How Low Can You Go?
I’ve been reading some rather pretentious literary web sites which spend a great deal of time pontificating about “high art.” The terms "high art" and "low art" have always struck me as pretty meaningless. IMO, trying to classify art as “highbrow” or “lowbrow” seems an entitely subjective process and ultimately rather pointless in this modern day and age. We've evolved beyond such nonsense, surely?
The notion of brow levels came about in the early 1900’s when free public schools first started. The sudden growth of education and the spread of literature resulted in the creation of the first national newspapers, which caused great outrage amongst both artists and intellectuals who argued that all these popular rags did was to reduce literature to the lowest common denominator. Baudelaire even referred to newspapers as “satanic.” The arguments continued to rage until eventually English culture divided into two: highbrow and lowbrow. Each individual fell into one of the two classes, depending on his personal taste and choices in books, art and hobbies. If you liked popular “mass” culture, this meant that you were lowbrow. The chasm continued to widen until journalism and popular culture became poles apart from “high art” and literature, never again to merge.
Nowadays most of us only know the differences between high art and low art by the reputation of the medium. Broadly speaking sculpture, painting, music, poetry, cinema and classic English literature all fall into the “high art” category, whereas tattoo art, children’s stories, comic strips, video game design and so forth would all classify as “low art.” Some modern art critics argue that with the growth of technology and the modern media, the distinction between high art and low art have now become permanently blurred. Some computer games, for example, can now be so sophisticated that they contain a detailed plot and character development, just like a good novel. At what point does the medium cease to matter, and when exactly does lowbrow evolve into highbrow?
IMO, nowhere do these abstract lines between high and low blur more than with the nude photographic medium, largely because it is very difficult to objectively catergorize images of naked women.
High art is seen to be spiritually moving, sophisticated and philosophically challenging, so when does a photograph meet this specification? Low art is a derogatory term which can be classified as popular culture which may be visually entertaining, but which is nevertheless intellectually sterile, nothing more than commercial pap to feed the masses. So what kind of nude photograph would satisfy this definition? Which type of nude image is high culture and which is popular culture? Is it really as simple as:
High Art? (B+W fine art nude, Ivory Flame)
Low Art? (Colour erotica, HoneyB)
Which image is high art, if any? Which of the two is deeper, more exciting, more sophisticated and philosophically challenging? The medium is the same, so what’s the difference?
I would suggest that the difference isn’t merely to do with lighting and composition. IMO it largely depends on intent. What type of emotional reaction did the photographer want to generate? What was his creative vision? What market was the photograph aimed at? Or does it purely come down to personal taste? So if we use these criteria then the first image is more tasteful, non-sexual and more likely to stimulate the intellect and is therefore more towards the "high art" category, whereas the second largely stimulates the male groin, and would be lower - very low, in fact, which is a shame because I actually prefer the second above the first, although I can't for the life of me figure out why? Maybe I'm just a lowbrow kinda girl?
Frankly all this categorization seems like blatent snobbery to me. IMO, classifying a particular type of nude photograph as “high” or “low” is pure pompous elitism. Isn't black and white “fine art” photography nothing more than lowbrow with different packaging, nekkid chix re-invented and re-wrapped for the titillation of the very same supposed highbrow intellectuals and art critics who would otherwise condemn all nude photography as non-artistic?
Maybe we haven’t really grown that much in a hundred years after all.
The notion of brow levels came about in the early 1900’s when free public schools first started. The sudden growth of education and the spread of literature resulted in the creation of the first national newspapers, which caused great outrage amongst both artists and intellectuals who argued that all these popular rags did was to reduce literature to the lowest common denominator. Baudelaire even referred to newspapers as “satanic.” The arguments continued to rage until eventually English culture divided into two: highbrow and lowbrow. Each individual fell into one of the two classes, depending on his personal taste and choices in books, art and hobbies. If you liked popular “mass” culture, this meant that you were lowbrow. The chasm continued to widen until journalism and popular culture became poles apart from “high art” and literature, never again to merge.
Nowadays most of us only know the differences between high art and low art by the reputation of the medium. Broadly speaking sculpture, painting, music, poetry, cinema and classic English literature all fall into the “high art” category, whereas tattoo art, children’s stories, comic strips, video game design and so forth would all classify as “low art.” Some modern art critics argue that with the growth of technology and the modern media, the distinction between high art and low art have now become permanently blurred. Some computer games, for example, can now be so sophisticated that they contain a detailed plot and character development, just like a good novel. At what point does the medium cease to matter, and when exactly does lowbrow evolve into highbrow?
