Vytautas Kavolis
Artistic Expression—A Sociological Analysis
(1968)
[4] The most obvious, although excessively general, explanation of the societal universality of art is the assumption that affective orientation to the situation of action is one of the basic requisites for the successful functioning of the human society, and that art is a strategic means of fulfilling this need.
In the past, sociologists have been encumbered in their approach to art by inadequacies in their theory of the social functions of art.
Or have they been
encumberedby
their approach ,whereby everything must
functionin a rather narrow sense?
One influential (though not universal) tendency has been to assume that the main function of art for its consumers is status enhancement. Hence art has come to be regarded by some, explicitly or implicitly, as functional mainly for groups possessing or aspiring to high status, and not for the society as a whole.
This is an observable phenomenon, but as a total theory of art it is, as the author adds, partially valid but generally superficial .
...
A more broadly based conception of the social functions of art views art either as a means of re-enforcing existing social conditions, by reflecting them and thereby confirming their legitimacy, or as an instrumentality for changing social conditions, by exposing strains and stresses or by transmitting new attitudes.
Really there is nothing broad about this, because it is still narrowly functional(ist).
It would be great, though, if some intensely function-minded sociologist would turn their methodological laser beam upon this question of instrumentality for changing social conditions . It would be nice to have some firmer ground on which to discuss this cherished conceit.
While probably valid, this point of view has remained, with regard to artistic style, so general that it deserves to be characterized as an interpretive perspective rather than as a theory.
So, basically it's wishcasting.
It has not succeeded in identifying, within a single theoretical scheme, the main types of socio-cultural conditions that affect art style, the range of style characteristics associated, cross-culturally and transhistorically, with each condition, the determinants of variation
[5]
within each range, and the sociophychological mechanisms involved.
Perhaps
it has not succeeded
in doing
any of this
because
all of this
is impossible.
Since, with all its deficiencies, this conception appears to provide the most fruitful orientation for the sociological analysis of art, it will be adopted here.
So, this
theory
in name only,
which is really more of
an interpretive perspective ,
and of which we can say
only
that it
has not succeeded
at several impossible tasks,
this "theory" nonetheless
appears to provide the most fruitful orientation
for the task at hand
??
Hence
it will be adopted here
??
Gotta say, things are off to a rollicking start.
But it needs to be elaborated into a systematic theory, with specific empirical content leading to, and ultimately deducible from, general theoretical principles.
Actually I feel that this is precisely what needs not to happen.
The empirical evidence surveyed in this book suggests the comprehensive hypothesis that the main sociological function of artistic style is the shaping or emotional re-enforcement of general tendencies to perceive situations of action in certain structured ways.
If anyone can explain to me what this means, please leave a comment.
I have proposed elsewhere that artistic content has the function of helping man to develop an emotional involvement with the objects of his social and cultural environment and that the creation of art, by providing new symbolic foci of sociocultural integration, contributes to the reintegration of society after the disturbance of a relative equilibrium. ... Since individuals sensitive to art are produced in all societies, but since not everyone in any particular society has this sensitivity, the need for art is a cross-cultural but not a psychological universal. This approach to the social functions of art has the advantage of suggesting that art, in its various aspects, has various social functions, and that, as a consequence, no single one of them can reasonably explain art in all of its manifestations.
An interesting way of putting it. Rank and Becker, meanwhile, think there is a "psychological universal" implicated here, of which "the need for art" is merely one of myriad forms taken. That seems to me to lead more directly to better (and fewer) questions. It suggests also that any "social" function of art is after the fact of individual "psychological" need.
...
[18] ...we might speculate that the early hunting-gathering economy made the first significant achievements in man's control over nature,... The other two levels of economic development most signally linked with geometricism—the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions—are both clearly characterized by radical increases in man's control over nature. In contrast, both levels of economic development associated with naturalistic styles—the advanced hunting and urban-commercial stages—give indications of a stable, or only gradually improving, pragmatic adaptation to the environment, without revolutionary changes in man's conquest of nature.
This contrast suggests two general propositions: Any radically increased control over nature will be associated with tendencies toward geometricism in the visual arts. ... Any pragmatic but only gradually improving adaptation to the natural environment, on the other hand, will be linked with tendencies toward naturalism in the visual arts. The linkage indicates that naturalism in art reflects a relatively static adaptation to nature.
Given these two propositions, three interpretations, not
[19]
mutually exclusive, of the causes of change in art style are possible. First, technological revolutions generate new attitudes in art-making and art-using groups, which are then projected in new styles. Second, changes in dominant value orientations that have already occurred in a society give an independent impetus both to technological revolution and to change in art style. Third, a change in style helps to modify attitudes toward nature and thus contributes to economic dynamism or stability.
