Aestheticism as the promotion of accessible arts

'To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of [its] enjoyment ... which comes from slowly guessing at it; to suggest, that is the dream.' Stephane Mallarme, 1891.

Seldom does one enter a house, or an office and find the walls completely devoid of any two-dimensional representation in the form of a print, a photograph or a painting. The inhabitants of the twenty-first century Britain find themselves continually bombarded by images, each one crafted by some person to inspire a certain belief, understanding or emotion in the viewer. A response to an image is as elementary as decisions on how to clothe ourselves, and yet ‘art’ remains something that constantly alienates people.

In my discussions with people I find that many hold a fear about responding in the wrong way: about not understanding art. This is particularly clear when discussing contemporary art; so many people clam up when non-painterly conceptual art becomes the topic of conversation. The rolling of the eyes and the sweeping statement of “well, it’s not really art, is it?” usually closes the debate fairly swiftly. I do not wish to explain away this response, and I understand much of the criticism of contemporary art, but I believe that much of the rejection of the genre is part of the alienation that it creates. In the small information cards at the sides of works in galleries we read that art is ‘about’ this or that, in interviews with painters we understand that they wish to express a ‘spirituality’ of some sort or other. All this means that if you don’t happen to ‘get’ that particular explanation, then you clearly cannot appreciate the particular work. This labelling is ultimately limiting of the development of our own interpretations and of the creativity that can be inspired within us from philosophical exploration of artworks (added to which, if I have learnt anything from studying art history, it is that artists are not necessarily the best people to talk about their work).

I believe that Mallarme is completely correct. We should guard against the labelling of artworks by providing definite interpretations, and that words should remain secondary to the art itself.

It is possible that this growing concern for meanings and explanations in art is driven by the awareness of the ‘canon’. Looking back through art history there were plenty of artists who were celebrated in their day, but who have disappeared from any comprehensive study of art history today. Those that have made the art historical canon are those who went on to influence others, and these artists are predominantly those who had the ‘big ideas’. Gustave Courbet’s philosophically controversial ‘Burial at Ornans’ caused a scandal and public outcry when exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1850, and his work now hangs in some of the most important galleries in the world, while the popular genre painters of the Victorian period and the allegorical ‘soft-porn’ that was celebrated by the Salon at the time, is largely forgotten. The need to be controversial and have a wordy backing to justify their art could be motivated by the desire to enter the canon. Will Martin Creed be remembered while Lucien Freud is forgotten?

In the preface to his updating of Gombrich: ‘Mirror of the World: A new History of Art’, Julian Bell writes: ‘A work of art seeks to hold your attention and keep it fixed: a history of art urges it onwards, bulldozing a highway through the homes of the imagination.’ Of course neither Bell, nor I wish to criticise the academic practice of art history; inevitably if we wish to create a picture of art through time we must consider the through-lines of ideas, and other pieces will fall by the wayside. Instead I think Bell is drawing attention to our tendency to search for some significance in the work that we view rather than taking the time to appreciate them for what they are, in and of themselves. Additional knowledge is wonderful: it interesting and can enable you to experience the visual arts in a different way, but if you do not have this knowledge that in no way diminishes the pleasure you can receive from getting to know a particular painting or sculpture.

The accessibility of the arts must be upheld. All people are philosophers and the visual arts simply work out these individual philosophies through the medium of paint, or bronze (etc.). The study of them can inspire and formulate new ways to understand humanity; these are ideas that anyone can decipher.