I am sure that we have all, at
one time or another, noticed that almost any discussion concerning the merits
and demerits of art, if it goes on long enough will come to the qualities of
innovation and traditionalism in regards to aesthetic value. As soon as these
two qualities are mentioned, there comes an inevitable forming up of those who
favour innovation and deride tradition and those who favour tradition and
deride innovation. Either side usually admits only enough merit to their
opposition, and limitation of their own view, to make themselves seem
reasonable and objective: but the bulk of their effort goes into savaging
their opponents and extolling the ultimately ascendant nature of their
position. I am inclined to take neither view, but to propose a third. It is
not enough that we should pursue either innovation or traditionalism simply
because we have some sort of aesthetic attraction to them, such as, for
example, sentimentality or novelty. There may be those who would respond that
there is simply no arguing about taste: that you like what you like and that
is that. Certainly such people are right in one sense, but this response seems
too simplistic and of a ‘sour grapes’ nature to convince me that this is the
end of the matter. Rather, I suggest, it is the purpose to which we apply
either innovation or traditionalism which dictates whether or not they have
aesthetic merit: too often, our adherence to either of the two qualities
becomes a thoughtless habit of our culture rather than anything useful in
itself. In order to prove the viability of this qualification, I will first
explore the negative and positive qualities of innovation, and the possible
causes thereof. Then I will look at the negative and positive qualities of
traditionalism, and their possible causes. Throughout, however, there is to be
a primary emphasis on how these positive and negative qualities relate to the
purpose of innovation and traditionalism.
For many people, the most
damning denunciation they can make of a work of art is that it is, in some
way, stale, antiquated, or outmoded. They will note how this feature has been
borrowed, how that aspect has been done before, and how the entire work lacks
freshness, originality, and creativeness. These sorts of people are not
necessarily wrong for saying such things, but they are wrong for leaving their
criticism at that, for it is simply not enough. What is implied in many of
these people’s demands for freshness, originality and so on, though they would
never say it explicitly, is a fascination with novelty. A few, if cornered,
might defend a taste for novelty by saying that something, because it is
novel, takes their aesthetic experience beyond where it had been before, and
thereby expands their understanding of art and themselves. There is a grain of
truth in this, but a second explanation seems more likely, and far more
damning. If someone displays a taste for art which is novel, it indicates that
art which preceded the novelty possessed only a passing transient value, and
art which now seems novel will also, most likely, be passing and transient,
for its only real attraction to this sort of person is that it is new, and, as
we have seen, this will soon pass. However, many of us are inclined to believe
that aesthetic values are something eternal, immutable, or at least consistent
over the span of time and culture: otherwise, we are not talking about
aesthetic value, but aesthetic fashion. Therefore, it seems that novelty does
not deserve a place amongst aesthetic values.
A second problem which may
develop in regards to cultivating a taste for innovation in the arts is the
assumption that because something is innovative, it presents new possibilities
and potentials, much as it does in the fields of science and technology, and
therefore, we should embrace innovation. The problem is not that possibilities
and potentials are inherently bad (or good for that matter), but that often we
do not first ask ourselves whether we ought to pursue particular
possibilities. There is a sense in which the inhabitants of industrialized
western culture have become conditioned to instinctively believe that because
something is innovative, it is desirable. This tendency seems natural when one
considers that industry is inclined to proclaim its victories of innovation to
the consumer masses, and downplay the blunders and even crimes which have been
perpetrated in the name of innovation. This creates, over time, a tacit,
knee-jerk reaction on the part of the masses to believe that ‘innovative’ is,
in some vague sense, synonymous with ‘the good.’ It must be admitted that in
some cases the new innovations have been generally beneficial: penicillin, the
pneumatic tire, the personal computer all certainly have the potential to make
life better. However, other innovations, such as biological warfare,
concentration camps, and the atomic bomb are the works of darkest madness. The
blind and unthinking faith in something’s virtue simply because it is
innovative is not just unfortunate; it is dangerous. The same rule holds true
in art. How often have we heard a new artist, composer, or writer greeted with
the accolade of being a pioneer, unprecedented, or ingenious? Not that there
is anything wrong with these accolades, but often (perhaps even usually) the
critics leave off at this as if it were enough. It is not. If the artist is a
pioneer, then has he gone anywhere worth going? If he is unprecedented, then
is it because what he has done is not worth doing? And if he is ingenious, is
it in the manner of a Goethe or a Goebbels?
