[Aries]

Avant-garde music has an unusual and obstinate appearance and this raises the question to witch degree it is music for its own sake, and to which degree it is an ideologic expression.

Interessting questions are:

• How much is avant-garde music influenced by ideology?
• To which extend is the ideologic influence on avant-garde music marxist?
• Is there an independent avant-garde ideology that has influenced marxism and other schools of thoughts the other way around?

After the second world war an idea emerged directed against beauty in art. Was this just one idea or is there an outright ideology associated with it?

My primarily assumption is that avant-garde music is influenced to some degree by ideology, more than more conventional classical music. This ideology might be either classifiable as marxist or it is maybe something even bigger, an outright independent avant-garde ideology, that influenced ideologies like marxism the other way around. The question is: What is really the driving force? I also think that the aversion against beauty has ideologic traits and can likely by also associated with political ideologies.

This discussion was pushed out of other threads on talk classical, and it was suggested to open an independent thread about it in this subforum. Another part of the discussions was how useful ChatGPT is as a starting point to investigate such issues. Here is a conversation with ChatGPT about the topic:

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Q: Was it an influential idea in art and classical music after World War II and the Holocaust that art and music should no longer be beautiful because of the events?
A: After World War II and the Holocaust, many artists and musicians felt a sense of despair and disillusionment with the world, and this is reflected in the art and music of the time. Some people felt that traditional notions of beauty were no longer appropriate or relevant in the wake of such devastating events, and instead turned to more experimental and avant-garde forms of expression as a way to grapple with the trauma and horror of the war.

In the realm of classical music, this led to the development of serialism and other forms of atonal and dissonant music, which rejected the traditional tonal harmony that had been the basis of Western music for centuries. Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern were among the pioneers of this movement, which sought to break free from the constraints of traditional tonality and create a new, more expressive musical language.

Similarly, in the realm of visual art, there was a movement away from traditional representational art towards more abstract and non-representational forms. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning became known for their abstract expressionist paintings, which sought to express the inner turmoil and emotional state of the artist, rather than depict any specific subject or scene.

That said, not all artists or musicians rejected the traditional notion of beauty or felt that art or music should no longer be beautiful because of the events. There are certainly many examples of classical music, visual art, or other form of expression that were created after WWII and Holocaust that aim at beauty, for some artists and musicians, the idea of beauty was still a powerful force in the world, one that could offer hope and solace in the face of tragedy.

Ultimately, different artists and musicians had different reactions to the events of WWII and the Holocaust, and there is a wide range of artistic styles and expressions that emerged in the years following the war.

Q: Was there an marxist influenced ideology directed against beauty in music and art?
A: There have been various Marxist-inspired ideologies that have taken a critical stance towards traditional notions of beauty in art and music.

One notable example is the concept of "socialist realism," which was a style of art and literature that was officially endorsed by the Soviet government in the 1930s. The goal of socialist realism was to create art that depicted the socialist ideals and values of the state, and that was accessible to the general population. As such, it emphasized realism and positive imagery, and rejected avant-garde and abstract styles that were seen as elitist or difficult for the masses to understand.

Some Marxist theorists have also criticized the idea of beauty in art and music, arguing that it is a bourgeois concept that is used to distract the working class from the true nature of their oppression. They argue that art and music should serve a more political and social purpose, and that the focus on beauty is a way for the ruling class to maintain control and distract from the true issues at hand.

It is worth to note that these Marxist ideologies were more prominent in the Soviet Union, and socialist countries where the government had a strong control over the cultural sphere, and were generally considered to be more dominant in the 20th century. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, these ideas have lost popularity and now are not as prominent in the artistic realm.

It is important to remember that Marxism is a complex and diverse ideology, not all artists or theorists who have been influenced by Marxism have necessarily taken the same approach towards art and beauty.

Q: How much was the western idea against beauty in music and art influenced by marxism?
A: The rejection of traditional notions of beauty in art and music that emerged in the West after World War II and the Holocaust was influenced by a number of different factors, and Marxism was certainly one of them. However, it would be an exaggeration to say that Marxism was the main or exclusive influence.

