My Reference List - Study Task 1

I don’t think that I have referenced most of my sources properly because I used the RefMe app instead of doing it my self using the library guide. However, this list contains all the information that I need to re-find all of my sources so that I can reference them properly in my actual essay bibliography. I didn’t really find anything useful at all on google scholar because it seemed to contain mainly scientific essays (nothing on my subject). However, jstor was surprisingly useful. It contains so many art books (most of which you can read the whole thing). This was definitely my most useful resource and all of the texts seem quite reliable. I think that I am going to use my three jstor texts to triangulate.

Print Culture Lecture

Art in Pre-Modern Society

• Between 1780 and 1832 Art Schools only taught painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry i.e. At Somerset House (the first Art School), reflecting a clear separation between these 'high arts' and other arts (as well as gender separation - the artists were all male).
• Art was commissioned by the rich and the Elite were the taste makers.

Then Came the Industrial Revolution

• Product production increased and industry rapidly expanded, altering the nature of society.
• A clear separation between classes emerged (i.e. rich businessmen lived on outside of city to escape pollution) = a class war due to segregation.
• The Working Classes come together and made new forms of art using the machinery in industry = The creation of Working Class culture (regarded by the rich as ‘low art’).
• Independence to be an artist arose (no longer need a commission from the rich).
• People made money out of reproductions i.e. of famous paintings (exploiting?).
• Illustrations were being produced for the working class by working class - the people’s art.
• Popular art formed a kind of addiction. A form of conversation that doesn’t refresh your view about art but makes you want to refuse to face reality.
• It’s not about looking at and questioning life.

Snobbery Against the Art of the Working Class

• Matthew Arnold in ‘Culture and Anarchy’ (1867):
• He referred to the anarchy of the working class as ‘the diseased spirit'.
• He also referred to the middle classes as ‘the raw and uncultivated masses’.
• His writing reflects the snobbery that formed against this uprise in attempt to keep the working class in their place.
• This is where the divided opinions between Illustration and Fine art originate.

The Divide Between Fine Art and Commercial Art 

• The School of Design opened at Somerset House (ironically).
• The function of Design School was to get people into industry not to teach them about expressionism and creativity - Clearly two separate things that do not understand each others value systems (this can be traced back to the 18th Century).
• Fine Art has preserved itself by communicating itself as something more than the everyday - Big ideas, something other worldly, requiring ‘Creativity’ (what exactly is this?).
• Respect is reflected in art galleries, where people have the same reverence as the middle had for the upper classes - You feel small in front of a big painting.
• What happens when a high art image is reproduced and re-contextualised? Does it become less important?
• This reflects the politics to middle class art - It is not just about copying. It is about fight back against systems of power - attack.
• There is still a fight now between the people's art and auratic elite who seek to preserve the divide between the two.

New Technologies and Ways of Making Art

• The first moving image was exhibited in the Eidophusikon exhibition in 1783.
• It was a set that you look through as if it was a painting but with moving parts and actors inside it.
• It was dramatically lit to create an emersory sensory experience.
• It was a sensation (using new technology - a sense that new technology is doing something better than traditional art).
• Lots of new ways of art making emerged- new technologies were destabilising traditional art.
• Art (illustration) started appearing in news papers - People would even buy the illustrated press as much for the art as the text.
• You no longer have to buy art - it comes to you.
• You no longer need portrait painters. You can use photography - cheaper - quicker.

Print Capitalism

• The general focus of print making was around money making (overtaking Fine Art) - quick, new, exciting.
• The idea that Fine Art is for something other than a pay check has come from this.
• The elite therefore viewed it as cheap and mindless (lots of mindless work was made for money because anyone could make it).
• In ‘The Lesser Arts’ (1877) William Morris (a print designer) regards the sickness that comes with Commercial Art.
• He believed that what people deceive as the lesser arts don’t have to be - he wanted to bring print design to the level of Fine Art (Can be really well crafted). - We are artists. Its not just a job.
• The solution is to get rid of this divide or you’ll only have sickly culture or elite culture.
• His drive to overthrow capitalism and install socialism is reflected in his work.
• His work was born out of this political desire - he focused on nature not furnaces and industry - He like others used pop culture as political weapon rather than a  commercial money thing.
• However, his small scale print business couldn’t compete with factories that spat out shoddy goods.
• He represents an alternative way of running the world (a cooperative) - a return to hand made in face of digital.
• Is this a return to small scale collectivised method of production or return to artist and hand made?

This lecture was actually really relevant to my quote and first piece of writing as I’m looking at the divid between Fine Art and Commercial Art. This lecture has really helped me to contextualise my ideas and to understand the origins of their different value systems. I am not going to use any of the texts mentioned as s ramify text because I feel that they are all quite dated. However I might look into some of them further to backup some of the arguments in my essay (particularly at William Morris).

What is my Question? - Study Task 2

Having found and picked apart six separate texts which all relate to my quote I want to start triangulating between them but I’m really struggling to do this without a clear focus. I think that I first need a question. My quote is quite broad but when finding my texts I looked mainly at why people in our contemporary society tend to have this negative view toward art and the artist. My research lead me to mainly look at Fine Art and I was going to respond to the question ‘Why do people view contemporary art in such a negative light? (would this make an argument or just a list of contrasting reasons?) or I was going to respond to the statement ‘the contemporary artist has no status within society’. 

However, I feel that as I am studying illustration I should probably look at commercial art as well as Fine art. This would work with my quote as it refers to ‘the arts’ in general lacking status. But this means that my question will become more complex. Do I look at them together i.e. ‘Does the artist, weather they be a commercial or a fine artist exhibit any visible signs of status in today’s society?’ or do I look at them separately?

I think that it would perhaps work better if I looked them separately as all of the texts that I have read looks at them as two polar opposites where status is concerned. My vague question then for my triangulation is going to be: 'Which art form, Commercial Art or Fine Art has a greater sense of status in contemporary society?'

… The only problem is that most of my texts only talk about Fine Art!

What are my Chosen Texts Saying? - Study Task 2

Triangulating Example Texts in Class - Study Task 2

After todays session I still don’t really understand the layout of the triangulation sheet (there isn’t any room to triangulate). With my own texts I am just going to use the sheet to pick apart and simplify my texts. I also still don’t completely understand how to triangulate. I know what it is but I'm not really sure how to go about it. I guess I might try doing a piece of writing based on my texts surrounding my quote. This would work quite well as a starting point for my essay. However, I think I'm really going to struggle jumping between the different arguments rather than laying out one at a time.