Finally, cultivating a blind
faith in the virtue art’s innovativeness facilitates a method of avoiding any
sort of accountability on the part of the artist. When the artist creates a
work which does not conform to any known standards of aesthetic value, or at
least does not employ recognized methods and techniques, it becomes very
difficult to gauge the work: there is no readily available standard by which
to measure the aesthetic value of the work. If the work is good, then good
compared to what? Likewise, if it is bad, then bad compared to what? This
tendency, in and of itself , is neither good nor bad, because though the work
has no easy way of being attacked, it also seems to have no easy way of being
praised. However, as I have already pointed out in the previous paragraph,
there already exists an arbitrary standard by which such works may be praised,
but not disparaged: our tacit mass consumer belief that all things new tend to
necessarily be good. Yet that by which we are measuring this innovative art,
in this case, is not that which is thought to be aesthetically valuable, but
that which is commonly, in industrial western culture, thought to be
expedient. Even if this were not the case, the lack of a standard by which to
measure the merit of a work of art provides a dangerous opportunity for a
great deal of ‘spurious’ art to dominate our time and attention. Granted, as
time passes, these will, most likely, slough off into oblivion, but they still
detract from our artistic experience in the present; the only place we are
able to experience art.
Having thus disparaged
innovation, let me now come to its defence. Innovation is a quality that, to
wax crude for a moment, makes art slippery. It allows art to evade the grasp
of those who would subordinate the composition and outlets for art in order to
enslave it to their own culturally and chronologically specific ends.
Obviously I agree with thinkers such as David Hume in insisting that our sense
of aesthetic value must adhere to that which transcends immediate
circumstances and is perceived as virtuous over the sweep of time and place:
"a real genius, the longer his works endure and the more wide they are spread,
the more sincere is the admiration which he meets with" (Hume 490). Particular
ruthless individuals, however, both powerful and humble, will always seek to
corner the dogma, forums, and artists themselves in order to forward their own
particular ends. This usually subordinates art to its immediate historical,
cultural and geographical circumstances, and eliminates any opportunity to
speak universally. Whatever other qualities art may have, universality must be
among them, and I believe that art history bears this out. For instance, if
artistic values were necessarily a product of a particular time and place, of
a culture’s tabula rasa, then it seems as likely as not that our appreciation
of them would be of a like nature. Therefore, we would be inclined to
relativistically project our cultural perspective upon such art just as the
original artist did; art is in the eye of the beholder, not in the object
which is beheld. Of course, this makes the aesthetic merits of the object
itself superfluous, which forces us to ask why we would ever appreciate art
from another time and place over our own: it would necessarily be more
inefficient in regards to our artistic ‘projecting’ than our more
familiar, and thus more efficient art objects. However, we can not only
appreciate such art, but recognize its aesthetic merits as in some way
analogous with our own. There have always been, and likely will always be,
ruthless individuals who will try to prove this universal quality in art as
false, or at least subordinate that universality to their particular
circumstances: ancient Greece had Pericles and his "Funeral Oration;" Rome had
Julius Caesar and his "Gallic Wars;" barbarian Norway had Harald Fine Hair and
his biographical sagas. These sorts of people have an agenda which is specific
to their political, cultural, or historical situation, and they are determined
that art must serve it before all else. The fact that I only use powerful
tyrants as examples of this tendency , however, is not meant to imply that
all, or even most, such individuals are either powerful or necessarily
malignant. A tremendous amount of comparative nobodies or well meaning
philanthropists have also tried to bring art to heel: the effect is the same,
the tyrants simply provide more dramatic examples of the results. Innovation
offers one solution to evade these specific demands of a particular
culture.