There were a number of other factors that contributed to this shift away from traditional ideas of beauty in the Western art and music scene. The devastation and trauma of the war, as well as the subsequent emergence of the Cold War and the rise of the atomic bomb, had a profound impact on artists and musicians, and led many of them to question the values and assumptions of the pre-war era. Additionally, the rise of existentialism, which rejected the traditional concept of the individual's place in the world, also played a role in the change of artistic expression.

Many of the artists and musicians who rejected traditional notions of beauty in the post-war era were not necessarily explicit Marxists, but were instead reacting to the changing political and social landscape in a more general sense. The rejection of beauty in some cases can be also seen as a rejection of the idea that art should be pleasant, or that it should be created for the pleasure of others. Rather, it was seen as a medium for exploring deeper truths about the human condition, regardless of whether or not that made it 'beautiful' in a traditional sense.

In summary, while Marxism certainly influenced some Western artists and musicians in their rejection of traditional notions of beauty, it is not the only nor the most important influence that contributed to this shift in post-war art and music. It is important to take into consideration the variety of philosophical and social factors that were affecting the artistic expression.

Q: Is it possible that the anti-beauty ideology and related ideas were actually the driving force and that this influenced western marxism the other way around?
A: It is certainly possible that the rejection of traditional notions of beauty in art and music that emerged in the Western art and music scene after World War II and the Holocaust influenced certain Marxist theorists, rather than the other way around.

The rejection of beauty in some sense can be seen as a rejection of the idea that art should be pleasant, or that it should be created for the pleasure of others. For some, it was about creating a more political and socially conscious art form, which would be more relatable to the working class and that would reflect the reality of the human condition.

Additionally, some philosophers and sociologists, who were not necessarily marxist, also rejected the idea of beauty in art and music. The idea of beauty being a tool of the ruling class to control the masses, and the idea of art being primarily political have been discussed by a variety of philosophers such as Theodor Adorno and Jean-Paul Sartre. The philosophies they developed, which are not specifically linked to marxism could have also influenced some marxist theorists.

It's important to remember that Marxism is a complex and diverse ideology and its influence on art, culture and society is multifaceted. Many thinkers and artists had a nuanced relationship with Marxism, and it is likely that in some cases, the rejection of traditional notions of beauty in art and music predates the rise of Marxism, and that it influenced some Marxists theorists and thinkers, rather than the other way around.

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I think this conversion with ChatGPT was rather useful as a first step especially regarding that this took just 10 minutes. However ChatGPT makes mistakes and things it says need to be checked. So while it might be very useful as a staring point of an investigation, it is not suitable as an end point. But the practical usefulness should not be underestimated. ChatGPT pursues no agenda and is very well-read.

 

[Roger Knox]

This discussion was pushed out of other threads on talk classical, and it was suggested to open an independent thread about it in this subforum. Another part of the discussions was how useful ChatGPT is as a starting point to investigate such issues. Here is a conversation with ChatGPT about the topic:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Was it an influential idea in art and classical music after World War II and the Holocaust that art and music should no longer be beautiful because of the events?
A: After World War II and the Holocaust, many artists and musicians felt a sense of despair and disillusionment with the world, and this is reflected in the art and music of the time. Some people felt that traditional notions of beauty were no longer appropriate or relevant in the wake of such devastating events, and instead turned to more experimental and avant-garde forms of expression as a way to grapple with the trauma and horror of the war.
In the realm of classical music, this led to the development of serialism and other forms of atonal and dissonant music, which rejected the traditional tonal harmony that had been the basis of Western music for centuries. Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern were among the pioneers of this movement, which sought to break free from the constraints of traditional tonality and create a new, more expressive musical language.
Q: Is it possible that the anti-beauty ideology and related ideas were actually the driving force and that this influenced western marxism the other way around?
... Additionally, some philosophers and sociologists, who were not necessarily marxist, also rejected the idea of beauty in art and music. The idea of beauty being a tool of the ruling class to control the masses, and the idea of art being primarily political have been discussed by a variety of philosophers such as Theodor Adorno and Jean-Paul Sartre. The philosophies they developed, which are not specifically linked to marxism could have also influenced some marxist theorists ...
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However ChatGPT makes mistakes and things it says need to be checked. ...