A finding that modern geometricism emerged concurrently with industrialism would support the second interpretation. In actuality, economic transformation began before the artistic change. ... It may take longer for a general change in value orientations to affect the art-making than the economy-managing groups (though artists are frequently assumed to be particularly sensitive to, and their work the first indicator of, such changes). The immediate response of artists to the technological aspects of industrialization was largely one of vehement protest. This reaction, presumably, was one source of nineteenth-century romanticism. But when the general tendency toward increased control over the environment had had time to influence artists' subconscious motivations, geometricism, became artistically possible. ...
I log all of this only to give an example of a genuinely socio-determinist orientation.
Along the way, we at least get some welcome contrarianism. Though artists are frequently assumed to be particularly sensitive to, and their work the first indicator of, such changes in value orientations , nonetheless The immediate response of artists to the technological aspects of industrialization was largely one of vehement protest. That's fun. But I suspect it's just as spurious as the rest.
...
[33] In the contemporary world, orientations toward authority and liberty in an individual artist may not correspond to the verbal statements that he chooses to make in the language of the ideological doctrines fashionable in his environment. Characteristics of style are likely to be correlated with politically relevant orientations implicit in the artist's general behavior, rather than with his explicit pronouncements on political matters.
Yep!
About this
non correspondence
between
explicit pronouncements on political matters
and
politically relevant orientations implicit in the artist's general behavior ,
can this be studied
sociologically
?
Because unlike
Determinants of Style ,
which Rank tells us are spurious,
this
non correspondence
between word and deed
does seem urgent and tractable
in precisely those two areas which Rank
(in Psychology and the Soul)
would refer us back to:
Paradoxical as it may sound, the false connections in our soul are the truly causal ones, for they are the "cause" of all the human reactions we observe and study in psychology. This dethrones psychology as self-knowledge and reestablishes ethics and epistemology in its place.
(p. 123, trans. Richter and Lieberman)
[63]...
Aristocratic Styles
The styles of the Western European aristocracy are described in the literature of art history as rigid, grandiose, pompous,... There are indications of two basic types of aristocratic style. On the one hand, the independent and militant feudal nobility is linked with the Romanesque, a formal, stereotyped, expressionistic, and emotionally intense style. On the other hand, mannerism, the Catholic baroque, and the rococo are associated with the courtly nobility—... All of the "courtly" styles, to be sure—especially the rococo—have also appealed to the upper bourgeoisie. But since, from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, particularly in the Catholic countries in which these styles flourished, the prosperous upper bourgeoisie tended to develop a cultural identification with the aristocracy, these styles, even when cultivated by a plutocracy, may be assumed to reflect a basically aristocratic predisposition.
The international Gothic of the fifteenth century may be regarded as the style of a feudal nobility that was becoming courtly and already exhibiting in its taste more of the pre-dispositions of the latter: a preference for a "sublimation of reality," "elegant refinement," "subtle and delicate drawing," and "tenderness."
[64]
In search of central tendencies, I tentatively hypothesize that the most universal characteristic of aristocratic art is its restraint on spontaneity. This trait may appeal to aristocratic taste because it suggests dignity or refinement, important qualities of the nobility's style of life.
Perhaps Vessel et al's Art Reaches Within paper, e.g., points, finally, to the smoking gun vis-a-vis this seemingly too-facile nexus between personal, class and aesthetic traits. But that's "psychology," this is "sociology." There's "a difference in scale" here, as a socio-bro once explained it to me unsolicitedly.
Within this general pattern of restrained spontaneity two subtypes are distinguishable: The art of a self-assertive (relatively independent and instrumentally active) nobility tends to be characterized by rigid formalism superimposed upon intense emotionality. This style suggests a dominant social stratum with a high dynamic potential—most typically a nomadic or feudal aristocracy or a hereditary class of managers of both political and economic affairs.
The art of an apathetic (dependent and instrumentally functionless) nobility, on the other hand, exhibits an idealization of reality and a kind of lyrical sensuousness which lacks emotional intensity and may appear to be "artificially" refined. This style is suggestive of refinement without a capacity for initiating significant change. It is most likely to be preferred by urbanized or city-oriented aristocracies, particularly when the political and economic functions they formerly performed have been taken over by newly developed bureaucratic organizations.
Ok, here's an actual role for interpretation and criticism, albeit one we wish would never have arisen: in order for hypotheses such as the above to hold up, we need to examine the works in question for alternative interpretations. Does a work really, truly lack emotional intensity ? On what basis and in whose eyes can we be sure that it indeed exhibits an idealization of reality ? These "aesthetic concepts" are flying at us in swarms here, but what do they even mean?
