Ann Telnaes, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Reuben award, achieves a distinctive look by blending her skills as a political cartoonist with her background as an animator. (She worked at Disney as well as at animation studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Taiwan).
Here are four ways I think her talents combine to make her work so exceptional:
1.) Telnaes speaks with a strong, clean line in the tradition of Robert Osborn. An animator's craft doesn't allow for second thoughts, asterisks and footnotes. There's no cross hatching in animation. Telnaes chooses her best line and commits to it.
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| White space is expensive in a newspaper but it's also valuable to a drawing |
By sweeping away the clutter and simplifying her forms, she sacrifices explanatory backgrounds and similar crutches, but note how her use of white space strengthens her compositions and projects her ideas more forcefully.
2.) Telnaes also brings an animator's plasticity to her subjects. Look at how extreme and cartoonish she's willing to go with this horse's ass, contrasted with its tiny legs, or that ridiculous hat:
Telnaes is able to get away with this kind of extreme exaggeration only because she has the drawing talent necessary to hold the picture together.
She similarly makes full use of an animator's license by simplifying figures into geometric shapes. I've previously written about this rubbery trapezoid Trump...
Her characters frequently take their strength from circles, triangles and other basic archetypal shapes.
3.) Her caricatures, however caustic, have an animated cartoon quality to them. I love her Rudi Giuliani...
Or this devastating Bill Barr...
...or Mick Mulvaney...
... and a handful of others:
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| A caricature of Jeff Sessions, more brutal than a drawing of his face |
4.) Finally, as a former animator Telnaes has pioneered the introduction of animated GIFs into political cartooning. Her use of GIFs to portray an animated bobble head doll of Mike Pence , or the dynamics of the balance of power in the Supreme Court or a Trump Paddle ball are not just superfluous gimmicks, but are integrated into the meaning of the cartoon and enhance the presentation in a way that a static drawing could not. Another way in which the medium benefits from merging two strengths.
41 comments:
She's tough!
I wanna draw like Ann. I study her work all the time. That horses ass Trump lookalike is so difficult. She makes it looks easy. Ann is a perfect example of what it looks like to have massive drawing ability.
Love the expression on Trump's face kicking Guliani to the curb. Thanks for introducing me to her work, she's really good.
JSL
MORAN-- Yes she is; she certainly doesn't pull any punches. And yet, with her cartoonish style she never descends to the hateful rhetoric we see from some rabid political cartoonists in our partisan times (who seem to think venom is a substitute for drawing ability). It's almost as if her restraint in her drawing style is matched by restraint in her message. (And as I've quoted many times on this blog, Thucydides said, "Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most."
Thomas Fluharty-- Welcome, professor. I agree, Telnaes makes it all look so natural and easy but there's a lot of work and talent behind the scenes (which is where it should be).
Anonymous-- Yes, that side glance on Trump's face, combined with the cluelessness of that little zombie, is a marvelous bit of staging.
thanks for including the links. I did not know the work of this artist and now that I have been able to browse a little, it seems incredible. His drawings are so alive! Finally, happy new year
It's nauseating seeing such skilled artists assuring their own long-term irrelevance in service of these petite propaganda pieces, attacking or celebrating this or that mind-numbing partisan hashtag.
It's as if the absolute worst of Fox News and MSNBC has been amplified to a 11, and then realized through the hand of someone who otherwise has the rare skill to be doing something truly holy.
What a sick, juvenile waste of eudaimonia.
I agree they're remarkably talented, but in the way that a talented engineer can devise a hydrogen bomb, or a talented virologist can synthesize a biological weapon.
You will note that Ann never resorts to pasting a label on the person she’s lampooning. She relies entirely on her well honed craft of caricature to identify the person, assuming the intelligence of the reader for being up on the news. If the reader doesn’t get it, it’s on them. And the readers appreciate that, as labels dumb down the work and is actually condescending…and speaks volumes about the lack of talent and dedication of a cartoonist who has to rely on labels to identify who they’re depicting.
Yes, pet peeve of this old former editorial cartoonist.
