debate about high and low art oct 2011

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High and Low Art –is there a

difference?

Kat O’Keeffe



Ted Cohen

• Arguments for this discussion are based onthe ideas of Ted Cohen, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.His specialist area of study is Philosophy

of Art• I read 2 articles by him published in the

“Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism”.

• High and Low Thinking about High and Low

Art (1993)• High and Low Art and High and Low

Audiences (1999)



Examples of High and

Low Art•

What do we mean by these terms?• There is a common assumption that some art is

highbrow and serious and can only be appreciatedby certain groups of people. An example might bethe opera “The Magic Flute” by Mozart? (is it better than other music because it’s high)?

• Other art appeals more widely and is said to be“popular” (or easy to access). A film likeHitchcock’s “The Birds” might fall into this

category? (is it of less worth because so many people like it)?



Questions about this?•

You may already be disagreeing with myexamples and wanting to offer some of yourown?

• You might think that the distinctions of “high” and“low” are rather simplistic and general? Whatabout everything in between!

• Is it easy to define what art is – how do we decidewhen something can be called a work of art orwhen it isn’t art at all?

•

This presentation will attempt to debatethese contentious issues…………..



What makes a piece of

art?• Ted Cohen wonders if using the terms High and

Low in relation to art is really the same astalking about Art and non Art?

• In other words is Art only something appreciatedby specialist audiences who have superior

knowledge and insight? A Shakespeare play is agood example as the language and depth maybe off-putting to some.

• If this is the case, then trying to grade works of art

on a scale of high to low is unnecessary?



Ted Cohen “High and LowThinking about High and Low

Art” (1993)• “…if you think Shakespeare is better

or deeper, or something, than the

Simpsons, why do you feel a needto say anything more than that?

• And if you do, why do you need to

distinguish the kind of thingShakespeare is from the kind of thing the Simpsons is?”



Parochial Art (not to be confusedwith High art)

• This is a term he uses to describe art that is made with

specialised specific audiences in mind – it could behigh or low. Examples are electronic classical musicor avant garde performance art

• What is common to the audiences is a feeling that only

they can really enjoy the work and this is a feature of some art appreciation

• He feels it adds an extra dimension to the enjoyment of the piece in that it is not available to others

• However, this can apply to all art and not just

highbrow stuff…..



How do you decide if something ishigh or low art?

• There is an problem with the descriptions,

Cohen feels – it is this:

1. Art is often defined as either “fine” or “popular”. However, one person can like

both types, for example, Wordsworth’s poetry and Leonard Cohen’s songs

2. A popular work of art can be liked by bothhigh and low audiences, for example,the film “Doctor Zhivago”.



How do you decide what is high andwhat is low art?

So, if a film like Doctor Zhivagois enjoyed by one person as

good entertainment and byanother as a reflection on theRussian Revolution – wheredoes that leave us in trying todecide if it’s high or low?



Can art be high and low at thesame time?

• Two people can really like the same

person but in different ways. I like herbecause she is a good artist and veryintelligent. You like her because she isfunny and plays tennis well

• Cohen feels it’s the same with art, thedivisions are not about high and low,though

• If you love some art you want others tolike it too – but does it matter if you likeit for different reasons?



Maybe the artist could tell us if it’s highor low?

•

One way of making the distinction, Cohensuggests would be to ask the artist if thepiece of art was intended to be high or low?

• He argues that an artist must include themself

in any intended audience – otherwise theart is fraudulent. In other words, it is veryunlikely that an artist would deliberately setout to create a “low” piece intended to be

superficial. What would be the point?



The joker• He gives the example of telling a joke

• Would you tell a joke if you thought it wasn’t funny or youdidn’t really understand it?

• Cohen likens the artist to the joker. There is absolutelynothing wrong with creating “popular art” that appealsto many people

• What he does object to is an artist producing somethingthat has no personal conviction in it

• He thinks someone who sets out to make something thatis not important to them, but will appeal to a certain

audience is not really an artist at all.



