Page 12 - Studio International - April 1974

My central question may be stated thus: in backs of the fish in their magnificent upward
Art & industry:
what ways has the industrialization of curve. Aesthetically pleasing beyond question:
a systematic production affected the history of visual art but a sequence of such photos will provide a
since 175o ? Perhaps we might agree that the misleading account of the way dolphins swim.
approach effects, whatever they are, have been wide- Lest you suspect determinist implications to
ranging. This suggests a general approach to lie beneath my metaphor let me remind you
the question, one that keeps the whole field that the dolphin is a highly intelligent fish. It
of production constantly in view, a general prefers to swim in shoals, but can also swim
history, with industrialization as its focus. against the current and can swim alone.
In this article I shan't propose an answer to the I've criticized the movement model in
question but will suggest some lines of approach general terms. Let me cite two specific
that may help us to find better answers than instances wherein it fails to provide an
those at present available. adequate account of matters of some
The present model favoured by art importance. The first is the persistence of
historians who write general histories of Classicism in nineteenth-century art. It's
western art since 175o is not particularly awkward, when one attempts to expound history
helpful — I shall call this period, perhaps a within the terms of the movement model, to
little loosely, for the sake of brevity, the post- have to account for the widespread acceptance
Enlightenment. The model favoured might of the classical tradition in civil and domestic
be described as a movement sequence. A architecture, in the work of Schinkel and Barry
typical account will begin with Neo- for example, at the height of the romantic
Classicism and proceed through accounts of movement. The awkwardness is often glossed
Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism, to over by invoking a theory of decorum: one
whatever is the present movement of the style for state, another for church, a third of
present moment. I've several objections to fourth for domestic architecture. Again the
this model. For one thing the movements device is ad hoc. The decorum sub-plot
described don't belong to the same order of remains precariously attached to the movement
explanation. Neo-Classicism, it seems to me, main plot. My point can be underlined by
is primarily a programme for producing works recalling how the pejorative term pseudo-
of art; Romanticism is a kind of sensibility classicism has retreated within a generation
originating in literature and thought; from the Carracci to Lord Leighton, where it is
Impressionism, primarily a pictorial style. still to be found, on occasion, at the moment.
When used to structure a general history such Secondly, the movement model doesn't
movements become ad hoc explanations which come to grips with the problem of industrial
involve a constant shifting of the order of art. I shan't dwell on the point since it's the
discourse. During the florescence of Neo- reason for this article, beyond saying that it's
Classicism the historian interprets all highly embarrassing when teaching the
contemporary art from a neo-classical point subject, to have to break into a movement
of view; he then proceeds to become a sequence at the mid-point of the nineteenth
romantic with the romantics, an impressionist century in order to introduce a short history
with the impressionists. This reduces history to of structural engineering to prepare a context
the advocacy of the successful, it becomes for the Crystal Palace.
taste history or zeitgeist history. True, I strongly suspect that the historiographical
sensitive historians know how to modify the reason for the prevalence of the movement
distortion effects of inadequate framing model is due to the fact that the history of
concepts; true, we must seek to understand post-Enlightenment art has come to be written
styles and movements; but we should also largely in the form of recovered criticism.
keep an eye out for the long-term changes of Avant-garde movements write their
history. We might ask, for example: in what justifications and we, the historians, adopt,
way as a whole, does post-Enlightenment art adapt or recover them. But it seems to me that,
differ from pre-Enlightenment art ? The although the recovery of criticism is an
answer could be: industrialization. If it is, the important part of art-historical writing, as is
This essay was developed and written from a current models available for writing general the delineation of avant-garde movements, the
talk and discussion given first at Spode House, art history don't provide for an adequate acceptance of their values at face-value, results
Rugeley (8 September 1973), and then at the historical account. We describe waves and in superficial history.
Warburg Institute (7 November 1973), the ignore currents. Francis Klingender's 'Art and the
Department of Art History, University of Nor are the waves themselves described Industrial Revolution' is the only book which
Cambridge (17 January 1974) and the fully. General historians of post- deals in some detail with our subject. It's an
Courtauld Institute of Art (22 Ianuary 1974). Enlightenment art concentrate upon the admirable book and drew attention to a sadly
I should like to take this opportunity to thank emergence of movements to the neglect of neglected area of research. My main criticism
Father Conrad, Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich, their later phases, stressing discontinuity at the of the book is that Klingender's use of the
Dr Virginia Spate and Mr Alan Bowness expense of continuity. They might be Marxian model, art as ideological
respectively for inviting me to talk at each of the compared to one who photographs dolphins superstructure upon an economic base, oddly
above centres. I wish also to thank those who from the back of a ship sailing in an ocean that enough, unduly narrows the field. The book's
participated in discussion for many of them has developed a steady swell. What the particular attraction lies in the way Klingender
assisted me, perhaps unwittingly, with criticism photographer waits for, and with luck catches, reveals how art imaged industrial production,
and comment. B.S. is the splendid glint of sunlit water on the first in a celebratory fashion, in Wright of
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