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September 20, 2007
the art of the upper class
Earlier, at the very beginning of the separation of upper-class art from popular art, the chief content of art was the feeling of pride. So it was during the time of the Renaissance and after, when the chief subjects of the works of art was praise of the powerful – popes, kings, dukes. Odes, madrigals, cantatas, hymns were written in their praise; their portraits were painted, their statues were sculpted, glorifying them in various ways. Later the element of sexual lust began to enter art more and more, becoming the necessary condition of every work of art of the wealthy classes.
Still later, the number of feelings conveyed by the new art was increased by the third feeling that makes up the content of the art of the wealthy classes – namely, the feeling of the tedium of living.
And, indeed, of these three feelings, sensuality, being the lowest, accessible not only to all people but also to all animals, constitutes the chief subject of all works of art in modern times.
Adultery is not just the favorite but the only theme of all novels. A performance is not a performance unless women bared above or below appear in it under some pretext. Ballads, songs – all these express lust with various degrees of poeticizing.
The majority of paintings by French artists portray female nakedness in various forms. There is hardly a page or a poem in the new French literature without a description of nakedness or the use here and there, appropriately or inappropriately, of the favorite word and notion nu [‘nude’].
And so, as a result of the unbelief and the exclusive life of the upper classes, the art of these classes became impoverished in content and was all reduced to the conveying of the feelings of vanity, the tedium of living and, above all, sexual lust.
Tolstoy - What Is Art?
Posted by amin at September 20, 2007 1:01 AM