Does anyone know why her comic, MO, was discontinued in February 2020? Or if it's moved away from GoComucs to some other platform/website?
Richard-- I'm guessing that many of these political cartoonists would feel flattered to hear their cartoons compared to hydrogen bombs.
You seem to have a problem with artists who convey social or political messages, rather than "something truly holy." There has certainly been a long ranging discussion on this blog about the role of subject matter in the quality of art. Yeats tried to draw a bright line between art and propaganda ("We make rhetoric out of arguments with others but we make poetry out of our arguments with ourselves.") On the other hand, there's Goya and Kollwitz and dozens of other excellent artists with a "message," and Yeats himself wrote the devastating "Second Coming." Commenters have also engaged in robust discussions about whether art can be excellent when the subject matter is laundry detergent or automobiles. I think the answer is far more complex than you suggest, although I'm sorry you feel nauseated.
I think that if you asked a number of these artists whether they were concerned about their "long-term irrelevance in service of these petite propaganda pieces," they might say they are content to use the strengths that they have to mitigate the ills of their world. After the Nazis marched Arthur Szyk's mother into the ovens, he became what Eleanor Roosevelt called a "one man army" with his anti-Nazi cartoons. I don't think he minded what you call "long-term irrelevance," and would not care to share a museum wall with elegant academy painters at a time of intense human suffering. The same with Grosz and Dix, whose drawings were almost a scream of pain, or L.J. Jordaan or Piet van der Hem who walked away from bourgeois paintings to do political cartoons because they felt they could do no other during a time of war. These artists might not be very effective with a rifle, but they may believe, with Cicero, that "Such strengths as a man has, he should use."
I've tried to draw a bright line, not between political and apolitical, or between left wing and right wing, but between good art and bad. As long as we can distinguish between political artists whose work is crap (such as Jon McNaughton) and political artists whose work is excellent, there remains a worthwhile discussion to be had about political cartoons.
Arthur Szyk, like all artists in the political cartoon genre, when faced with real evil couldn't help but trivialize it.
It's a core limitation of political cartooning. It reacts to partisan bickering with hysterics, but when faced with something authentic can't help but make it insincere and petty. That's a recipe for crap.
Social or political artworks may be holy. There are many works about WW2 that are. L.J. Jordaan produced countless such works.
He was not a hack trying to score empty points against the other team, he was a master sensitively dealing with the immensity of reality.
Donald Trump was a whiny baby poopy pants. Deep political insight for the deeply intellectual WaPo readers.
Wiley Miller-- The editorial cartoon field was diminished, and the comic strip field was enhanced, by your change of venue.
I agree that the need for labels is a symptom of both the ignorance of the audience and the lack of competence on the part of the artists. A couple of years ago in a moment of exasperation I posted some examples of artists who depended on labels to explain even the most rudimentary activity. https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-lost-vocabulary-of-visual.html
Andrea Denninger-- I'm afraid I don't know.
Anonymous-- It is a special challenge to parody a parody.
Richard-- Perhaps Arthur Szyk's drawings trivialized evil, yet they raised huge sums of money for war bonds, and ridiculed Hitler to the point where he put a price on Szyk's head. How many soldiers with a rifle could accomplish as much? The Nazi government lodged a formal complaint with the British government about David Low's political cartoons, asking the British to shut down Low for stoking anti-Nazi sentiment. And how many policemen or prosecutors did as much as Thomas Nast to destabilize a corrupt city government?
I'm guessing many editorial cartoonists would view those as very important ways of dealing with "the immensity of reality."
But as long as you raised it, I don't understand how you can make sweeping generalizations about the "core limitation" of political cartooning, and in the next breath say that L.J. Jordaan's political cartoons are not like that.
The problem of judging propaganda as art is intractable.
The point of propaganda is to be effective in executing a successful psy-op on some target audience to convince them of some particular thing in order that they act in some particular way.
In this regard, there is no strategy that can not be successful; from the most high minded and erudite rhetoric to the lowest slander, heckling, parody, and emotional manipulation.
Therefore, that Szyk's work was effective as propaganda says nothing about its artistic quality.