Usually it's possible to "interpret" even the most turgid of "aristocratic" art in a few different ways. If so, then it becomes much harder to reverse engineer the particular "interpretation" which explains any given reception. We're stuck with a puddle where infinite ice cubes could once have been. But if not, if the rejoinder to this is that multiple intepretations are not in fact possible owing to some known "context" which must be accounted for at all times, then the enterprise has become circular, we had the answer the whole time, and everyone can go to lunch.
...
[67]
...
Peasant Styles
To traditional rural art have been attributed such characteristics as impersonality, homogeneity of style, simplicity, harmoniousness, rigidity, uniform monotony, symbolic abstraction, geometric stylization, and "decorative form and abstract beauty of line." An art critic has concluded that peasant art "shows surprising tendency towards abstraction—either towards geometric abstraction,... ; or towards a rhythmical stylization of naturalistic motives,...
[68]
... Direct representational art of the type dear to the academic artist is almost unknown in peasant art ."
...
[116]
10
🙛 🙙
IMAGES OF THE UNIVERSE
AND STYLES OF ART...
Theoretical Assumptions
As orientations toward the totality of the environment, images of the universe are not easily compressed into a neat dichotomy. For analytical purposes, however, two extreme positions along an attitudinal continuum may be identified.
One significant element of a harmonious image of the universe is a perception of the destructive principle as definitely subordinate to the constructive principle (or not distinguishable as a definite discordant element at all). A harmonious image of the universe is thus indicated by a weak sense of the power of evil. It can be identified by a relative lack of
[117]
fear of supernatural powers (or, in secular ideologies, of social forces of evil). Conversely, a disharmonious image of the universe is apt to contain a perception of the destructive principle as largely independent and extremely powerful, capable of challenging the constructive principle in a contest with an uncertain outcome. An image of cosmic disharmony is thus indicated by a powerful sense of evil and can be identified by an intense fear of supernatural powers (or of their equivalents in secular ideologies).
It may be assumed that a perception of the universe as essentially harmonious is likely to produce an attitude of acceptance of its nature and of confidence in the predictability of relationships among its objects. Such an attitude should be reflected in reality-imitating, or "naturistic," art styles. ...
Conversely, the image of a disharmonious universe seems likely to generate anxiety regarding man's relationship with his surroundings. The image will presumably be reflected in art styles suggestive of emotional distress experienced in relation to objects of the environment. It is assumed that deformation (that is, the forcing of forms of nature into patterns
[118]
inherently alien to them) or the abandonment of observable reality may carry the suggestion of the anxiety that is focused in such objects as have been deformed or abandoned. ... Since pure—that is, nonobjective—abstraction is an almost uniquely modern phenomenon, in order to formulate a hypothesis applicable to the artistic traditions of all times, we assume the more general tendency toward deformation of visible reality to constitute the artistic expression of a sense of cosmic disharmony.
Although orientations toward the universe are regarded as basically preconscious states of mind, it is assumed that religious or secular ideological doctrines prevalent in a given epoch provide a clue to these states of mind, without necessarily constituting empirically exact conceptualizations of them. Therefore, much of the evidence on orientations toward the universe to be used here is derived, inferentially, from religious doctrines and attitudes popular in the strata that have created or used art in the various societies considered.
This is all laid out so painstakingly and "responsibly," but the last bit in particular I think is just too loose.
Previously we're told that
In the contemporary world,
orientations toward authority and liberty
in an individual artist
may not correspond to the verbal statements
that he chooses to make
in the language of the ideological doctrines
fashionable in his environment.
If we've seen this firsthand as well as reading it in books, that ought to be enough to warn us off of deriving , inferentially, from religious doctrines and attitudes any direct analogs between said "attitudes" and any aesthetic tendencies.
[119]
A Cross-Cultural and Historical Explanation
As our hypothesis suggests, the civilizations which seem to have had, relatively speaking, the most harmonious views of the universe—the classical Greek and the Chinese (since the Han dynasty)—did in fact have artistic traditions characterized by a strong tendency to imitate nature.
Voila!
...
[120]
... Deformation does tend to be associated with the awe-inspiring, and naturism with the compassionate in religion. (While this hypothesis is not applicable to the secular art of the Puritans, New England tombstones of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reveal that where the Puritans were not under the influence of European models, they tended spontaneously to evolve a highly distorted—geometricizing—style).
That is at least interesting!