Indeed there are serious mistakes. Concerning the answer to the first question quoted, the chronology is wrong. Schoenberg (1874-1952), Berg (1885-1935), and Webern (1883-1945) began to write atonal music before WW1 (1914-18) and serial music well before WW2 (1939-45) and the Holocaust. They were not Marxists and most of their music was directly related to culture not political ideology. Atonal music was incubated in the era of artistic and literary German Expressionism. Schoenberg's atonal music begins with the finale of his Second String Quartet (1910), which includes a singer entering with: "I feel the air of other planets ... ." Serial (twelve-tone) music was developed by Schoenberg as a kind of atonal music based on tone series that include all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale.

Concerning the second question quoted, Theodor Adorno (1902-67) was for most of his career a key thinker of Frankfurt School Marxism. His idea was that atonality and serialism were political in the sense of expressing resistance to bourgeois society within the classical music patronized by the bourgeois class. (This was not the position of the original composers a generation earlier.) Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) became a key developer of existentialist philosophy. He became a Communist around 1960 and combined existentialism and Marxism in his own manner.

 

[Sid James]

There's no doubt that two world wars, the Holocaust and Hiroshima changed the way artists thought about beauty. I think that a lot of Enlightenment thinking, about rational thought leading to progress and the betterment of society, still held sway in one way or another in the early 20th century. This began to break down and be questioned as the century progressed. By the 1950's, many thought that the ideals of the Enlightenment had been shown to be wanting. What had occurred was directly in conflict with its purported ideals of freedom and equality.

The mid 20th century saw the eventual decline of modernism, and the rise of postmodernism. There's a move away from the grand narratives of modernism to the many narratives of postmodernism. In music, trends associated with this include development of systems which make a break from the diatonic system. Many composers saw little point in making music go anywhere or resolve. Alternatives found in modal music, microtonality, world music and also the developing electronic music, were explored.

I think that Marxism is still relevant in analysing the forces which shaped capitalism, and this is useful in looking at what happened to music.

Prior to the industrial revolution, music was dominated by the churches and courts. Public institutions like philharmonic societies and universities eventually supplanted those, and the dissemination of music via mass media - radio, recordings, television - added to this change. Classical music now had to compete with other types of music in a marketplace that was bigger than ever before.

By the 1950's, the core performance canon becomes built out. It's resistant to renewal. In the vacuum created by this decline, you get alternative scenes happening. Eventually, specialised institutions, ensembles and journals of new music were established.

I think that the Marxist viewpoint also has relevance when discussing individual composers who were directly influenced by the philosophy. Some of these were involved in politics during the unstable interwar period, and later impacted by the war, and their music can also serve as important documents of the period.

In the Soviet Union, socialist realism put limits on the development of modernism. However, Stalinist cultural policy was imposed after the relative freedom under Lenin and eased from Khrushchev to Perestroika. Even at it's height during the purges of the 1930's and the Zhdanov decree of 1948, composers tried to adapt and keep composing (some writing works for the drawer, which where eventually performed after Stalin's death). After the 1960's, there was less pressure to conform and some experimentation was allowed and even encouraged (e.g. the establishment of the Warsaw Autumn Festival, a showcase of new music, set up in the satellite state of Poland).

 

[Forster]

I wonder what is meant by what is being cited as 'Marxism'? Like 'Communism', what some people actually mean is 'Stalinism'. That is, the term is being used as a 'bogeyman' for "the evils associated with the Soviet Union" rather than related to the philosophical and economic ideas of Marx himself. After all, the man died in 1883 and could hardly be held personally responsible for ideologies given political reality in his name. It would be more correct to say that the political upheaval in Europe which included the evolution of the Soviet Union inevitably impacted on the arts. The use of any '-ism' as a label is imprecise.