The natural tension between art and propaganda equals the difference between 'truth at any cost' and 'victory at any cost'. Which are incompatible values. This is one of many reasons why all art-containing propaganda is disjoint. All is fair in love and war, but not in reason.
And the issue of labels... labels are just one form of codified symbol. All propaganda uses symbols to essential write out the desired assertion in one kind of code or another. Thus all propaganda is dominantly allegorical rather than aesthetic in presentation. Word labels are merely a more blatant declaration of a symbol's meaning than a purely pictographic loading.
> "I'm guessing many editorial cartoonists would view those as very important ways of dealing with "the immensity of reality."
Whether Szyk was effective towards his goal is impossible to know. We are both guessing.
The world is a chaotic system, only the Gods can know the net result of a cartoon when the final curtain closes. The butterfly effect necessitates a deontological ethics of Art.
We must judge the image by the intention.
To borrow Kev’s model, the intention of the genre of political cartooning is a preferred political outcome. The intention of L.J. Jordaan was truth.
Since we cannot know the net results of the things we say, the best we can do is speak truthfully. Truth, even if ineffective or counterproductive, is good on its own merits.
But this is Szyk's truth you say?
I highly doubt it. It doesn't taste truthy. I'd wager his truth looked a lot more like L.J. Jordaan's work.
I'd wager Ann Telnaes' truth looks a lot more like L.J. Jordaan's work too.
Sadly, political cartooning is, with very few exceptions, the polarization of one side of an argument by way of grotesque distortion in order that the other side appears righteous.
Hence, for me, whether this is performed skilfully or crudely makes no difference to the lowness of the intent.
Is there a theory that cartoons are illustrated aphorisms? These by Ann Telnaes are so effectively resonant that their entire smart effect lasts a mere few satisfying seconds, especially if one already agrees with their idea or point. One doesn’t even need to like the style of them to see how skillful they are. (I don’t particularly like the overly cartoony look, but that is part of the skill nonetheless). The Bill Barr is fantastic, showing his narrowmindedness via a narrow head and a cruelly wide and cynical mouth. And the “horse’s ass” is a triumph of a true life rendition of a horse’s ass that is truly loathed by some of us.
Has there been much research on how quickly viewers see the point of a cartoon, particularly one that relies more on visuals rather than text (“horse’s ass” vs “not my fault”)? A resonant cartoon might operate like a resonant aphorism, almost perceptual in effect if it rings true to the viewer, and grossly repugnant if it rings false.
There must be some research on cartoons. Just curious.
A Parrot walks into a crowded bar and notices a Seal waiting alone.
The Parrot, always looking for a new friend, repeats to the Seal something he's been hearing his trainer say.
The Seal, having heard the same thing repeated by his own trainer and having been well-trained to clap at it, merrily claps at the Parrot.
The Parrot likes the affirmation of the Seal's clapping, so he quickly repeats something else he's been hearing from his trainer, hoping for a similar positive response.
The Seal claps again, joyful that he recognizes the Parrot's canned chatter, happy that he knows how to respond to it, and happy to make the Parrot happy by clapping for him.
And as it's more affirmation for the Parrot too, the Parrot parrots again!
This mutual song and dance routine of affirmed programming (which, for these unthinking creatures, passes for friendship and community) goes on just this way for some time.
Eventually a Gorilla at a corner table has heard enough of the Parrot loudly repeating the prefab patter and the trained Seal loudly clapping at it.
So he grabs the Parrot by the legs and starts beating the Seal over the head with it.
The Seal starts barking.
The Parrot starts squawking.
"Ah... See!" says the Gorilla, ceasing the pounding, "Now that's who you really are."
Kev, that's great!
BOONNNNG 🕉️
Kev Ferrara-- "Intractable," yes, but so are many of the other complex issues taken up by the participants on this blog. Issues rarely get definitively solved but understandings are enriched and progress is sometimes made.
You frame the issue as "judging propaganda as art," but you could just as easily frame it as "judging art as propaganda." That includes Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms, it includes Bernie Fuchs' car ads, and includes Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. As you say, "a successful psy-op on some target audience to convince them of some particular thing in order that they act in some particular way." I hope you will agree with me that greatness is not incompatible with psy-op.