IMO, nowhere do these abstract lines between high and low blur more than with the nude photographic medium, largely because it is very difficult to objectively catergorize images of naked women.
High art is seen to be spiritually moving, sophisticated and philosophically challenging, so when does a photograph meet this specification? Low art is a derogatory term which can be classified as popular culture which may be visually entertaining, but which is nevertheless intellectually sterile, nothing more than commercial pap to feed the masses. So what kind of nude photograph would satisfy this definition? Which type of nude image is high culture and which is popular culture? Is it really as simple as:
High Art? (B+W fine art nude, Ivory Flame)
vs.
Low Art? (Colour erotica, HoneyB)
Which image is high art, if any? Which of the two is deeper, more exciting, more sophisticated and philosophically challenging? The medium is the same, so what’s the difference?
I would suggest that the difference isn’t merely to do with lighting and composition. IMO it largely depends on intent. What type of emotional reaction did the photographer want to generate? What was his creative vision? What market was the photograph aimed at? Or does it purely come down to personal taste? So if we use these criteria then the first image is more tasteful, non-sexual and more likely to stimulate the intellect and is therefore more towards the "high art" category, whereas the second largely stimulates the male groin, and would be lower - very low, in fact, which is a shame because I actually prefer the second above the first, although I can't for the life of me figure out why? Maybe I'm just a lowbrow kinda girl?
Frankly all this categorization seems like blatent snobbery to me. IMO, classifying a particular type of nude photograph as “high” or “low” is pure pompous elitism. Isn't black and white “fine art” photography nothing more than lowbrow with different packaging, nekkid chix re-invented and re-wrapped for the titillation of the very same supposed highbrow intellectuals and art critics who would otherwise condemn all nude photography as non-artistic?
Maybe we haven’t really grown that much in a hundred years after all.
Labels: Art, HoneyB, IvoryFlame, Philosophy
posted by Lin at 10:55 AM
14 Comments:
Labels..Labels...Labels. Never a fan of them, as I explained once to a "High Brow" Fine Art Nude Photographer, I told her that her photographs were "erotic" in my eyes! You would have thought that I insulted her mother.
Oh well...I leave it up to the viewer. What ever they determine is OK with me.
cheers...great post
bt
Highbrow = B&W Photography
Lowbrow = Colo(u)r Photography
Jimmy, it's got to be more than just that. I've seen the second image in photoshopped and adjusted B+W and it still doesn't look remotely tasteful or highbrow.
90% of it is just pure snobbery. If it doesn't appeal to then then it most be for a lower class ruffian.
“It is the business of thought to define things, to find the boundaries; thought, indeed, is a ceaseless process of definition. It is the business of Art to give things shape. Anyone who takes no delight in the firm outline of an object, or in its essential character, has no artistic sense. He cannot even be nourished by Art. Like Ephraim, he feeds upon the East wind, which has no boundaries.”
Vance Palmer 1885-1959, Australian Author, Poet
As much as I hate labels or definitions they are needed for us to be able to have this wonderful thing called social intercourse. By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things and that forces us to take them apart, to put them back together, to separate them, to group them, to put some sort of classification to them so our brain can make some sense and order of them. If we are taking about Art or photography it is only then that we move beyond the simple act of looking and start the process of forming opinions and developing an appreciation or lack of about what we see. We need to give what we see some sort of meaning.
Of course to do the speaking and thinking we need words and words mean definitions and labels. We need to communicate. We seek out words that let others know how we feel, what we are thinking and to question all we see. This processing of words gives us our meanings; it defines us and our world. It tells us what art is and what is not and what makes the nekkid chix we view a Fine Art Nude or Porn. Words lead to what may be called wisdom. Yet as Kahlil Gibran says "Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words." What meaning, definition or label we give using our words is what gives us the shadings, vagaries and disagreements in using language to express our thoughts. Senca said "What is required is not a lot of words, but effectual ones." I think this may be why we keep up the continual social discourse over what is art, sexual, graphic, etc., etc., etc….we are trying to find the most effectual words to describe our labels.
“On surely evolving”…part, I think we have just evolved into using different words to describe age old ideas.
As for the two images. Can't pick - Rich only produces High Art.
As for “pompous elitism”, I like this that I found from Dwight Eisenhower – "An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."
I also found this about your words.
"Words are things, and a small drop if ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." Lord Byron
I'm only a quantity of one but thanks again for making me think.