All the negative things I have
said about innovation in art may also, in one sense or another, be said about
traditionalism. If innovation often engenders a taste for the novel, then
traditionalism often engenders a taste for cheap sentimentality; If
‘innovation’ can arbitrarily be made synonymous with ‘good’ by commercialism,
then traditionalism can often be said to be promoted by our tendency to think
of the past as somehow better than now; and if innovation often makes it
difficult for second rate art to be criticized, then traditionalism makes it
difficult for art which adheres to lauded principles to, in turn, be
criticized. Finally, in defence of traditionalism, it provides us with a
consistent standard of aesthetic judgment by which we may measure our
aesthetic sensibilities against the consensus of times and cultures.
Most of us have, at one time or
another, known someone who likes a particular style of music, literature, or
painting, not because they find anything particularly valuable about it on an
aesthetic level, but because they are, in some vague sense, ‘comfortable’ with
it. They understand and are familiar with the techniques, theories, and
subject matter of that particular form of art. This presents many viewers with
two often irresistible advantages. First, because this person knows all the
nuances about such art, they can contemplate and discuss the work without ever
risking looking naive or foolish. When contemplating the work introspectively,
they seldom run into something they cannot understand, which, of course, makes
them feel good about themselves. Likewise, they can impress others by
discussing subtleties which others, who are less comfortable in this
particular tradition, will miss. Of course, this also makes this sort of
person feel good about themselves. However, if you present this person with
material which is unfamiliar to him, he tends to deteriorate into darting
eyes, awkward silences, and restless hands. The second advantage offered by
this sort of familiarity is somewhat more nebulous, and perhaps is a sort of
flip side of the first advantage. This is the advantage of not having to face
the unfamiliar. If dealing with that which one understands is reassuring, then
dealing with that which is unfamiliar or strange is often, to this sort of
person, highly disconcerting. This is quite the opposite of the person who
loves innovation because it is novel: the former sees something new and
unknown as presenting tantalizing possibilities, while the latter sees
something new and unknown as presenting horrifying potential: in both cases,
however, the individual injects their own subjective inclination into the art,
rather than seeing what is in the art itself. This sort of traditionalist is
not a traditionalist in the strict sense. They often dislike unfamiliar
traditional art every bit as much as they dislike unfamiliar new work.
However, they usually get lumped into the traditionalist camp because, whereas
traditional art is often unfamiliar to them, new, innovative art is always
unfamiliar. In this sort of person’s case, it is not familiarity, but
unfamiliarity which breeds ‘contempt.’
Another manner in which
traditionalism can affect art negatively is by adhering to the idea that the
past is somehow better than now. Everybody has heard somebody at some time
extol the virtues of the ‘good old days,’ and deride the state of affairs at
present. I do not mean to imply that some things in the past, by most
standards, were not better: to be sure, some things were. However, because we
tend to give much of our attention to new crisis and deteriorating situations,
we are also aware of a sort of implication that because the crisis is new, and
the situation deteriorating, that there must have been a state before in which
it was better than it presently is: the previous state, the good old days, the
tried and trusted tradition. The preponderance of attention we give crisis
(obviously a natural survival instinct) tends to emphasize an ongoing, even
critical, loss of traditional stability. The same dynamic holds true for many
people’s opinions about art. Critics, artists, and others who run into
unfamiliar work can raise a tremendous amount of very vehement and convincing
noise about the decay of aesthetic sensibilities. Individually, we often
ignore these denunciations, or at least take time to think about them
critically, but the ‘Big Lie’ theory has as much application in this situation
as any other: no matter how far fetched the claim may seem, if one is told
enough times by enough people, of enough stature, one soon comes to believe
the claim. Furthermore, because someone is always bemoaning the loss of
aesthetic values, there soon grows a feeling that aesthetic values are always
deteriorating. It follows that if things are always deteriorating, things must
have been better before. Finally, because one soon has a sense that things
were better before, one finds oneself weighing in with those critics, artists
and others who raise such a vehement and convincing noise about the decay of
aesthetic sensibilities: it is a circular , or self_perpetuating problem.