As Roger Knox says, ChatGPT falls short by identifying post WW2 as the era of the rejection of beauty in art: This arose out of the wreck left behind by WW1 - see Dada and Surrealism for example. But a rejection of traditional approaches to art was already underway even before 1914-18, though this can be better seen in painting. In music, Strauss' Salome (1905) must surely be an example of a shift in the arts away from accepted standards of the content of art?

 

[Kreisler jr]

Virtually all the "extreme" or provocative trends in 20th century art precede 1920, in fact a lot began (shortly) before WW 1.

• abstract paining (in the modern sense) from ca. 1912 on
• Duchamps 1913-17 with "readymades"
• Dadaism beginning 1916
• Schoenberg's "atonality" beginning ca. 1908-12

(In fact in the 1920s one finds both more provocative avantgarde, like Dada, but also "neoclassical" or "sobering" tendencies both in art/design and music.)

So any explanation claiming that wars and desasters shaped these artistic developments have the chronology wrong. (As far as one can find "content" in these early 20th cent. avantgarde artworks explicit references to politics seem mostly absent and even "horror" (like in "Erwartung") that could be construed as a prefiguration of war and catastrophe seems more an exception.)
Avantgarde art arose from the "decadent" fin de siecle, either as continuation or as intentional counter to broadly speaking late romanticism. I'd guess that Freud's ideas were also more important than politics.
[Edit: I am not disputing a considerable impact of the World wars on some art/music/literature later on.]

Sure, later on there are sometimes explicit connections to politics, most of all in the Soviet bloc (this is usually ignored because often this art/music is rather "conservative" or forgotten/irrelevant) or in literature.

 

[Mandryka]

Q: Was it an influential idea in art and classical music after World War II and the Holocaust that art and music should no longer be beautiful because of the events?

Not as far as I know, I can't recall anyone who was involved with the avant garde after the war expressing that idea. Where did you get it from, @Aries? The only composer I can think of who has explored ugliness explicitly is Claus Steffen Mahnkopf, and then only in one piece (la vision d'ange nouveau in his Angelus Novus Cycle.)

By the way, Richard Strauss was somewhat right of centre, and Elektra is arguably an ugly piece of music. Maybe ugliness is more a trait of the right than the left.

Q: How much was the western idea against beauty in music and art influenced by marxism?

As above I've never come across the thought that there was a movement "against beauty"?

I'll mention parenthetically that I think it's true that left wing ideas were current in Darmstadt for a brief time, especially when Boulez, Berio, Nono and Lachanman were influential there. And in the UK, Finnissy is certainly left leaning, and politicised -- whether this shows up in the music is not clear to me. Left wing thinking is hardly a dominant trend aesthetically in recent musics.

It may be interesting for you to explore the politics of Cage and Stockhausen. Maybe also look at Cornelius Cardew's book on Stockhausen.

 

[Andrew Kenneth]

International Socialism's take on classical music =>
From revolution to irrelevance: how classical music lost its audience • International Socialism

 

[Aries]

There's no doubt that two world wars, the Holocaust and Hiroshima changed the way artists thought about beauty. I think that a lot of Enlightenment thinking, about rational thought leading to progress and the betterment of society, still held sway in one way or another in the early 20th century. This began to break down and be questioned as the century progressed. By the 1950's, many thought that the ideals of the Enlightenment had been shown to be wanting. What had occurred was directly in conflict with its purported ideals of freedom and equality.

But where is the connection between political values like freedom and equality and beauty?

-------------------------------

I wonder what is meant by what is being cited as 'Marxism'? Like 'Communism', what some people actually mean is 'Stalinism'. That is, the term is being used as a 'bogeyman' for "the evils associated with the Soviet Union" rather than related to the philosophical and economic ideas of Marx himself.

This could be understood as such that marxism without stalinism is alright. However discussion the pros and cons of marxism is probably not allowed here. But I can say, that many people feared marxism even before Stalin and the USSR.