I had to smile at your notion of art as "truth at any cost." ("The natural tension between art and propaganda equals the difference between 'truth at any cost' and 'victory at any cost'.") I don't know what artists you have in mind, but there is a long, great tradition in art of "pleasing my patron at any cost" or "securing that commission at any cost." Artists have been deceivers, illusionists, fakers, liars and thieves. They purloin the emotions and the styles of other artists. And as for "victory at any cost," that could easily be rival artists competing for prime exhibition space, or competing for a prized spot on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, a "victory" measured by convincing audiences to buy a magazine.
I'm not sure I understand your point that "there is no strategy that can not be successful," as there is certainly propaganda that can be unsuccessful just as there is art that can be unsuccessful, and frequently the reasons are the same.
Richard-- I think Szyk's "effectiveness" (as opposed to artistic merit) is pretty easy to measure. Large, steel-eyed institutions with plenty of accountants measured how much money his art raised and how successful it was galvanizing Jewish communities to enlist or donate, and he was awarded prizes and medals by people responsible for the war effort, including Congress and Eleanor Roosevelt. What more concrete measure could you possibly want? You could say the same about James Montgomery Flagg's "Uncle Sam Wants You" or Rockwell's "Four Freedoms." People with quotas to meet and wars to win say these pictures delivered for them far more than other pictures.
I don't understand your point, "the genre of political cartooning is a preferred political outcome. The intention of L.J. Jordaan was truth." What is truth in this context other than your own preferred political outcome? I assume if we asked Hitler whether Jordaan's intention was truth, he'd give me a different answer. All I can say is that I stood in front of Bill Barr at a legal symposium and tried to get him to give a straight answer on a question of legal ethics, and Ann Telnaes' rendition of that squat little troll is about the truest damn thing I ever did see.
All I can say is that I stood in front of Bill Barr at a legal symposium and tried to get him to give a straight answer on a question of legal ethics, and Ann Telnaes' rendition of that squat little troll is about the truest damn thing I ever did see.
That’s probably where our confusion lies.
You’ve met a ‘squat little troll’? That would explain the loss in translation.
I’ve never met a squat little troll. I’ve never met a person who displayed the sort of ugliness that make up the bread and butter of political cartoons.
Take stupidity in political cartooning –
My favorite McDonald’s cashier has Down’s Syndrome, and she isn’t one-tenth as stupid as political cartoonists made George Bush out to be. I'm quite confident that George Bush is smarter than my McDonald's cashier.
I can’t comprehend experiencing truth in a political cartoon that a successful, neurotypical politician is ten times stupider than the greasy, sweat-pants wearing girl I know at Mickey Dees.
Take evil in political cartooning--
My experience is that evil is done by ‘normal’ people, not ‘evil’ people. Political cartoons of evil people ring untrue, there’s no such thing.
I’ve met two unapologetic murderers. Neither were ‘evil’ in the way a political cartoonist draws evilness.
But if you're telling the truth that you quite literally experience people that way, that calls the core of my thesis into question. It’s great food for thought, thank you.
I think about what political cartoons about meat eaters will look like in 150 years when the practice is nearly abolished. I’m sure we’ll be drawn with gnashing bloody teeth and bulging eyes.
chris bennett-- I don't feel the sadness that you feel. "Grotesque distortions" have been a splendid thing-- they have a history to Leonardo da Vinci and earlier, to the grottoes of Nero. "Polarization" that makes one side "appear righteous" dates back to Athenian quarrels with the barbarians, and could describe most of Christian art. And as for "lowness of intent"... well, isn't that mother's milk for art? Sex, Violence, Intuition, Magic and other shady activities are the throbbing baseline that powers so much of the most refined art. Isn't that where the innovations take shape, south of the border?
That's why it still makes a difference to me whether strong, heated views are "performed skillfully or crudely." As Aristotle observed, great heat attends the generation of lions.
You frame the issue as "judging propaganda as art," you could just as easily frame it as "judging art as propaganda."
I don’t think your frame flip fits.