The dynamic nature of the linkage between orientations toward the universe and art style can be demonstrated in the development of the Western Christian tradition of art. The Romanesque artist, a "man of fear and trembling," employed a style marked by considerable deformation. The element of naturism increased as "Gothic man" found "his way ... to cosmic harmony." The "reconciliation with God" in the Renaissance is associated with further advances toward naturism. Classical naturalism is linked with the decline of the "threat of hell-fire";...
[121]
...trends toward a disharmonious world view within the Christian tradition appear to be associated with deformation in the visual arts, and trends toward a more harmonious view of the universe to be linked with artistic naturism. Similar relationships are apparent, at least in certain periods, also in China and in classical Greece.
The relatively optimistic world view of the rationalistic seventeenth century is associated with a return to naturalism in art... The basically harmonious universe of the French Enlightenment is linked with a preference for realistic classicism. On the other hand, the deformation in contemporary art may be assumed to reflect the more intense perception of disharmony which is a part of the modern temper. ... In preliterate cultures, naturism seems in general to be associated with mature hunting-gathering societies, while a more geometric style is favored by the agricultural societies. But there are ranges of variation at each level. Among the hunting-gathering peoples, the European cave-dwellers approached most closely a naturistic style, the Australians and
[122]
the Eskimos less so. ...
If our interpretation of artistic deformation is valid, an increasingly disharmonious view of the universe may have been associated with, or perhaps have preceded, the Agricultural Revolution. This interpretation is supported by Radin's somewhat overgeneralized observation that "it is only after the simple methods of food production and their social concomitants have changed that a real fear of the supernatural emerges." ... An increase in the sense of cosmic disharmony seems, however, to be associated with the agricultural transition and its preparatory phases, rather than with the agricultural type of society as such. Among artistically active agricultural societies, the Zuni, for example, have a particularly low index of supernatural fear. ...they deform reality in their artistic representations, but they deform less intensively, with a less expressionistic effect, than do the Kwakiutl. Deformation is of far less significance in European peasant art than in the carvings of African or Melanesian agriculturists. ...
[123]
...
A tendency toward deformation is also associated with the Industrial Revolution. ...tendencies toward deformation in art are linked with both of the main economic transformations of society. This suggests, if our interpretation is valid, that radical economic advances either require or cause the emergence of more disharmonious perceptions of the universe.
...
...
[126]...
Functional Interpretation
...it may be tentatively suggested that the qualities of a religious orientation are projected in art style because such projections have pragmatic utility for both the individual personality and the cultural system.
For the personality (of the artist as well as of the emotionally involved art consumer), artistic projection may satisfy a hypothesized general need to give a tangible structure to one's emotional perception of the universe. By externalizing such feelings, one increases one's capacity to impose some degree of conscious control over them. Art style, to the extent to which it corresponds to underlying emotional orientations, then has the psychological function of contributing to the
[127]
explication and "rationalization" of the subconscious in the interest of increasing ego control.
As for religion specifically, artistic projection may satisfy the need to develop an emotional relationship to the abstractions which the religious concepts would be in the absence of their artistic visualization. This need may be satisfied, consciously, by the content of religious art, and, more subconsciously, by artistic style. On both levels, art seems to perform the function of vitalizing and strengthening the sense of emotional relatedness to the intangible objects of religious commitment. In the absence of the aesthetic as a component of religious orientation, a religion is apt to be experienced as psychologically constricting and ego-alien; it fails to include one of the most intimate elements of any act of commitment. On the other hand, a strong sense of emotional orientation, developed by art (or by other means), may contribute to the emergence of religious conceptions and may indeed be one generic source of religion itself.
...
[162]...
Methodological Comments
One of the basic assumptions of the value-orientation theory is that all possible orientations are present, but to varying degrees, in all societies at all times. Hence, any complex artistic tradition or personality is potentially capable of using all distinguishable elements of artistic style. Value orientations merely create tendencies to favor particular stylistic characteristics, which are combined with other tendencies—some of them apparently caused by sociological factors—to form a style. Since similar tendencies may appear in different sociocultural contexts, they will emerge in diverse stylistic configurations, so that no specific historical style can be considered as a "pure" and "complete" expression of a value orientation (or of any other sociocultural variable, such as social class).
...
[163]
...
In cross-cultural studies, the present theory should be adjusted to the limiting condition that certain characteristics of style (e.g., the depth dimension or particular colors) do not exist as technically realizable alternatives in some cultural traditions. In such cases, it is not possible, without independent sources of information, to infer with any degree of certainty that the value orientations presumably linked with the "missing" traits are also absent. ... When techniques determine the forms of expression, analytical inferences must be made, holding the techniques as constant as possible. However, the preference for a particular technique when alternatives are available may in itself be significant as a clue to value orientations. ...
Cool. So, uh...when's lunch?
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