In other words the very nature of Art requires that it
change through time.

The question that begs to be addressed is…** What is Art?**

The answer to this question is beyond debate.
Below is what Art is…

Art is the wordless transfer of a new understanding
about the condition of being alive that is given by
one sapient being to another.

This is the essence of Art, no more, no less.
Anything that doesn’t adhere to this standard is not Art,
but something else.

28

Well its been 24 hours and no one has offered a challange,
so I’d like to say…

It is a rare circumstance when the rough and rowdy motley crew
who usually occupy this corner of Straight Dope agree
on any one idea at all.

And as such, I would like to thank all of you Straight Dopers
who have by default agreed upon
my well-thought-out definition of Art.

You people are special. Thank you. ** kiss**

29

Ah, so poetry, theater and literature aren’t art. Got it.

Can’t be an affirmation of a previous understanding eh? Must always be a new idea, new expressions of old ideas not allowed?

Not about death, eh?

Hmm. So if I paint it for myself, it’s not art?

Please tell me you’re joking.

30

Sorry, missed this:

Well, yes, that’s an interesting way of putting it; and if one assumes that everything in a culture is a tool of subjugation, certainly true. I for one don’t think that canons (in general) are as much tools of cultural subjugation as, say, torture chambers, but that’s just me.

I have no problem admitting that canons are usually flawed, often deeply so, and that they have been and still are used as tools of political hegemony. Nonetheless, I can (and do) also say that there are some works that are inherently superior to others. e.e. cummings’ poetry is more beautiful, and therefore more deserving of readership than mine is. Of course Canons reflect their makers’ tastes and biases and culture; that’s why they are malleable and disparate; that doesn’t necessarily mean that real excellence doesn’t exist.

Do you say otherwise? Is it your contention that beauty and artistic excellence are wholly cultural constructs? 50 cent as valuable *as art * as Mozart?

31

Almost. I read a book on music theory about a year back. In it, the author provided examples of how different cultures develop different notions of musical excellence, and how listeners entrenched in one musical culture find it very hard to appreciate works from another culture and can only do so if the piece “makes sense” in some way in terms of their own culturally shaped ears. You say that “real excellence” exists. But what does that phrase and subsequently the word excellence even mean? A quick glance at Merriam-Webster online dictionary shows this entry:

excellence n.
[ol]
[li]The state, quality, or condition of excelling; superiority.[/li][li] Something in which one excels.[/li][li]Excellence Excellency.[/li][/ol]

Ha!

There is no meaning assigned. Whatever you decide to signify as “excelling” displays “excellence”.

Even something as fundamental and non-cognitive as color harmonies are influenced by culture. For a recent web design project, I consulted this book a couple of months back. The most striking aspect that gets noticed, is the significantly different notions of color harmonies around the world. You would think that “primitive” elemental aspects of aesthetic beauty such as color harmonies would be to a good degree similar across the neurobiologically identical homo sapiens, but like musical tones and scales, the particular history of a culture shape those notions as well.

Potential or realised excellence of a work can only be measured against a template of its audience, which involves enumerating and measuring all factors contributing towards their approach towards, and expectations from life. Your “real excellence”, in this sense, would indicate a work of appeal to (almost) all humans. But given the variability in experience, sophistication, mental abilities, and motivation across cultures and time, I don’t think such a beast exists.

32

Milum : Art is the wordless transfer of a new understanding about
the condition of being alive that is given by one sapient being to another.

Furt : Ah, so poetry, theater and literature aren’t art. Got it.

**Milum **: Of course not, silly. Do you think that all poetry, for example,
is Art? Of course not. Only poems that trigger a novel emotion or
a new understanding of life can properly be called Art.
Art, as you know, is very subjective, so consequently what we deem Art
is not the poem itself but rather the unspoken transfer of information
from one observer of life to another.
Get it? (the last time you said you “got it” you didn’t get it.)

**Furt : Can’t be an affirmation of a previous understanding eh?
Must always be a new idea, new expressions of old ideas not allowed? **

Milum : Of course “old ideas” are not allowed.
Old ideas are everyday ideas that might be of value
but they are not Art. But obviously any worthwhile variation
of a old theme would be considered a new idea and therefore Art.

Any new observation about the shared condition of being alive is Art.

Furt :Not about death, eh?
Milum : Furt, would you please stop saying “eh” ? It makes you sound smug.
Now. Of course about death. Death is a aspect of life. Why do you ask?

Any subject can serve as a vehicle for Art as long as
the insight is transfered from one sapient being to another.

Furt : Hmm. So if I paint it for myself, it’s not art?

Milum : Of course not.
How could it be Art if you painted what you already knew?
Let’s pretend that you are a monkey and you paint a work of Art.
The Art of the painting would not be within the painting itself
but it would be within that moment of mutually shared insight into
an expression of the condition of being alive.

Furt : Please tell me you’re joking.

Milum : I could be wrong, but I’m not.