Every work has a dominant intrinsic purpose. Political cartoons are first and foremost propaganda; they have political work to do.
Ren & Stimpy Go Bowling won’t be appearing on the editorial page of the Post for your aesthetic delectation, even though (to me at least) Telnaes’ work looks like a slightly more severe offshoot of Kricfalusi’s.
These works of Trump Detestation are tribal and political down to their core, from intent to use. If you don’t know who Trump is and the narratives surrounding him, these cartoons will look like practice doodles in a notebook. They lose almost all their meaning-charge.
Which is just why they cannot be judged as Art, and then propaganda. They aren’t functioning meaningfully (or aesthetically) in any way separate from Trump or the narratives surrounding him.
And as time moves on and this political moment fades from memory, these cartoons’ reliance on the narratives of now will leave a dead hole in the work.
The same thing happens in propagandistic work with a lot more Art in it, as with the Sistine Chapel. But luckily, Michaelangelo’s Art is still so powerful as poetry it easily takes up the meaning slack.
It is only, I think, Rockwell’s Four Freedoms and Fuchs’ Auto Ads (among the works in play) that can be judged as art first, then propaganda… because they stand up for themselves as unitary narrative works at first glance and still to this day.
there is a long, great tradition in art of "pleasing my patron at any cost" or "securing that commission at any cost." Artists have been deceivers, illusionists, fakers, liars and thieves. They purloin the emotions and the styles of other artists.
Pandering, if it disunifies the art, is just another species of propaganda. If it does not screw the work up, the artist found the truth in it and how that truth integrates into the larger truth-effect complex. In which case, all is well. Fakery and pretense too will screw up a work of art at its core.
Lying and stealing, however, can't change brushstrokes, so those points aren’t relevant.
And as for "victory at any cost," that could easily be rival artists competing for prime exhibition space, or competing for a prized spot on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, a "victory" measured by convincing audiences to buy a magazine.
You are confusing intrinsic and extrinsic matters. As with lying and stealing, ambition for success can’t make a brushstroke on a canvas any more poetic than it already is.
Kev's argument isn't right. Ann's pictures speak the universal language of pictures. I don't need to know who Trump is like I don't need to know what the London blitz is in Rockwell's 4 freedoms. It helps on one level but pictures are still the universal language. When I see a fairy tale picture I don't know the details of the story but I can tell from the faces, posture, color, and size who the bad guy is. I can tell if he's a bully or a cry baby and I can tell he has painted himself into a corner.
If these weren’t about Trump, they wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t have been published. And clearly the blog author’s interest in posting them is directly related to his hatred of Trump. Otherwise he would have shown other works by the artist.
Ann's pictures speak the universal language of pictures.
I believe I implied that there is indeed some of that; we can't get away from the basic aesthetic meaning of abstractions. But Trump is the key symbolic referent needed to make sense of the purpose of the communications. You can't ridicule nobody.
Otherwise he would have shown other works by the artist.
Did you not see the "devastating" caricature of Barr? With the "narrow-minded" head and "cynical" mouth?
BOONNNNG
I wrote that fable too fast to realize it could be interpreted in a Buddhist/Zen way. But I see the connection now that you mention it.
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A MUCH MUCH HAPPIER NEW YEAR TO ALL! (Lord hear our prayer.)
Richard wrote: "I’ve never met a squat little troll."
I'll wager you have, but you may not have recognized them through their imported designer suit and their $500 haircut. The gift of caricaturists is that they take the inside troll and put it on the outside for us to see. We should value that gift.
Sex, Violence, Intuition, Magic and other shady activities are the throbbing baseline that powers so much of the most refined art.
Many will recall discussions here of the key distinction - an essential functional and linguistic difference - between Art that functions aesthetically (via hyper-organized suggestions) and creative work that is 'powered' by 'hot' interestedness to attract eyeballs and attention (which requires only convincing representations of attractions, thus making it easily replaced by photography, holography, special effects, and so on).