Marxism means ideologies that can be traced back to Marx. But there are many different marxist schools, so the term is a bit unsatisfactory, but they have in common the intendition to remove order and hierarchy.

After all, the man died in 1883 and could hardly be held personally responsible for ideologies given political reality in his name.

You can't make him responsible for details, but he is a mastermind of the fundamental ideology.

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Q: Was it an influential idea in art and classical music after World War II and the Holocaust that art and music should no longer be beautiful because of the events?

Not as far as I know, I can't recall anyone who was involved with the avant garde after the war expressing that idea. Where did you get it from, @Aries?

I picked that up multiple times on various occasions. But it is one of those things I can't give you an exact source. Maybe I will find some.

Q: How much was the western idea against beauty in music and art influenced by marxism?

As above I've never come across the thought that there was a movement "against beauty"?

I think there are different types of positioning against beauty. Some are against traditional concepts of beauty, some are against a high priority of beauty in art and some are critical against beauty in art in general.

I searched a bit and found some confirmations:

1.

https://www.worldcat.org/de/title/abuse-of-beauty-aesthetics-and-the-concept-of-art/oclc/51867804/

The abuse of beauty : aesthetics and the concept of art

Author:Arthur C. Danto
Summary: "A century ago, beauty was almost unanimously considered the supreme purpose of art and even synonymous with artistic excellence. Yet today beauty has come to be viewed as an aesthetic crime. Artists are now chastised by critics if their works seem to aim at beauty." "In the last few years, however, some artists, critics, and curators have begun to give beauty another look. The resulting discussion is often confused, with arts pundits sometimes seeing beauty as a betrayal of the artist's authentic role, other times working hard to find beauty in the apparently grotesque or disgusting." "Leading art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto here explains how the anti-beauty revolution was hatched, and how the modernist avant-garde dislodged beauty from its throne. Danto argues that the modernists were right to deny that beauty is vital to art, but also that beauty is essential to human life and need not always be excluded from art."--Jacket

2.

Aesthetic/Anti-Aesthetic: An Introduction on JSTOR

Comment by me: So according to Frederic Jameson modernist art has the political purpose of deconstructing conservative interests.

3.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo3634600

Venus in Exile
The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art
Wendy Steiner
In Venus in Exile renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner explores the twentieth century’s troubled relationship with beauty. Disdained by avant-garde artists, feminists, and activists, beauty and its major symbols of art—the female subject and ornament—became modernist taboos. To this day it is hard to champion beauty in art without sounding aesthetically or politically retrograde. Steiner argues instead that the experience of beauty is a form of communication, a subject-object interchange in which finding someone or something beautiful is at the same time recognizing beauty in oneself. This idea has led artists and writers such as Marlene Dumas, Christopher Bram, and Cindy Sherman to focus on the long-ignored figure of the model, who function in art as both a subject and an object. Steiner concludes Venus in Exile on a decidedly optimistic note, demonstrating that beauty has created a new and intensely pleasurable direction for contemporary artistic practice.

ChatGPT also gives me some quotes of Adorno and Cage about beauty and ugliness in this regard, but I can't find the sources right now, it is possible that ChatGPT hallucinates.

 

[norman bates]

1. I think the idea that art shouldn't necessarily be about beauty emerged way before the twentieth century, with the expressionists artists. Late Goya and his black paintings could be just an important example, but we could go centuries before Goya, even in religious art, that sometimes was brutal, disturbing and almost repulsive. Was the point of a sculpture like this one below of Gregorio Fernandez, made in the 17th century, just to be "beautiful"?