Obviously, the form of traditionalism I am describing here, like the form of
innovation which appeals on the grounds of novelty, is based upon a false
impression of things, and therefore deserves no place in art.
Finally, we come to those
persons who adhere to strong traditional sensibilities in art because it
provides them with a way to avoid negative criticism while lending them some
of a previously established artist’s respectability. These sorts of people are
not that unlike those who are constantly innovating new forms, theories and
techniques of art in order to avoid being assessed. Both types wish to avoid
accountability for their work, though I certainly do not intend to address the
issue of whether or not they ought to take accountability. I am basing my
criticism on the assumption that amongst some of these two types of people
there is a smattering of people who adopt such a view not because they believe
that the artist is accountable to no man, or some such, but because they are
cowards: if there are no cowards amongst such people, however few, then I will
apologize, but I suspect I won’t have to. Before going on, I should clarify
what I mean by this sort of traditionalist. This person seeks out art and
things connected to that art which have received the sanction of the greater
mass of art critics over the ages, and specifically in their own time, not
because this art confirms their own aesthetic instincts, values, or standards,
but because others will hesitate to criticize him out of fear of disagreeing
with the immensity of popular opinion and the sanctioning of time. Granted,
such a critic is himself, something of a coward, but that does not make the
first coward any better.
Of course, all this negativity
about traditionalism may give one the impression that the dangers of
traditionalism far outweigh any advantages, and it should therefore be
excluded from any influential role in contemporary art. This is not at all the
case. In fact, in our modern, ‘forward thinking’ times it seems that our
passion for innovation facilitates a contempt for things traditional: the urge
is often to arbitrarily reject unfashionable traditionalism on sight. For this
reason, I think that traditionalism needs defenders far more than does
innovation. One of the greatest advantages afforded the art community by
traditionalism is its value as a gauge, composed of those aesthetic values
which have been thought consistently over time and circumstance to be true,
against which we can measure, or assess both our own aesthetic sensibilities,
as well as that of our art. This measuring may, in turn, provide us with a
sense of just how universal our aesthetic values are (whether that
universality makes our aesthetic values more or less valid is a another issue
entirely). Furthermore, this measuring also can indicate, though only in the
most general sense, which works of art, and which artists, will stand the test
of time. Admittedly, many artists could not care less about being remembered,
but many do worry about whether or not there is some eternal and immutable
aesthetic value to their work, and standard may be provided by observing what
has survived from the ages. As the cliche says, hindsight is twenty_twenty,
and though the meaning of the cliche is usually negative, in this case it may
indicate a clarity in our thinking about universal aesthetics which can only
be afforded by the experience of myriad times and places. We would be fools of
the first order to ignore such a resource.
Having gone over the good, bad,
and indifferent aspects of innovation and traditionalism in art, I must now go
on to point out that I am personally of the opinion that neither of these two
qualities are necessarily part of art. Rather, they are simply contributing,
or influential factors which act upon art, but are not actually art itself. In
order to clarify things, I am often inclined to think, in fanciful moments, of
art as a wild beast, a tiger or some such, with whom I am trapped in a small
room. There are many factors which may influence the tiger in one way or
another, and while these factors, such as my experience of tigers
(traditionalism), or clever new ways to influence them (innovation), are of
deadly importance, the tiger remains the primary focus, or reality, in the
room. Often, however, we confuse the factors for the art itself, the means for
the ends, the cause for the effect. We talk of our difficulty about defining
art in empirical terms, as if it were an elusive fog of wraiths, a "veil of
unknowing", or an ethereal mist of fleeting experiences: we are unable to ever
really grasp the identity of what we seek to define. Maybe this is true, but
every now and again I am sure I see something strangely beautiful,
terrifyingly real, gracefully elusive, gliding through the
vapours.