Poetry isn't in any way 'shady' of course. But it is hidden in the shade of sublation; it is only in synthesis, in comprehensions and relations, not in individual notes or facts; as a suffusion of handwriting, tone, motif and theme, or holding across the intervals of mystery and gaps of implication, over beats and arcs and acts, suspense and drama, superposed as a remapping of metaphor or personification, and so on...
To Anonymous, Kev Ferrara and any others who question whether "the blog author’s interest in posting them is directly related to his hatred of Trump"--
To end the year on a more upbeat note, one of the greatest sources of satisfaction for me is that extreme rightwing artists write me praising the work I've shown by extreme leftwing artists, and extreme leftwing artists write me praising the work I've shown by extreme rightwing artists. Both extremes recognize and appreciate excellence in a way that transcends political squabbles. That gives me great hope for the future.
I've tried to be meticulous about standards, making sure that drawing ability is the sole ticket for admission to this blog, regardless of politics. (Apparently, some of you missed Telnaes' unflattering portrait of Hillary Clinton or Tom Fluharty's savagely brilliant but always hilarious portrait of her.) I deeply admire the talent of conservative political cartoonists Michael Ramirez and Scott Stantis, but even those cartoonists, famous for their anti-Obama or Biden cartoons, sometimes depict Trump as a jackass.
I solicit your help: I've made a good faith effort to find excellent political cartoonists who draw Trump favorably, but I only seem to come upon Trump supporters like Rob Larrikin or Jon McNaughton whose artistic abilities are, in my opinion, terrible. If you know of such an artist who you believe has excellent drawing skills, please bring them to my attention so we can feature them in the new year.
Kev Ferrara and any others who question whether "the blog author’s interest in posting them is directly related to his hatred of Trump"--
I don't think that is a position I stated, David. I'm sure you are also interested in the cartooning involved.
My interest here is in disentangling politics from art, as one would seek to filter out poison from one's drinking water. And to disentangle tribal (or other extrinsic) responses to art from aesthetic/universal responses. (e.g. Isn't every exaggerated caricature 'devastating' if we hate the subject enough? Can't we always interpret somebody's physiognomy as being indicative of our beliefs about them?)
In that regard, I don't subscribe to the distinction between "extreme leftwing artists" and "extreme rightwing artists". That's like asking, "Do you like rotten apples or rotten tomatoes better?" The flavor certainly matters less at that point compared to the rot.
If propaganda and Art are indeed (as I believe) intrinsically incompatible (even though, yes, they can be bashed together, unity be damned), then we can and should distinguish a Propagandist from an Artist*.
And that's a distinction I can support. Because as far as I can tell, politicization absolutely kneecaps art and culture and turns it into a detestable servant of tribalism, power and ideology; an agent of division and derision instead of unity and community.
*Even though propaganda often borrows from art, and art can easily be sullied by or used for propaganda, we can still tell blue from yellow even if there's a bit of each mixed into the other.
"Grotesque distortions" have been a splendid thing-- they have a history to Leonardo da Vinci and earlier, to the grottoes of Nero.
David, my sadness was less do with 'grotesque distortions' as such but rather the pernicious means to which they are put to use, that's to say; the deliberate polarization (intellectual hijacking) of what should be necessarily sophisticated discussions about complex real world situations.
And as for "lowness of intent"... well, isn't that mother's milk for art? Sex, Violence, Intuition, Magic and other shady activities are the throbbing baseline that powers so much of the most refined art. Isn't that where the innovations take shape, south of the border?
In my view, it's quite the opposite; it seems to me that art emerged out of a need for a language that could speak of the ineffable, the highest intent that we can conceive of.
chris bennett-- I understand your point about the highest, ineffable qualities in art, but how much of that art-- especially the innovative, truly creative work-- is the refined work of high priests?
Some of the greatest elevations of art seem to be built on the fail-proof foundation of base pleasures. The most spiritually uplifting music has its roots in the shaman's tom tom; Martin Scorsese's best films harness the brute power of rock n'roll.
