Marxists on art?

Michael Yates mikey+ at pitt.edu
Sat Sep 11 05:00:37 PDT 1999


Read anything by the great John Berger. "Ways of Seeing" is excellent as is his book on Picasso.

michael yates

Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> Stephen E Philion wrote:
> >A friend has asked me to suggest some works by Marxists on art, or art
> >related...
>
> Look for Arnold Hauser's "A Social History of Art" (4 vols.), which I
> think has been reprinted recently. Also, there was a good anthology
> called "Marxism and Art" edited by Maynard Solomon published by Vintage
> in the 1970s, now out of print, I believe. Lee Baxandall also edited
> one or more anthologies on Marxism & art.
>
> K. Mickey
>
> ------------------
>
> This is just a second on Hauser. Most of these are available used
> through [http://www.alibris.com], an on-line used book seller. And of
> course there is the library.
>
> Hauser developed, what I consider the best version of a
> Marxist approach to the social production of art. He is old and all
> his works date from the fifties and sixties. In the next generation,
> there is Tim Clark who is also very good. Clark focused almost
> exclusively on France during the 1848 and 1871 revolutions. There is
> one other work of Clark's, on Jackson Pollack, but it was published
> in German. From a lecture I went to two years ago, Clark is currently
> working at developing some kind of synthesis of a postmodern and
> Marxist approach to the New York School--the Abstract Expressionists.
>
> In my limited experience of looking and reading, progressive and
> Marxist social and political theory does a terrible job with art and
> the production of art. Hauser and Clark are as good as it gets--don't
> get me wrong, they are very good, but they are only two historians I
> can think of at the moment. Maybe Adorno on Musicology--but I haven't
> read it so I can't say.
>
> I also want to mention Andre Malraux and Octavio Paz with a certain
> provision that both were Marxists at some point in their lives and the
> remains are laced through their works. So, with a little tweaking you
> can tease out a more explicit Marxist view from much of what they have
> written.
>
> And, don't forget the artists and writers themselves who probably do
> the best job: Courbet, Baudelaire, Zola, Groz, Beckman, Kalowitz,
> Orozco, Breckt, David Smith, just to mention a random few.
>
> Chuck Grimes
> ---------------------------------
>
> Clark, T. J.. The absolute bourgeois: artists and politics in
> France, 1848-1851, [by] T. J. Clark. London, Thames and Hudson,
> 1973. 224 p. illus. (some col.), facsims. 25 cm. #4.50
>
> Clark, T. J.. Image of the people : Gustave Courbet and the 1848
> Revolution /, T.J. Clark ; with 50 illustrations, 7 in colour. London
> : Thames and Hudson, c1973. 208 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.
>
> Clark, T. J.. The painting of modern life : Paris in the art of Manet
> and his followers /, T.J. Clark. 1st ed. New York : Knopf, 1985,
> c1984. xv, 338 p., [31] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 24 cm.
>
> Hauser, Arnold, 1892-1978. Manierismus. English. Mannerism : the
> crisis of the Renaissance and the origin of modern art, Arnold
> Hauser ; [translated in collaboration with the author by Eric
> Mosbacher]. Cambridge Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University
> Press, 1986, c1965. xx, 426 p., [228] p. of plates : ill. ; 27 cm.
>
> Hauser, Arnold, 1892-1978. Soziologie der Kunst. English. The
> sociology of art /, Arnold Hauser ; translated by Kenneth
> J. Northcott. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1982. xxi, 776
> p. ; 24 cm.
>
> Hauser, Arnold, 1892-1978. The social history of art,
> Translated in collaboration with the author by Stanley Godman. New
> York : Vintage Books, [1951] 4 v. ; 19 cm. Series title: A Vintage
> book, V-114, V-115, V-116, V-117
>
> Hauser, Arnold, 1892-1978. The philosophy of art history,
> Arnold Hauser. London : Routledge & K. Paul, 1959, c1958. x, 428 p. ;
> 22 cm.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list