D.L. Wood
P.S. I also found my new Caveat lector,
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts." Dr Samuel Johnson
I think this fits given the tie-in with my name which according to Wiki and Greek mythology - "is the god of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy," and/or "he was also known as Bacchus and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia.. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine."
What can I say; it’s a cross I’ve had to bear ever since I found my evil twin Al Cohol. LOL ;-)
P.S.S.
Oh I forgot to say in the previous post comment that I was tickled to see my favorite blogger cooling her brain in the snow. :-)
My dear Bacchus, that was so well written that the next time I take a week off blogging, I'm gonna get you to write for me. You should be writing for a living, you know. Why haven't you got your own blog? WHY???
the god of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy
Yes I definitely see this in you. I'd love to be at a party with you, one where you don't behave yourself, I mean. Much fun would be had, I suspect! I also have a reputation for leading inccocent folks astray whenever possible, particularly when there's alcohol involved! Methinks we have that in common :-)
90% of it is just pure snobbery. If it doesn't appeal to then then it most be for a lower class ruffian.
As a follow up...I would rather be considered lowbrow than highbrow any day of the week.
bt
Jimmy, it's got to be more than just that.
It is. I mean there are. But that's often the first demarcation line, leastwise, with photos.
It's a great article ! Would you agree for its publication at Univers d'Artistes ?... I love it !
Bravo Lin.
D L said: "As much as I hate labels or definitions they are needed for us to be able to have this wonderful thing called social intercourse. By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things and that forces us to take them apart, to put them back together, to separate them, to group them, to put some sort of classification to them so our brain can make some sense and order of them."
This post made me think of the only thing I never liked about teaching: grades. Although as a student, I loved grades because I always worked for and got As, as a teacher I see a problem with them. Everyone wants to be an A (high brow), and not everyone can be that. I had students who were incapable of writing artistically, writing literature, no matter how much they wanted that A or how hard they tried.
What is the difference between high and low art? I probably could write a book about it, but to put it simply, I can differentiate it when asked.
A number of times I was asked to adjudicate writing contests and performances at a college theatrical festival. I was an arts reviewer for 25 years, so I did give the thumbs up and thumbs down quite regularly. I could easily see which was the most refined and accomplished art because it achieved the impression of being effortless. When you can see the struggle or process, it isn't going to win anything.
Your post also makes me think of my Prussian family. My great-grandparents married in Mecklenberg, Germany, and it was a marriage of High German and Low German. He was high German, and she was Low German. In photographs, he looks refined, blonde, delicate, and proud. She looks dark and earthy. Family legend has it she pulled an ox cart into the fields on the day she delivered one of her babies (in the field).
Is that what high and low means?
I don't think the understanding you seek is simple at all.
Ah, I was hoping you'd comment on this, Dr L! I agree with you - this is a highbrow topic in itself, and you're surely way more educated than all of us regarding this. If you do ever decide to write that book, please put me down for a copy :-)
I wrote this to Lin privately but decided to share it here because I think it says something important about the way we classify each other and rank our work:
The high/low brow thing is so complex. I remember reading a philosopher, Hegel, I think, who said music was the highest art. Yes, the philosophers saw fit to rank the arts themselves in terms of the highest. I thought it was bullshit. Who cares? It's right up there with how many angels can dance on the point of a pin.
But humans have the urge to rank things. DL is right. It's human nature. We are so competitive really. I see these high/low classifications everywhere. Even my publications were ranked by the college, depending on the reputation of the publisher. My books were low-ranking and did not help me with tenure and promotions because I make money on them. If you're an academic who writes crap so unimportant that no one would pay to read it, then you are rated HIGH. Making money is always LOW in the high brow world.
I am a very Democratic person by nature. I think the person who picks up my trash has as great a value as the mayor of the town. I judge people by character, not education or appearance or profession. But that is not the way of the world. I can easily spot HIGH when I see it, and I could spit out some rationale for why it is, but I don't care about it all that much. I have high standards for myself, and I strive to do the best work I can, but as long as I like it, that's the most important thing to me.
In my world, happiness ranks as HIGH priority.
Really, Lin, we need to be concerned about the quality of a person. Many of the average students I taught did better in the workplace than my grade grubbing A students. We need all kinds of work and workers to make the world function, and I never look down on anyone.
Art is subjective, thus it is was we call it art. I think of it all art it comes down to would you hang it on your wall?
Hope all is well, I do like the new pussy ... cat in the house. :o)
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