by Gouda » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:42 am
'scuse me, pardon, pard...'scuse me.... ah, finally. a spot on this subway car...<br><br>And I am not even going to give you my own words. <br><br>I will quote a far worthier intellect on the subject, one J. Blum (no relation to William). J. is the mastermind, editor and senior writer for his <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, an aperiodical political and cultural newsletter. And dear friend. The following excerpts are taken from <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, volume two, number two, Spring, 2005 - from the essay: <br><br>"A Blast of Snarling Aesthetic Reactionism".<br><br>It is J's considered opinion that the last century has witnessed an artistic decline unique in human history. (For the record, I believe he concurs, with proldic's assumed launching thesis in this thread, though does not adress the CCF or CIA in this particular essay. He would share Gore Vidal's stance: "I am an anti anti-communist" He writes:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>This decline comprised several trends. Two of these strike me as especially pernicious and between these two there is virtually nothing to choose. We might choose to see these trends as perversions of the Enlightenment and of Romanticism, respectively; however we choose to see them, I think they may be summarized in the first instance as an obsession with planning and with the construction of a new totality, and in the second as the abandonment of all preconception in favor of the whims of the unconscious, Freudian or otherwise. Thus, the latter is concerned with spontaneity, as Romanticism is alleged to be, and the former takes the constructionist, or rationalist, tendencies of the Enlightenment to new extremes. In the first instance, these new totalities (those of Malevich, Mondrian or Schoenberg and their followers, constructivism and integral serialism come to mind) which unlike the canons of technique and taste which had evolved from the Renaissance (at least), would be all-encompassing and omnipotent in governing (in Schoenberg’s unfelicitous phrase) “the next hundred years.” In the second (which we might associate with names like John Cage, Pollock, Derek Bailey), emphases are laid upon such notions as freedom and expression and there is a tendency to import the maxims of Asian mysticisms. Both result in apparent chaos and unintelligibility. Add to these trends another in which artists appear to spend more time and lavish more effort upon their manifestoes (wherein the lack of intelligibility is oft raised to the status of a positive virtue) than upon their visible oeuvre, and I believe we have a compact summation of what went so wrong in the arts. I must add that these trends are not exclusive to the 20th Century; it is during those years, with significant accelerations surrounding the two world wars, however that the trends reached such distressing proportions. The effects of this decline have yet to be fathomed in full, as conservatories channeled generations of academic composers into the absurdities of integral serialism, stochasticism, minimalism and the rest. Instruction in the visual arts abandoned draftsmanship to the commercial artist and the aspirant creator of comic books. “Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement,” Pollock stated once. I find this to be an apt summary of the difference between the decadence of the last century and the artistic traditions, wherever and whenever they may be found, wherein technique is the means by which the statement is given its best and fullest expression. <br><br>...<br>The decline of artistic standards followed on the mythic inflation of the figure of the artist. The cult of the artist, visible in such figures as Goethe and Beethoven, Byron and Wagner, at some point became the cult of the sordid life to which so many artists have been subjected, not least by themselves. <br><br>...<br>Charlie Parker’s phrases were little more copied than his junkiedom and his peculiar genius remains misunderstood by those who find his travails more interesting than his solos. <br><br>...<br>For what made Thomas, Parker, Baudelaire artists of genius was a combination of inherent ability and a period of intense dedication towards the mastery of their chosen craft. Parker acquired a knowledge of the interrelations of harmony and rhythm and of the possibilities latent in each of these and in their combination which became intuitive, so intuitive as to permit him the ability to deploy heretofore unimagined phrases, as advanced in harmony as Bruckner or Mahler, Scirabin or Stravinsky (for Parker remained entirely within the orbit of tonality, thus of late-Romantic or “Stravinskian”modernist harmonic theory)(1), but off the cuff, and with a rhythmic understanding built upon the masters of swing and blues. None surpass Charlie Parker as a bluesman–not Basie, not any of the Kings, not Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters–his choice of notes, the shaping of those notes and the deployment of those notes in both the gross and subtle aspects of rhythm are the sum total of why Parker is superlative as bluesman and as musician generally, jazz or otherwise. <br><br>...