2. The idea of avantgarde is something we use now to define not just a certain way to approach art, but also a certain period, but the thing is that again, way before the twentieth century the push toward modernity and change already existed, and it wasn't necessarily tied to political view. For instance, the first abstract painter (or to put it better, the first western artist that made art that we can now see as the beginning of the western era of abstract art, if we don't consider that abstraction in a form or another is always present in art, and that even in that european context there were already artists clearly working with abstraction like William Turner, who had paintings that looked not very different from what Rothko did more than 100 years later), Georgiana Houghton was a medium and I doubt she had interest in marxism. And there were composers like Stravinsky (who was certainly the avantgarde of his time) who was known for his fascist sympathies. Same for some of the most important modernist architects, like Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe or Philip Johnson who were collaborators or admirers of the nazi regime.
Gesualdo represented the avantgarde of his time and he was a prince. Not to mention that in Russia the avantgarde was basically forbidden under the communist regime (altough that admittedly wasn't necessarily Marxism but an interpretation of it made by other people).
Also, the idea of avantgarde is a matter of context: for instance Picasso is one of the most well known modernists artists, but a big part of his inspiration came from ancient african art, and in a very explicit way (the Demoiselles D'avignon has figures that clearly look like african masks). So why we don't consider the abstraction of those other forms of art as avantgarde?

3. Also, the idea that art is about beauty is in itself an ideology if you want. The idea that art could be also about another thing is just another one.

 

[Aries]

3. Also, the idea that art is about beauty is in itself an ideology if you want. The idea that art could be also about another thing is just another one.

Beauty is maybe just naturally seen as one of many positive traits art can have like expressiveness, emotional impact, technical skill, profundity, significance, meaning and tension. Was art just about beauty before the avant-garde? I think it is more accurate to say that beauty was and is commonly seen as positive for art. And this is probably just natural, because beauty has a positive effect on humans.

The ideology begins imo where beauty is systematically seen as a problem. It is something different when some artists renounced beauty for some works before, because this wasn't systematical and without a political intention. The idea after WW2 seems to have been that art must reflect the problems of the society. But that degrades art to an political instrument for incitement.

On the other hand beautiful art has overall likely a stabilizing use for the ruling ones. But this is a secondary effect and not the primary purpose of art. As it turned out avant-garde art which rejected traditional notions of beauty wasn't as successful as traditional art, and this also implies that the avant-garde idea about the role of beauty is a more pronounced one than the traditional idea about the role of beauty. Even if you want to revolt against rule and order, traditional artistical ideals might be the way to go, because they are suitable to attract a larger followership.

 

[Forster]

Q: How much was the western idea against beauty in music and art influenced by marxism?

As above I've never come across the thought that there was a movement "against beauty"?

I'm not sure I have either, in the sense of a coordinated, explicit movement with an "anti-beauty" manifesto.

But there's no doubt that as a consequence of the move to reject both romanticism and classicism and to embrace realism, modernism and the experimental, artists explored subjects and styles that provoked the kind of reaction in an audience that Aries is now repeating. "Art shouldn't be ugly" is an ideology in itself, along with "Art shouldn't be political".

 

[Forster]

many people feared marxism even before Stalin and the USSR.

I know nothing about music's attitude to "Marxism" in the late 1800s - or about Marx's attitude to music. What do you know?

Scratching around the www, I've found some articles attempting to find out. Here's one:

Marx and Engels on Music | MR Online

 

[norman bates]

Beauty is maybe just naturally seen as one of many positive traits art can have like expressiveness, emotional impact, technical skill, profundity, significance, meaning and tension. Was art just about beauty before the avant-garde? I think it is more accurate to say that beauty was and is commonly seen as positive for art. And this is probably just natural, because beauty has a positive effect on humans.

yes, and I agree, but it's still an idea that art has to be beautiful. I'm not saying that when the first art was produced there was any rule that was telling those people that "art has to be beautiful", they were of course doing in a natural way, but in fact there isn't or wasn't any rule: art can be also different things (even if I love beautiful art), and to believe otherwise is in itself an ideology.

The ideology begins imo where beauty is systematically seen as a problem.

I disagree, the ideology begins when someone thinks that art should be a certain way: thinking that it has to be beautiful, putting a rule on it is still an ideology. It's just the ideology you prefer (like I guess, you don't have great sympathy for marxism, that's why you want to see that connection where both political sides had major exponents in modernism). And I'm not saying this as a defense of all modern art, because there are a tons of things that I really don't like, but I also know that there's modern art that is not looking to be beautiful that has real and deep value.

