Page 16 - Studio International - November 1974

economic advantage. They are, either by direct understood and enjoyed by the visitor of
ownership or by coincidence of interest, normal sense and intelligence seeking to form or
CONSENSUS members of the capitalist class. Any serious exercise a personal taste in contemporary art'.
The paragraph ends by asserting 'It is an
discussion of the post-war Academy must reveal
PAINTING evolving ideology of their class since the war. educative exhibition, aimed at preserving and
connections between this group and the
developing a healthy tradition which keeps in
touch with the perceptions and interests of
AND THE Furthermore, any serious history of any part of normal people.' (My italics.)
our cultural life must be located in relationship
By 1957 'sincerity', 'normality' and a
to this class, for it is the ruling class, and its
ROYAL ideology is the ruling ideology. 'healthy tradition' have been usurped by the
desire to be 'representative': 'The aim of this
The British Royal Academy could, quite
(selection) committee and of the smaller
literally, never afford to stray into either avant-
gardism or strict Academicism. The RA has Hanging Committee formed from the same body,
ACADEMY been unique amongst European Academies in is to arrange the best and most broadly
representative exhibition from the material
not being financially supported by the state but
by endowments and revenues from exhibition submitted for judgement.' Are the good, the
SINCE 1945 no State stipend and consequently are introduction to The Royal Academy Illustrated
bad and the ugly to be represented? The 1963
entry charges. Likewise, Academicians receive
dependent on private patronage. While the is more specific: 'The broad aim of these
ANDREW BRIGHTON institution may be said to be dependent on the committees is to show the best examples from
public, the painters and sculptors who the works submitted, without prejudice in
constitute the bulk of its membership are favour of any particular style.' In 1967, it was
dependent on the taste of that section of the briefly pointed out that the selection was made
public which can afford to buy works of art. by 'a body of professional artists' and that The
Since the members govern the institution its Royal Academy Illustrated showed 'the wide
'Why bother with bad painting?', is the nature is defined by them and its appeal is range and variety of the works on view.' This
irrational and frequent vanguardist response to consequently located firmly in the effective life has remained the same in subsequent editions.
any serious discussion of non-modernist of the bourgeoisie. It is this apparently Now the Academy no longer seeks to actively
contemporary painting. The irrationality of the heterodox and inexpert audience that precludes shape or protect our culture but rather to
response lies in the combination of ignorance of the difficulty of avant-gardist cultural dissent preserve itself as a virtually acquiescent
non-modernist painting and an inability to on the one hand and Academicism's original institution through which the consensus may be
specify appropriate criteria to establish its intention of rational cultivation on the other. represented in all its 'wide range and variety'.
'badness'. But the frequency of the reaction is Both would require a break with the assumptive Sir Alfred Munnings, in his inebriate
itself significant. English modernism is a thin character of bourgeois notions of art. presidential speech at the Academy Dinner of
coastline. Behind this coastline lies an The 'common sense' and 'common' 1948, castigated 'highbrows' and 'experts' for
unexplored hinterland of consensus painting. sentiments of the post-war British bourgeoisie having brought about 'a foolish interruption to
Onto this unknown, the vanguardist community have not however, remained static. Forces both all efforts in Art,' by encouraging 'modern art'
projects the worst picture of itself, its own national and international have ruled events and and claimed to demonstrate his rightness by the
I have the Lord Mayor on my
unacceptable face, that is, art as a money corroded the position of a class who, within fact that '
grubbing conspiracy. However, to predict how, living memory, were the rulers of the most side and all the Aldermen and all the City
on the day of judgement, God will judge powerful country in the world. History has Companies' (his italics).[2] Twenty years later
between the evils of selling art to the made increasingly redundant their formerly Sir Thomas Monnington PRA, in his first
international vanguard public or the cherished myths and values. A process of ad hoc Academy dinner speech as President, said:
conservative wealthy, between claiming vacuous adjustment, retreat and retrenchment has, 'Surely, development in art derives from
innovation as spiritual change or conventional however, preserved and re-camouflaged the perception free from preconception'. [3] In
sentiment as immutable values, is something essentials of capitalism's self explications. The both these statements is revealed an outlook
I shall leave to those of an eschatalogical turn bourgeois consensus remains intact. It still opposed to intellection ready to assume the
of mind. claims for its desires, pleasures and mores the superiority of common sense notions over
The hinterland of consensus painting does status of being 'nature given': products of theoretical understanding. Munnings
have a number of trading posts which allow the 'human nature'. Its retreats are made indistinct aggressively identifies both his enemy and his
visitor to see a few of the wares of the natives. by mis-description, regularities hidden in authority. For Sir Thomas Monnington, no
For example, the annual poll run by the Fine haystacks of trivial and invented regularities, for such explicit consensus could be appealed to;
Arts Trade Guild to find its members' best example the unconscionably long escape from no such ideological enemy could be identified.
selling reproductions tells us something of the 'nineteenth-century hypocrisy'. Its norms are The bourgeoisie had changed their view of
'mid-west' of consensus painting. Between this presented as the only possible normality. themselves and of modernism, which was
dark interior and the sophisticated coastline, The changing self-presentation of the RA anyway by then politely institutionalised.
bathed in foreign currents, lies a half-way house: reveals retreat and representation. The While in general incomes have gone up since
The Royal Academy, its members and its annual introductions to the selection of photographs 1945, in Britain wealth and power have
Summer Exhibition.[1] That is to say between of works exhibited in the Summer Exhibition, remained in the same hands. Wider
the vanguard public and the general public stand The Royal Academy Illustrated, is an example. consumption has given greater importance to
those classifiable not by their initiation into the 'Criticism of the Exhibition', says The Royal the media and consequently to the 'media men'.
esoteric issues of high culture, nor consumption Academy Illustrated 1949 'often ignores its It is they who have been the disseminators of
of mass-produced reproductions, but their essential character and intention. It is a the new styling within their own class and their
financial ability to buy original paintings. This recommendation to the general public, from own cultural consumption has been influential;
latter group's exceptional buying ability among all the works voluntarily offered, of they have done much to re-package bourgeois
indicates that the present ordering of society those which show sound craftsmanship and culture. For earlier generations Munnings's
works to an exceptional degree, for their sincere purpose, and which can be readily equestrian paintings not only appealed to the
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