<br>Such men as these at least worked within artistic forms, seeking to expand the possibilities of the forms they utilized. We cannot say the same of the likes of Jackson Pollock. “Abstract expressionism” is not inapt a term. For what is one left with when expression has been abstracted of any content? Evidently a nonsensical collection of squirts and squiggles. “I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them.” Art is come to a dead end, “who cares if you listen?” as Milton Babbitt asked the readers of a hi-fi magazine in 1958. Babbitt was an integral serialist, who insisted on “control” of every aspect of musical composition, leaving nothing to the whims of performers, becoming in the end a computer programmer of unlistenable bleeps and bloops–which are, given the difference of medium, indistinguishable from Pollock’s stream-of-unconscious “expressionism.” Is not the point of “expression” expression of an idea, an emotion, or some complexes of these? With the intent to communicate, at however much of a remove? Walt Whitman could certainly be deemed an expressionist–but none can question his intent to communicate. His abandonment of traditional forms may be a problematic matter for the critic or the reader who tends towards aesthetic conservatism. Nevertheless, Whitman’s aim of mystical unity with the reader (and with humanity, and American humanity in particular) is clearly stated and the attempt at a paradoxical formless form (“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”) is entirely consonant with this end. What is Pollock’s end? “I wish to express my feelings, not illustrate them.” What are these feelings expressed? How can we tell? And who provides us with an example of illustration of one’s feelings? Whose raison d’art is this? A straw man, perhaps.<br><br>...<br>Artistic endeavor requires the labors of love, as pecuniary reward is in the first place unlikely and in the second singularly disconnected from talent and merit and effort. Pollock, again, wishes to express his feelings. If he accomplished his aim, mere expression, let us not begrudge him his doing so or the means by which he did. But we are not obliged to call the result art, much less great art. The expression of one’s feelings is a matter for conversation, or, if necessary, the confessional or the couch. Spontaneity is altogether appropriate for the expression of one’s feelings. Spontaneity per se is not artistic. It ought not matter to the listener that Parker improvised his astonishing solos. What matters is their richness, their inventiveness, their perfection. That Parker improvised does perhaps make his accomplishments all the more impressive, it does not change the substance of these accomplishments. Coleridge largely improvised the fragment “Kubla Khan;” improvisation accounts largely for the fragmentary nature of this work, Coleridge’s skill and learning are what provide for its magnificence. Improvisation is exciting for the improviser; if the improvisation be impassioned and fluent, the excitement not unreasonably diffuses to the collaborators and the audience. But as an artistic end, it becomes mere selfishness–not l’art pout l’art, but rather l’art pour moi. <br><br>...<br>Pollock and his ilk, Kerouac, Cage, the works of such men do not show evidence of love for either their chosen medium or for their audience. Rather they display contempt, a contempt not altogether different from that of a television executive who bets that there is no low to which a tube-addled nation will not sink. Those who would equate the splattering of paint over an unstretched canvas with the exertions of El Greco or Vermeer deserve what they get. This is Mencken’s witticism about democracy–that the people know what they want and deserve to get it–good and hard. <br><br>...<br>Pollock should have charged admission to his work-in-progress rather than sought to sell his–can one say “finished” if in the artist’s own words there is no beginning and no end? work in a gallery. Such would be the logic of privileging process over product. <br><br>...<br>Once Pollock has expressed his feelings, once the moment is past, what then of the results of that expression? If the expression is the be all and end all, why proceed to display the results? Is this not prostitution of the moment? And does not the thought of the display, of the results of expression, of the fruits of action–does not this thought contaminate the moment with time future and time past? <br><br>...<br> We are left with formless egoism–something not very distinguishable from the scribblings of preschoolers save in its lack of innocence and its rejection, rather than mere lack, of learning. In short, the difference between ignorance and stupidity.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>