Moral and aesthetic

sensibilities• Cohen likens his appreciation of art to his

decision to visit Auschwitz while on alecture tour in Poland some years beforethis article was written.

•He felt he ought to go, but this was a

purely personal decision as a Jew, notimposed by a theory or moral obligationbelonging to someone else.

• To him this decision was linked to the wayhe lives his life.



Aesthetic Sensibility

• In the same way Cohen doesn’t want his“aesthetic sensibility ” dictated bysuperimposed categories such as art/non

art or high and low art.

• To him these categories just won’t stand upthey just “blur and blotch”

•



Some examples of what heregards as Art• “King Lear” by William

Shakespeare

• Pasternak’s “DoctorZhivago”

• The Simpsons

• Hitchcock’s “North byNorthwest”

• Hoagy Carmichael

• Hebrew Bible

• Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”

• Paintings by Rembrandt

•

•

ARE ALL THESEART?

( Ted Cohenthinks they arebut adds he

isn’t sure if hecares)!



Collective response is a measureof artistic merit

•

Instead Cohen puts forward a very different wayof looking at art that helps him to define if something has artistic merit – or not…..

• He says that if it matters to him that others have

a high regard for something, then he regards it as Art

• In other words art to him is about the worth andappeal of artistic experience to groups of

people who feel as he does about particularthings



Collective response•

He is not going to base hispreferences on whether a pieceis high or low art, or if it even

classed as Art at all• If enough people of similar taste

get pleasure from something

artistic – he feels that is a goodmeasure of its worth



Collective aesthetic

response“Some of these objects link me to my fellows, some of the objects link me toother people. Some lead me into rather smaller groups, some lead me into largeand varied groups. And it is my membership in these groups that locates me aesthetically as I think of it,

that reflects the dimensions of my sensibility”



Back to High and Low Art• If we agree with him then notions of “high”

and “low” art become irrelevant becausegroups can be linked by art like Shakespeareplay or a Marx Brothers’ movie. Thecommon factor is the appeal of the group

• The link is not made by how deep orsuperficial something is.

• It is the way the piece connects groups

of people that defines it as art



Collective response to art

•

Could you make your own list of what youconsider to be your favourite pieces of art,if we had the time this afternoon?

• The lists would all be different and that is

important• He feels that in defining what art is one

should ask the question:

• “Why I (or anyone, for that matter)would ever seriously care to assert or deny that something is art”



Collective response• When deciding on what makes

something into a piece of art he feelsthe most important thing is:

“to explain the significance of the thing in my life I mustsuppose that is also has a

place, or deserves to have aplace in the lives of others”



Collective response -

intimacy• Cohen gives as an example a

memorial service for a friend wherea string quartet played music thatthe dead person loved

“We were finding one another andour friend in that music of Mozart

and Haydn. Does it matter thatMozart and Haydn are high art(very high art indeed)?”



Collective response• He feels art should be trans-personal and

appeal to a wide range of differentpeople, however, just becausesomething has breadth of appeal it can

still be taken seriously• As he says Hamlet is popular because it

is a deep and meaningful play andDallas is popular because it is

superficial and trashy –so usingpopularity to define art isproblematic….



Art as the focus of acommunity

Cohen feels it is useful to define art interms of a focus of a community, or agroup whose intimacy is underwrittenby their conviction that they feel thesame about something and that, thatthing is art – is their bond. They feel

that one another respond in the sameway, and for the same reasons



Questions to finishCohen asks these questions to conclude his

reflections:1. What makes high art “high” ? Is it that it appeals to asnobbish audience? What makes them snobbishabout it – is it that they have a taste for snobbish art?

2. When a work of art appeals to a high and low audience –

is it both a high and low work?3. Is someone likes both high and low art – does it mean

they are refined and superficial at the same time?

4. How many works can a single work of art be? How many

people can one person be?5.

6.

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