To: Bill who wrote (80965 ) 6/7/2000 8:49:00 AM From: Neocon Respond to
One of the problems with judging works of art is that the historical moment passes, the culture changes, and things look different "in the morning". Something that was fresh and even revolutionary at one time may be copied so often as to seem a cliche by the time one gets to it, although it is the original. There is such a thing as an "aristocratic sensibility", loving the ornate and luxurious, and a "republican sensibility" which is more down to earth, austere, and plain. (I remember, for example, watching an interview with Francois Mitterand in his office once, where the roccoco that pervaded the place revolted me, not merely aesthetically, but quasi- morally, as ill- befitting the leader of a Republic). To a believer, or even sympathizer, a painting of a Crucifixion inspires awe, to others, it is an image of grisly torture merely. The Impressionists were avant- garde: instead of heroic mythological and historical subjects, or idyllic landscapes, which were the staple of academic painting, they painted cityscapes; the bourgeoisie at its amusements; images of modern change, like train depots; showfolk, bars, and cabarets. Instead of a "finished" look, they prized a certain improvisatory quality, that they fancied resembled more the image caught in a glimpse, or as a moment from a moving object. The were derided as vulgar, slapdash, and worse, especially when they played with convention, as when Manet painted to clothed young men on a picnic with a nude woman, a scene which, if taken from mythology, would not have shocked at all. Now, the Impressionists evoke, to most people, a quasi- aristocratic world of bourgeois affluence, or "arty" bohemianism, and are so thoroughly assimilated that one can barely comprehend that they were ever controversial.
