Mozart is as Meaningless as Modern Art
I don’t get abstract art, but unlike others I don’t think this makes me intelligent. I don’t get it. I can’t be bothered getting it. I will not, however, deny that there is something to get, just because I cannot reach it.
The main criticism proud haters hurl at abstract art is that it’s meaningless.
(I’m ignoring the argument that modern art “takes no skill”. Firstly, it does take skill. Secondly, if a random text generator produced the works of Shakespeare, would we call Hamlet worthless?)
The meaninglessness of modern art contrasts with the good-old Old Masters. They actually drew things. They didn’t just smear colour willy-nilly.
These accusations of meaninglessness remind me of something from Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). A friend of De Quincey’s says why he doesn’t like music:
But, says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic characters; I can attach no ideas to them.
Don’t dismiss this as an oddball remark appearing only in the memoirs of a dilettante drug addict. In his lectures on Romanticism, the historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) remarks that calling instrumental music meaningless used to be quite common.
In the 18th century, particularly in France, music is regarded, on the whole, as a fairly inferior art. Vocal music has its place because it heightens the importance of the words. … [Bernard Le Bovier de] Fontenelle [1657–1757] … said, when instrumental music first began to invade France and sonatas began to appear, as against the kind of vocal religious music or operatic music to which he was used, which had a plot, which had explanation, which had some kind of extra-musical importance — when sonatas appeared he said, “Sonate, que me veux-tu?” — “Sonata, what do you want of me” — and condemned instrumental music as a meaningless pattern of sounds, not really suitable for delicate or civilised ears.
Just as modern art is dismissed because it “doesn’t look like anything”, instrumental music was dismissed because it didn’t sound like anything.
[Jean-François] Marmontel [1723–1799] … supposed all art to have some kind of mimetic quality, that is to say imitation of life, imitation of the ideals of life, imitation of imaginary beings, ideal beings, not necessarily real beings, but still some kind of imitation, some kind of relationship to actual events, actual persons, something which was there in reality, which was the business of the artist, if necessary to idealise, but anyway to represent as it truly is. And music, which by itself had no meaning, which was simply a succession of sounds, was clearly non-mimetic.
You can mimic birdsong and not much else. Even the birdsong takes some squinting at.
In short, music was accepted when it had lyrics. The notes enhanced the words, but notes alone meant nothing. Back to painting, most people have a similar attitude to colour. Colour enhances form, but alone is meaningless.
Take this painting of Hero and Leander:
Remove the colour, and it still looks like something:
Now take Cy Twombly’s abstract representation of Hero and Leander (It’s under copyright, so you’ll have to follow the link). Even with colour it looks like nothing — because it’s just colour.
You might say music’s different. Music is a universal language: everyone gets it. But this abstract art (*gestures condescendingly*) you need a four-year degree to even pretend there’s something to get.
It is the implicit claim that the goodness of an artwork should be apparent to someone who knows nothing about art.
As to music, I’ll repeat De Quincey, but with the latter half of the quote:
But, says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic characters; I can attach no ideas to them. Ideas! my good sir? There is no occasion for them; all that class of ideas which can be available in such a case has a language of representative feelings.
A language of representative feelings. Do I know this language? No, I do not, neither the language of music nor of abstract art. I can’t speak Mandarin either, but I don’t call the citizens of Beijing highfalutin elitists trying to sound clever.
Fundamentally, this is what annoys me about people calling abstract art meaningless. It is the implicit claim that the goodness of an artwork should be apparent to someone who knows nothing about art.
We don’t tend to think consumption takes skill, but it does.
They believe if someone is willing to stare at a painting long enough, with an open-enough mind and a thorough-enough eye, they should be able to understand the painting. The explanatory text at the painting’s side is taken as an admission of failure.
Everyone, uninstructed, should get the artwork. That you might need to hear a guide, read a book, or actually study the artform is dismissed as elitism.
Certainly, it can lead to elitism. Possessing a skill of any kind can lead to elitism. When I learnt to perform data analysis with R, I felt pretty cocky for a bit.
But while knowing how to use R does not make me better than other people, it does make me better at using R than other people. While knowing how to read Shakespeare in his historical and cultural context does not make me better than other people, it does make me better at reading Shakespeare than other people.
We don’t tend to think consumption takes skill, but it does. If a person is accredited a Master Sommelier by the Court of the Master Sommeliers, they’re objectively better at tasting wine than me. They get more from a glass than I ever will.
Do I want to get better at tasting wine? No.
I don’t want to get better at listening to symphonies or looking at abstract art either. I’m fine with lacking these skills and don’t want to practise. Unlike others, however, I do not deny practise is possible.