Michael Chabon wrote somewhere (I forget just where) that the fresh ideas come from prowling around at the border between trash and quality, and I agree-- In fact, I think that fact accounts for much of the contribution of the comics and illustrations we discuss on this blog. Their power has been shamelessly tapped by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns and Basquiat and Richard Prince for a good reason. They are an engine of innovation in the visual arts again and again, the lively spirit that renews wan and sickly art forms. Robert Fawcett used to teach that creativity requires "the kind of courage which good taste might easily modify. It almost seems as if the creative impulse involves a large ingredient of vulgarity to be a vital statement. In drawing, an excess of what we think of as good taste can only result in an anemic product, while the more vulgar statement... is invariably stimulating."
kev ferrara-- We've previously had differences of opinion about the role of content in art, but this may qualify as something a little new.
If you'll excuse my inartful paraphrase, you seem to feel that the highest art is a coadunate thing, requiring a seamless melding of form and content. I tend to tolerate a broader view of content, from pure abstraction to ads for corn flakes, so it would stand to reason that I would be less troubled by propaganda if the artistic forms remain good (as with Kollwitz).
But this latest turn implies that the political content of the subject matter plays a role in your assessment. You say that "politicization absolutely kneecaps art and culture." I know that "politicization" doesn't include Sargent's paintings celebrating the society ladies of the gilded age, but what if Sargent applied those very same talents to WWI propaganda posters, such as Raleigh's poster of The Hun? All his best skills, all his greatest motivation and loving care, but directed to a "tribal" subject matter? Or for that matter, what if he did his own version of Van Gogh's potato eaters? Would the change in content mean that the form could no longer qualify as art?
Some of the greatest elevations of art seem to be built on the fail-proof foundation of base pleasures. The most spiritually uplifting music has its roots in the shaman's tom tom; Martin Scorsese's best films harness the brute power of rock n'roll.
On face value I can broadly agree with this, but not sure I'm with what I take to be your implication. Here's why:
A cathedral is built upon mud and constructed of brute rock and dead trees crowned with toxic metal. And those who built it and prey within have sinned and will continue to sin. But what the forms and ceremony of the cathedral meaningfully embody is not that from which it is made.
So, to take your points about music and cinema:
Mahler's 6th symphony employs a sledge hammer smashing against a block three times because it is a part of what makes precious the tenderness that leads to the final transcendence. Scorsese soundtracks use guttural music contrasted against, therefore making salient, his characters' unconscious journey towards spiritual redemption. These crude or 'base' elements are necessary steps in the composition of the narrative's path but they are not the destination itself.
All to say: Art is when the puppet becomes the boy.
you seem to feel that the highest art is a coadunate thing, requiring a seamless melding of form and content.
I don't know what 'highest art' means any more than I know what 'highest gold' means.
Art seems to be, in its most unique state - where it is most different than every other endeavor (which is also naturally its most purified state) - visual poesis; aesthetic in nature in that it transfers understanding through sensations and sensation complexes that come packaged with (or as) feelings or emotions; rather than through codified symbols that build out statements.
I tend to tolerate a broader view of content, from pure abstraction to ads for corn flakes, so it would stand to reason that I would be less troubled by propaganda if the artistic forms remain good (as with Kollwitz).
In Kollwitz' best work, her form is good because it builds larger truth with truthfully organized smaller truths.
I 'tolerate' a broader view of content too, but (for example) the Kellogg's logo has content that is not aesthetic in nature. So there is a juxtaposition to it that, while of linguistic interest, isn't necessarily of artistic interest. Such linguistic juxtapositions, in fact, seem to define 'Graphic Design' or 'Applied Commercial Design' as a unique expressive form.
But this latest turn implies that the political content of the subject matter plays a role in your assessment. (...) what if (Sargent) did his own version of Van Gogh's potato eaters? Would the change in content mean that the form could no longer qualify as art?
It isn't the political content per se that plays a role in my assessment, but how present or dominant it is in dogmatic form in the work. Dogma being anaesthetic, thus disjoint with the aesthetic.
Sargent painted a fairly well-known picture of wounded WWI soldiers. And as with the work of Goya, it simply tells the truth. And if that is political, it is only extrinsically so because it has no inherent dogma to it.
