De Facto Times

“Painting and sculpture were the first of the arts to fall on evil days, since they existed chiefly to given pleasure,” (Vasari 36).

The much-influential Vasarian Cycle of art suggests that the arts are like people: they “are born, grow up, become old, and die” (Vasari 46). Our perspective on the most notable rebirth is heavily informed by Vasari’s writings: the Renaissance (literally meaning ‘rebirth’ in French). Vasari understood the art of antiquity to have reached a zenith of its own, only to be muddled out by the time of Constantine, as best represented by Constantine’s Arch. Art died. And its cause of death, although partially elucidated, is inadequately explained in its entirety. It wasn’t until the life of Cimabue in the 13th century that the rebirth which became the Renaissance gradually introduced itself.

At first glance, the artistic theories held by Giorgio Vasari and Wassily Kandinsky (and by proxy Hegel) appear utterly opposed. In most respects, they are; however, they share notable overlap in their cyclical view of art, perceiving the state of art as a stage to be repeated. The three stages of Hegelian aesthetics that Kandinsky expands upon mirror the Vasarian Cycle and are as follows: there is a thesis, followed by an antithesis, and then a ‘sublation’ of the two that resembles a modified return to the thesis. The thesis is much like the birth, the antithesis is like the fall and death, and the sublation mirrors the rebirth. In his time, Kandinsky believed the artwork of the past several decades (the mid to late 19th century) had become chiefly concerned with its own material execution and was therefore self-serving, straying from the original ‘spirit’ or ‘geist’ of art. Then, in an attempt to return, artists began examining the spirit of past art in what Kandinsky viewed as the up and coming sublation.

So, where does the con-American world fit itself into such a paradigm? Does such a paradigm hold validity? And, if it does, how do we prevent our own decline?

The United States did not begin in a stage like antiquity, nor like cavemen. Rather, the Americans inherited their art culture from the British, the Native Americans, the French, and eventually its immigrants. Naturally, all the influences endured by the European cultures Britain and France inherited were automatically passed on to the Americans. Thus, from a Vasarian perspective, the American colonists largely inherited the movements succeeding the Renaissance in their early years. Likely due to low competition, the earliest American paintings varied in competence, with some being far more crude than their European counterparts. But, after some stable footing, the Vasarian perspective was certainly validated. Figures such as Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt proved America’s participation in the tail end of the Renaissance, contributing new style and excellence to the world of art. Yet, at the very same moment, Impressionism crept up from behind, albeit in its most digestible form.

The crudeness of earlier artists such as El Greco had been embraced, often with tact and demonstration of skill, but sometimes treading the line between skilled and unskilled. At first, Impressionist art maintained a clear and grounded understanding of the nature of its subjects. Although sometimes warped, the people present in a Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh painting often prove to the viewer that the painter understood anatomy. However, such an expectation would not hold. The unfinished grit of Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian would, in the following decades, become passable as finished. By the time of Edvard Munch, whether or not an Impressionist artist would demonstrate their understanding of the natural form became much more variable. World-famous paintings such as The Scream, although displaying an understanding of perspective, represent a remedial reversion to primitive art, ignoring the progress built by its predecessors. The brush strokes are unrefined, warped, and wobbly; the figures are vague and dull; and worst of all, the work fails to demonstrate excellent effort in its execution.

This marks a point of divergence between the Hegelian Cycle of Kandinsky and the Vasarian Cycle; where Vasari would most certainly have seen the rise of Impressionism as the downfall, Kandinsky saw it as the rebirth, and instead viewed the ‘monotony’ of beauty which followed the Renaissance as the true death of art.

The 20th century was, despite and because of its terrors, an age of art innovation. Movies, music, and television would evolve in ways they had never evolved before. The world population boomed by billions, spawning with the boom a new wave of potential artists living in a new wave of post-war industrialization. With this new wave, there was something approximating a very brief rebirth, albeit one surrounded by mediocrity. Cinema would reach its apex in the United States, with films such as The Godfather being renowned for their artistic merit. Hollywood had become a massive, dominant force of culture, spreading its artistic influence across the world and inspiring millions. Music was experiencing the invention of genres never heard before, producing rock and pop. Yet, in the traditional arts of painting and sculpture, a rejection the Goths would have only dreamed of took hold. While the beautiful candor of Norman Rockwell, Grant Wood, and Edward Hopper inspired the masses, the malignant influence of Kazimir Malevich, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso parasitically infiltrated the face of art. It is their influence that is felt in a contemporary exhibit above all else rather than the excellence of their contemporaries or near-contemporaries.

Whether or not the Vasarian Cycle is a justifiable framing of the evolution of art, its general historical trajectory is in many ways accurate, from the fall of ancient art, the mediocrity of medieval art, and the rebirth of the Renaissance. And, as the cycle would entail, the art of the Renaissance eventually gave way to far cruder forms and died a gradual death. The Hegelian Cycle, refusing to recognize the beauty in artistic method, fails to demonstrate a sound understanding of not only what art is, but what art should be.

The con-American world is experiencing an Anarchy of Art in much the same way it is experiencing an Anarchy of Information. The internet, new mediums, and the growing population of the 21st century have amplified the artistic output of the world to a degree never seen before. Yet, when the global zeitgeist is most uniform, the present image of art lingers on beauty of antiquity and the Renaissance or the mediocrity of the previous century. In an age where art is as accessible as it ever has been across any medium, the incentive structures that once encouraged art no longer exist in nearly the same capacity. Patronage is dead, and local competition has gone with it. The Church no longer commissions any more Giotto’s or Michelangelo’s, nor do any of those who hold the majority of the wealth. Major holders of wealth have bought into the religion of corporate profit maximization, wherein the cost-effectiveness of building matters more than its beauty. The wealthy no longer dwell in local cities and contribute plentifully to the beautification of their home. Rather, the wealthy of today have no connected home, and therefore no incentive for patronage. Instead, they’re content with feigning enjoyment of meaningless ‘art’ due to its gaudy price tag. In the Vasarian Cycle, art is dead and awaiting another rebirth.