My review of "No Country for Old Men" has generated a more general
discussion about art and politics on my blog and on Stan Goff's Feral
Scholar. Although the debate has been pretty polarized over the role
of Cormac McCarthy in realizing some ideal about Great Literature,
just about every participant lays claim to radicalism or Marxism.
One of the more ubiquitous posters is one John Steppling, who seeks
to rescue art from commissars like myself who are represented as
latter day partisans of the proletarian novel and socialist realism:
You cannot attack Mccarthy for not writing a book making the didatic
points you want him to make. Thats not what literature does at any
time. I find a lot of people on all political sides become a bit
frightened by characters when they are constructed as McCarthy
constructs themÂ…by which I mean without conventional sentimentality
and motivation.
I should add that Steppling's comments are almost marked by such
spelling and grammatical errors which led blogger Martin Wisse to
observe: "How can anyone take a John Steppling seriously on
literature when the fellow doesn't even have a basic command of English?"
One of the benefits of the debate for me has been its triggering in
my mind of some deeper considerations of the social role of art (I
use the word art in reference to painting, music, theater, poetry,
novels and all the rest), especially in light of a re-reading of the
early chapters of volume one of Karl Marx's "Capital". When you think
of the creation of art in the context of the commodity, use value and
exchange value, certain thoughts come to mind that might help put the
debate on a more "materialist" foundation.
Keep in mind that art only began to become a commodity in the
mid-19th century as the artist was freed from feudal ties. For the
musician and painter, the need for support from the prince or the
church was obvious. A piano was expensive, not to speak of the
orchestra needed to perform a composition. For the painter, fixed
capital was fairly minimal: a canvas and some paint. But since each
work was non-reproducible, there had to be a wealthy backer to
support his efforts. This meant that the typical painting was a
laughing cavalier or a crucifixion. The artist only became to be
emancipated from feudal dependence when a new bourgeoisie began to
emerge. For the musician the struggle was longer and harder as
Mozart's life story demonstrates.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/art-as-commodity/
- [PEN-L] Art as Commodity Louis Proyect
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