I know that "politicization" doesn't include Sargent's paintings celebrating the society ladies of the gilded age
Poetry isn't a party; it's a narrative architecture built of effective abstractions. Rather it may capture a party... by reimagining it and clarifying it suggestively. Because Sargent was so truthful, many of his society portraits show subjects in the act of celebrating themselves.
chris bennett-- I agree there are plenty of situations when the "low" element is merely a step in the composition of the narrative's path, like the bass line in a song. I also agree that in such situations they are not the destination itself (although I do think they still play an important role). My point is, I think the elements we're discussing can also be so much more than that. Yes, a cathedral is a high point of western culture, but if your "destination" is meaningful spiritual transcendence a cathedral may or may not be a better vehicle than a rough hewn monolith from stonehenge.
Similarly, Turner's painting of the grand canal in Venice is a refined painting, but as Turner became a better artist, and more profound, he turned to paintings like sunrise with sea monsters, or even better, those simplified watercolors made with a smudge or a spatter. Those were his destination.
Of course, there are good ways and bad ways to make use of the strength of base desires. Many of today's artists rely on the "low" arts to provide the entire backbone of their work. How many movies over the past 20 years have relied on a rock n' roll soundtrack to inject spirit and intensity into what would otherwise be a vapid, lifeless film? How many "fine" artists have gotten into museums and galleries by scraping low and scandalous content out of the gutter and putting a gold frame around it? The loathsome Richard Prince steals another artist's pulp covers, puts them in a larger frame along with some inane chicken scratchings on the side and sells them for big money (https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2015/06/recent-developments-in-parasitology.html ) but make no mistake, it's the lurid cover that is the real attraction.
The same with the thefts (in my opinion) of comic book panels and other popular arts by fine artists from Warhol to Jasper Johns. The oleaginous Jeff Koons, whose art consists mainly of his marketing patter, finally made himself interesting by taking photographs of himself having anal sex with his girlfriend and selling them as fine art. Great patrons of the art who would quickly erase such images from their browsing histories openly pay tens of thousands of dollars at auction for such images. They were once base, but we no longer have to avert our eyes now that they've been sanctified as art.
to All: Ann Telnaes has produced an epic cartoon on the one year anniversary of the attack on the capitol. It has over 22 interactive characters in it-- quite a distinctive accomplishment, and worth your attention: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/ann-telnaes-jan-6-capitol-cartoon/?tid=ss_tw
...but if your "destination" is meaningful spiritual transcendence a cathedral may or may not be a better vehicle than a rough hewn monolith from stonehenge.
Similarly, Turner's painting of the grand canal in Venice is a refined painting, but as Turner became a better artist, and more profound, he turned to paintings like sunrise with sea monsters, or even better, those simplified watercolors made with a smudge or a spatter. Those were his destination.
This begs the question; 'if the formal quality of the symbol (cathedral, Turner painting) is irrelevant to its purpose as a means to afford transcendence, why not use the simplest, most basic token imaginable, indeed, why employ a symbol at all?
The answer to this is lies in what distinguishes a symbol from a sign. Without going too deeply into the matter: a symbol acts upon us as much as we act upon the symbol, that's to say our experience of it is participatory in nature. A sign is only propositional. So for example; a kiss is a symbol whereas an 'x' kiss-mark on a card is a sign. Thus, regarding efficacy, the quality of a symbol matters. That's why the better the painting the better it affects us, the grander the cathedral the more awestruck we are.
And this, I think, goes a long way in answering your points regarding the cheap opportunist stunts of Richard Prince and Jeff Koons: Their output, like nearly all post modernist agitprop, is mere signs. And because Koons and his ilk believe art, value and being-ness to be nothing more than a matter of signs, they see no moral or qualitative baseness with 'repurposing' another artist's work and presenting it as reauthored by themselves.
"Telnaes chooses her best line and commits to it."
But every half decent draughtswoman does that. Her skill lies not in that, but in coming up with supreme lines to choose from.
"By sweeping away the clutter and simplifying her forms, she sacrifices explanatory backgrounds and similar crutches"
I don't see how simplifying forms per se would do away with backgrounds (which aren't always crutches)...
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