It is something different when some artists renounced beauty for some works before, because this wasn't systematical and without a political intention. The idea after WW2 seems to have been that art must reflect the problems of the society. But that degrades art to an political instrument for incitement.

I can agree in part with what you're saying, but art before was often the expression of artists that were celebrating kings and religion, which is in itself a political stance.
Now, I don't have any problem with that kind of art, and as someone who despises religion I think that religious art has produces some of the most impressive masterpieces in the history of art, but I can see that there were concerns of political and moral suasion connected to it.

As it turned out avant-garde art which rejected traditional notions of beauty wasn't as successful as traditional art, and this also implies that the avant-garde idea about the role of beauty is a more pronounced one than the traditional idea about the role of beauty. Even if you want to revolt against rule and order, traditional artistical ideals might be the way to go, because they are suitable to attract a larger followership.

A lot of my favorite artists are and were modernists, art that I deeply love (I could make a list if you will) and so I think that when you're saying "avant-garde art which rejected traditional notions of beauty wasn't as successful as traditional art" it's just your personal taste and point of view. Personally I don't have a problem with artists thinking about their role and about art, its function, and pushing it in new directions, because even if as I've said there's a lot of modern art that I absolutely despise I know that the existence of modernism and new points of view has produced amazing new things that simply could have not been there if everybody had accepted the idea that art should be beautiful.

A personal note: for a very long time I absolutely hated brutalism, I thought it was a disgrace, ugly, dark, oppressing architecture that makes just lifes miserable. I saw it exactly as Roger Scruton even when I hadn't seen yet his "Why beauty matters" (which I guess you could love) and when I didn't even know who Scruton was.
Now I think it's one of the most amazing architectural styles ever (even if yes, it produced also monsters). Did someone convince me of this? Not at all, at some point (watching the FAU USP, a building in brazil) I realized another side of it, the power, the creativity, the playfulness, the strength in it. It was a complete shift for me. I realized that while the things I saw before weren't wrong, I was missing the other side. And it was just the aesthetic power of that building that changed my mind (and I know that not for everybody the reaction would be the same, when I showed it to my brother he asked me "why do you like this?", it was clear that he didn't appreciate it. But at that point I have had the "revelation".

 

[Mandryka]

I'm not sure I have either, in the sense of a coordinated, explicit movement with an "anti-beauty" manifesto.

But there's no doubt that as a consequence of the move to reject both romanticism and classicism and to embrace realism, modernism and the experimental, artists explored subjects and styles that provoked the kind of reaction in an audience that Aries is now repeating. "Art shouldn't be ugly" is an ideology in itself, along with "Art shouldn't be political".

There were listeners who reacted to Bach, Brahms and Beethoven like that, not to mention the tritone and meantone quarter comma. There’s always a reactionary element.

 

[Kreisler jr]

It's mostly a matter of degree; there are around 2.5 millenia of debate on whether art could be ugly (or how it should be). The Greek Tragedy (that was performed part of a religious festival) was supposed to move the audience towards terror and pity and thus you have things like Oedipus blinding himself etc. Although this was probably not graphically depicted on stage then, there are descriptions in the text and the goal of evoking very strong emotions seems to show that the atrocities in the action should not be overly beautified. (And the Greek comedies and especially the Satyr plays were full of innuendo and ribaldry, scatological and pornographic.)
Similarly, in sculpture and painting. There is Laocoon writhing in agony fighting with the snakes and there is a famous section in Dostoevsky's "Demons" about someone fearing to lose their faith because on Holbein's painting the corpse of Christ in the grave looks so dead he could never believe the resurrection.

It's a complex issue, also in the 20th century and today. I think the provocation is usually less the "ugly" but rather the "artless", like readymades or Cage's musical "landscapes" and they are rather niche, not typical of most art.

