PT146.S4.P2.Q8 > Analytics

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Most sociohistorical interpretations of art view a body of work as the production of a class, generally a dominant or governing class, imposing its ideals. …

Other People's View · Art is the product of a governing class imposing its ideals

Okay... so like movies are the product of the Hollywood elites imposing their views of, say, beauty on the masses. I mean if you're going to argue that looking at Ryan Gosling is an imposition, I say please impose harder.

For example, Richard Taruskin writes in his Oxford History of Western Music that one of the defining characteristics of "high art" is that "it is produced by and for political and social elites." …

Example: Taruskin · "high art" is "produced by and for political and social elites"

Oh we're talking about snobbish art.

What Taruskin and others fail to clarify, however, is that there are two different ways that art, historically, was "produced by and for political and social elites."

Author's Critique · But there are two ways for art to be produced by and for elites

Taruskin fails to distinguish between the two ways.

The first way was for a member of the elite to engage a well-known artist to produce something for display. For instance, if one commissions a famous architect to design one's house, that may reflect great credit on one's taste, even if one finds the house impossible to live in. …

Way 1 · Art produced for display

Elites engage famous artists to produce something for display, to show off.

The second way was to create, or to have created, a work that expressed and mirrored one's ideals and way of life, like Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican apartments commissioned by Pope Julius II.

Way 2 · Art produced to express ideals

Elites engage famous artists to produce something to communicate ideals, for example, religious ideals.

Sociohistorical critics like Taruskin prefer to deal with art produced the second way, because it enables them to construct a subtle analysis of the way such art embodied the ideology of the elite, whatever the identity of the artist. …

Critique · Taruskin overlooks way 1; only sees way 2

Because it enables analysis of the ideology of the elite.

For this kind of analysis to work, however, it must be the case that the elite had a recognizable identity and displayed some kind of consensus about the world and the way life was to be lived, and it must also be the case that we can eliminate the possibility that artists subverted the ideals of the patron for their own reasons.

Critique · Taruskin makes three assumptions

1. Elites had a recognizable identity; 2. elites had consensus about ideals; 3. that artists did not subvert the ideals of the elites.

Historically, the two social classes able to commission art were the aristocratic, or governing class, and the well-to-do middle class, what used to be called the bourgeoisie. The taste of the aristocracy and the upper middle class has not always been apt to produce an art that endures. In his characterization of nineteenth-century English culture, cultural critic Matthew Arnold identified the aristocracy as Barbarians, interested largely in fox hunting and gaming, and the middle class as Philistines, obsessed with respectability. As a result, the more talented artists sometimes had to find a place in the margins of the establishment—engaged by a rich patron with eccentric tastes, for example.

Critique · Challenge assumptions 1 and 2

Who were the "elites?" The aristocrats and the bourgeoisie. But they were very different from each other. They had different tastes and different ways of life. They cared about different things. Artists often had to work for patrons that didn't represent "elite" taste.

Moreover, a great deal of art that went against the grain of elite values was paid for by the establishment unwillingly and with misgivings. Because some of this art endured, the sociohistorical critic, like Taruskin, must engage in an analogue of Freudian analysis, and claim that in hidden ways such art embodied the ideals of the elite, who were unaware that those ideals are revealed by work of which they overtly disapproved.

Critique · Challenge assumption 3

Artists did often subvert the ideals of their patrons. Taruskin has to perform mental acrobatics to claim that these were not subversions, that the elites actually embraced these ideals that they explicitly disapproved of.

Passage Style

Critique or debate

In using the phrase "something for display" (first sentence of the second paragraph), the author most probably means art that

Question Type

Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)

Structure

Look at the next sentence of P2 for some insight into the meaning of “something for display.” The art is supposed to “reflect great credit on one’s taste.” This suggests the art is supposed to be seen by other people.

allowed the patron to make a political statement to the world

There’s no evidence that the art is supposed to make a political statement as opposed to a statement about one’s own tastes.

could be used to attract customers to the patron's business

There’s no evidence that the art is supposed to have some business purpose or effect.

was meant to create an impression that reflected positively on the patron

This best captures the meaning of the phrase, since the art is supposed to reflect “great credit on one’s taste.”

90%

was representative of the artist's broader body of work at the time

There’s no evidence the art made for display is similar to other art produced by the artist.

provided the patron with personal satisfaction

There’s no evidence the art made for display brings “personal satisfaction.” It’s designed to reflect the “great taste” of the person who commissioned the art.

PrepTest 146 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 8

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