Art is for the smart and rich...?

One of the problems with Fine arts, is its elitist status.Throughout western fine arts history, the great patrons of art have usually been of wealth and/or class. Yet, the technologically driven world today that began with the printing press, and then the industrial revolution, started changing the education of modern art and instead made the information available to everybody through reproduction. The internet today must account for so much global information that used to take a long time and specialization to  track down. Instead, in a matter of clicks, we can gain access to so much information about the development of Buddhist art in India that we feel overwhelmed!  Pages and pages of the time of Ashoka's reign for example. This widespread informational age is a blessing to those wishing to get past the stigma of elite art status.


Two films help me to demonstrate this fact but also hint at how untrue this "stereotype" is of art starting in the 20th century. Art that is of the past hundred years or so is sometimes difficult to decipher, understand and engage due to the advances of the "-ism" movements. Theses movements that sometimes ostracize the average person began rapidly taking wide directions after the impressionist movement. The impressionist began displaying a different way to make art, one that didn't adhere to the traditional skillful mastery prevalent in classical art forms. Instead they opted to make the subject matter  more important, more fleeting, and more "everyday person" by painting street scenes etc. This lesson was passed on to future artists, who began to explore these ideas, though in a much more abstract way. Art transitioned more and more over the years since the impressionist and became more personal for some artists, sidelining technique and skill for expression. One of the difficult eras of painting came in the 50's and 60's in New York, and one of the more difficult artist from that time is named Jackson Pollock of whom the first films is about.

In the film "Who the *$&% is Jackson Pollock" a 73 year old lady purchases a painting for five dollars only to find out later that it is a painting from Jackson Pollock, a famous painter. His style is distinguished by frantic applications of paint resulting in a hap hazardous mess of colors seemingly applied randomly onto the canvas. At first she does not even know what she has in her possession, yet when she researches the artist, she finds herself relating to him and even starting to like him. Yet the story is not one of an amazing ending, as she is constantly doubted by the elite art connoisseurs. Even after forensic evidence is brought forth the doubters persist. In the film it does not seem as if they truly doubt the work but rather doubt that some old truck driving woman could be in possession of such a highly esteemed artist.

In the second film, a similar situation of the upper elite art world vs the common everyday person is portrayed. In the film Herb and Dorothy, a couples story is told of how they got married and then started to collect art. The art they collected was always ahead of its time and later recognized by the art world after Herb and Dorothy have acquired the art and even befriending the artist. The elite art collectors are again negative of the couple, with many criticisms of how they should not be gathering this fine-art. Yet overall the film is a great story of how the average person can come to appreciate the art world that seems to accept only the elitist.

Norman Rockwell "Connoisseur"

It is true that some art forms are more difficult than others to interpret. I doubt that the truck driver would have ever cared and researched Jackson Pollock had she not stumbled across his painting.  In my experience this is not uncommon. Visiting galleries with friends and family, with my artistic knowledge being their tour guide, I always sense a "aha" moment when I explain a how an artist painted, their lifestyles, and the era they were painting in. I still remember at an old job how they had Mark Rothko prints all over the office, but when I asked about it, they thought he just painted abstract landscapes... They weren't landscapes at all and actually just experiments with color devoid of any subject matter. My coworkers looked at me like I was some walking Wikipedia of art, but I insisted that though the concept may be high level thinking, the work is meant to be enjoyed on an aesthetic level. Then I lost them again after I told them he committed suicide at a young age.

The guy who painted this committed suicide?!?

The second film also gives us access to the modern art collecting world. A world of stinky cheeses, expensive wines, and exclusive galleries. It is funny when you watch the movie (BTW I think even a non-artist lover would enjoy the documentary so look it up!) because there is a point when they realize that they want to collect art, but know that it is too expensive to buy the pieces they originally wanted so they start collecting a new emerging style called minimalism. It shows the competitive nature of the art market, but it also shows how if one is truly loving of art, even if they don't fully understand what it is they love about it, (In the movie, the Vogels admit to not understanding minimalism when they started collecting...) you can still appreciate the beauty and aesthetics, the effort and concept that the artist placed in front of you.

You rarely hear of an artist not wanting to show their work to people who are wanting to see it. Fine arts is a heavily visual idea, and can be enjoyed beyond the long lengthy art lecture that can sometimes be associated with it. Art is constantly moving forward and should be accessed by the people that inspire it, which is everyone. Both these films ultimately share my idea that art can be and should be accessible to everyone. Not everyone wants to visit a museum or take a semester lecture on art history. Art needs to shed the elite status, the intellectual bubble, and the interpersonal drama that is the artist. Art can be all those things and still give access to everyone. It only depends on how you view the work.