For all his faults, Theodor Adorno was correct! There is such a thing as good art and bad art! Adorno is wrong to blame capitalism at least 100% for the decline in the quality of art over the past couple centuries. The other half of the story was a movement called Impressionism. It at first simply loosened artistic standards but retained…
For all his faults, Theodor Adorno was correct! There is such a thing as good art and bad art! Adorno is wrong to blame capitalism at least 100% for the decline in the quality of art over the past couple centuries. The other half of the story was a movement called Impressionism. It at first simply loosened artistic standards but retained some elements of discipline. The first two generations of the movement were unbelievable and gave us geniuses like Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Rodin. But over time it devolved into not merely loosening artistic standards but doing away with them altogether. Thus we arrive at where we are today where a bag of feces, a giant carving of someone’s rear end, a banana taped to a canvas, some cinder blocks, a bench, or a pair of glasses dropped on the floor is considered art. Here’s the problem with that, if everything is art than nothing is art. If art becomes so subjective it can be literally anything that defeats the whole purpose of art in the first place. Art is supposed to be beautiful, stand out from the ordinary and be something to behold. A pencil dropped on the floor and broken in half, a Kleenex full of boogers or a toilet is NOT art! The Mona Lisa, the Scream or Van Gogh’s Starry Night. That is art! Also, Adorno could not have been more right that art is NOT supposed to be universal or appeal to everyone. Everyone is NOT supposed to understand it! That’s the whole point! It’s supposed to introduce you to new ideas and new ways of seeing the world and make you think long after you’ve left the gallery or the museum! You’re absolutely right Liza, we need to consume art critically and parse out the quality stuff from the junk. For instance if we’re talking about film, examples of good art would be Frankenstein, Dracula, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Seventh Seal, The Wizard of Oz, George C. Scott’s version of A Christmas Carol, The Maltese Falcon, the Original Star Wars Trilogy, The Great Dictator, The Invisible Man, Modern Times, The Battle of Algiers, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and the original Godzilla. Examples of Bad Art would be Howard the Duck, Gigli, the Garbage Pail Kids, Battlefield Earth, Planet 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda?, Baby Geniuses, and Alvin and the Chipmunks. In terms of literature, examples of good art would be The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, Go Down, Moses, The Sound and the Fury, Two Soldiers, Intruder in the Dust, The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears A Who, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, King Lear, The Flea, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and I Heard A Fly Buzz. Examples of bad art would be Bad Feminist, Orientialism, Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching, The Hate U Give, and American Dirt. In Music, examples of good art would be: Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Louie Armstrong, Count Basie, Jelly Roll Morton, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Whitney Houston, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Prince, Phil Collins, Selena, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Dean Martin, Frank Zappa, and Roy Orbison. Examples of bad art would be Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Rihanna, Pitbull, Will I Am, Fergie, Jacob Satorious, Kendrick Lamar, Miley Cyrus, and Kesha. Phenomenal article worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, Liza!
For all his faults, Theodor Adorno was correct! There is such a thing as good art and bad art! Adorno is wrong to blame capitalism at least 100% for the decline in the quality of art over the past couple centuries. The other half of the story was a movement called Impressionism. It at first simply loosened artistic standards but retained some elements of discipline. The first two generations of the movement were unbelievable and gave us geniuses like Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Rodin. But over time it devolved into not merely loosening artistic standards but doing away with them altogether. Thus we arrive at where we are today where a bag of feces, a giant carving of someone’s rear end, a banana taped to a canvas, some cinder blocks, a bench, or a pair of glasses dropped on the floor is considered art. Here’s the problem with that, if everything is art than nothing is art. If art becomes so subjective it can be literally anything that defeats the whole purpose of art in the first place. Art is supposed to be beautiful, stand out from the ordinary and be something to behold. A pencil dropped on the floor and broken in half, a Kleenex full of boogers or a toilet is NOT art! The Mona Lisa, the Scream or Van Gogh’s Starry Night. That is art! Also, Adorno could not have been more right that art is NOT supposed to be universal or appeal to everyone. Everyone is NOT supposed to understand it! That’s the whole point! It’s supposed to introduce you to new ideas and new ways of seeing the world and make you think long after you’ve left the gallery or the museum! You’re absolutely right Liza, we need to consume art critically and parse out the quality stuff from the junk. For instance if we’re talking about film, examples of good art would be Frankenstein, Dracula, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Seventh Seal, The Wizard of Oz, George C. Scott’s version of A Christmas Carol, The Maltese Falcon, the Original Star Wars Trilogy, The Great Dictator, The Invisible Man, Modern Times, The Battle of Algiers, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and the original Godzilla. Examples of Bad Art would be Howard the Duck, Gigli, the Garbage Pail Kids, Battlefield Earth, Planet 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda?, Baby Geniuses, and Alvin and the Chipmunks. In terms of literature, examples of good art would be The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, Go Down, Moses, The Sound and the Fury, Two Soldiers, Intruder in the Dust, The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears A Who, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, King Lear, The Flea, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and I Heard A Fly Buzz. Examples of bad art would be Bad Feminist, Orientialism, Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching, The Hate U Give, and American Dirt. In Music, examples of good art would be: Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Louie Armstrong, Count Basie, Jelly Roll Morton, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Whitney Houston, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Prince, Phil Collins, Selena, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Dean Martin, Frank Zappa, and Roy Orbison. Examples of bad art would be Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Rihanna, Pitbull, Will I Am, Fergie, Jacob Satorious, Kendrick Lamar, Miley Cyrus, and Kesha. Phenomenal article worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, Liza!