I have not read through all of it but the text linked above seems a good and mostly fair summary and criticism of Adorno's etc. view of music. Again, this was influential but far from pervasive. Many important musicians, even in the last 70 years were "orthogonal" to this stance, e.g. Stockhausen who was an excentric mystic, not a Marxist. And you have a "salon Marxist" like Henze (also openly gay, if that helps) writing comparably traditional and "beautiful"...

 

[Sid James]

But where is the connection between political values like freedom and equality and beauty?

That was by way of setting up my argument, but I was fleshing that out later when I talked about the lack of a need for resolution. It's about that break from Enlightenment philosophy, the view of it having lost it's relevance given the circumstances.

The old philosophy looked at opposites - thesis and antithesis - being resolved into synthesis. This belief in some sort of ultimate truth arising out of this sort of conflict, expressed by Hegel, can easily be applied to diatonic music (the major-minor system). According to Adorno, resolution isn't necessary, the tension and intensity of the conflict can be enough.

In terms of post-1945 music, you get composers exploring directions which go further than Adorno and entirely dispense with a need to even reference the major-minor system as serialism did. These include aleatoric and electronic music which required new systems of notation and performance that Schoenberg and his generation would not have understood. There's also further explorations of modal, popular and microtonal music, as a way out of the confines of the diatonic system.

Basically you get the breaking up of the chord, the movement of music out of harmony into sound. It's more about the journey than the end point. If anything, the directions explored after 1945 are more radical than just atonality or serialism (Schoenberg's emancipation of dissonance), although I think that post-serialism might be like a bridge between modernism and postmodernism.

 

[Mandryka]

It's mostly a matter of degree; there are around 2.5 millenia of debate on whether art could be ugly (or how it should be). The Greek Tragedy (that was performed part of a religious festival) was supposed to move the audience towards terror and pity and thus you have things like Oedipus blinding himself etc. Although this was probably not graphically depicted on stage then, there are descriptions in the text and the goal of evoking very strong emotions seems to show that the atrocities in the action should not be overly beautified. (And the Greek comedies and especially the Satyr plays were full of innuendo and ribaldry, scatological and pornographic.)
Similarly, in sculpture and painting. There is Laocoon writhing in agony fighting with the snakes and there is a famous section in Dostoevsky's "Demons" about someone fearing to lose their faith because on Holbein's painting the corpse of Christ in the grave looks so dead he could never believe the resurrection.

It's a complex issue, also in the 20th century and today. I think the provocation is usually less the "ugly" but rather the "artless", like readymades or Cage's musical "landscapes" and they are rather niche, not typical of most art.

I have not read through all of it but the text linked above seems a good and mostly fair summary and criticism of Adorno's etc. view of music. Again, this was influential but far from pervasive. Many important musicians, even in the last 70 years were "orthogonal" to this stance, e.g. Stockhausen who was an excentric mystic, not a Marxist. And you have a "salon Marxist" like Henze (also openly gay, if that helps) writing comparably traditional and "beautiful"...

Fluxus certainly seems to me a step into new territory. As far as I know it wasn't inspired by anything lefty though.

 

[Mandryka]

.

 

[Sid James]

Yes. What's all this got to do with beauty?

I think that resolution or lack of it is tied up with notions of beauty. I think that a lot of music until the mid 20th century still, at least residually, held onto the old view which values truth or transcendence, while the most radical directions coming after simply didn't. Perhaps that Hegelian dialectic can be altered to beauty versus ugliness? It can certainly be applied to the journey of darkness to light, such as major to minor. A lot of unease stems from atonal music, for example, having constant tension and intenisty, therefore no resolution. That's even before we get to other things such as the idea that any sound not produced by conventional instruments can be music, that music can go beyond the 12 note scale, or that it can be a piece of performance art.

 

[Sid James]

Fluxus certainly seems to me a step into new territory. As far as I know it wasn't inspired by anything lefty though.

I think some of what Allan Kaprow did was interesting, taking art out onto the street and making it into a communal, cooperative experience. If he where alive today, I think he'd have a great time organising flash mobs.