The Philosophy of Mainstream Art Education and Criticism: Part 3

How Marxist theory has entered the mainstream, and more on how radical, Christian ‘counter-revolutionary’ beauty is the response that will save the world.

This the third in the series. In part 1 and part 2, I discussed how the contemporary art world presents itself as Postmodern, but in fact is in fact just Marxist ideology intent on destruction of the tradition, faith, family and the Church. Here I consider the various forms that it appears in the contemporary worldview, going beyond the art world, and how a Christian culture of beauty ought to be part of the response.

Giotto, fresco, St Francis Preaching to the Birds, Italian 13th century.

The assumptions of Marxist ideology have seeped into the mainstream and have been adopted by people who very often are not aware of the implications of what they think. This is true of many who call themselves Christian. As already stated, many Catholics, for example, accept the Marxist critique of capitalism and the free economy without realising that this critique promotes a worldview that is contrary to their own faith. It is not common for people to see private property as necessary evil rather than a good upon which a Christian society must be founded. Similarly there are many Christians who are sympathetic to other socialist or Marxist ideas and who are unaware that they are working with a force that is directed towards the destruction of their Christian faith and all the main institutions of society. It sounds virtuous to be in favor of diversity and equality, for example, as long as we don’t investigate too far the consequences of the policies proposed to rectify the supposed lack of diversity and inequality.

We should be under no illusions that Marxism and Christianity are mutually exclusive and one cannot profess both simultaneously.

It is difficult to know why the art world claims that post-modernism as defined above is the ethos of contemporary art when it is clearly following a Marxist path. One suspects that this is not subterfuge. Rather, that the Marxist worldview is so deeply embedded in the psyche of modern academia that many are simply unaware of the axiomatic principles that become the measure of truth. So perhaps Chris Ofili, described in part 1, thinks he is a postmodernist, and does not realise that he is only permitted to be one insofar as it doesn’t contradict the Marxist narrative of what constitutes truth. To highlight one other example of how the battle of ideas has played out in the art world. Marxist philosophy is the main driving force behind the frequently stated, but false, claim that Christ is traditionally painted as a Caucasian, and that this has been done in order to promote a white patriarchy. It displays a shocking ignorance of Christian art (as I described in this article here), and of the origins and attitude of Christians through centuries, yet it is a story that surfaces regularly.

For example, a random search on the internet revealed that on April 19th, 2019, an article appeared in the New York Times headed, ‘As a Black Child in Los Angeles, I Couldn’t Understand Why Jesus Had Blue Eyes’. If the writer in question had seen authentic Christian liturgical art, and had a good appreciation of the traditions from which it comes, then he wouldn’t have asked such questions. There are images of Christ with blue eyes, no doubt, but they are not representative of the norms of Christian tradition through centuries.

A Byzantine image of Christ, a mosaic, created in the 13th century in modern day Turkey. There is no Western European influence on either the style or content of Byzantine art of this period. I’m looking in vain for blue eyes, by the way. The white highlights are not representative of the skin color (which is brown) but artistic portrayals of uncreated light emanating from the Light of the World

Consistent with this broader narrative, art history for the cultural Marxist is always described through the lens of class struggle, defining categories of people by race or gender, for example, in which one category, for example, caucasian males, are oppressors who exerts power and domination over all others, who are the oppressed. Rarely, for example, is an artist or his patron of the past assumed to be motivated by an authentic faith and by the love of the Church. Human motivation, in their eyes, is always attributable to socio-economic factors and to promote the power, the wealth and the status of the oppressor class.

As Christians we must be aware of this narrative and be ready to counter it forcefully. Striving for an authentic and beautiful culture is part of how we wage the war for the good and, contrary to the effect of Marxism, the measure of our victory is peace. The culture war is a real one, and those against whom we are pitted are setting a trajectory that has the elimination of the Church as one of its goals.

As part of our response, we must first appreciate the importance of culture in transmitting values, just as the socialists have done, and then strive to create a beautiful culture that reflects our values and will displace the Marxist inspired culture. We should reject the assertion that cultural diversity is a good and assert, rather, that a Christian culture is superior to, and more beautiful, than all other cultures.

In the context of sacred art it means that we assert the value of the traditions of Christian sacred art forcefully and counter the Marxist narrative of history with the Christian salvation history. It means also, working to change or replace existing art schools, and providing a more compelling critique of art than that of the critics in the mainstream media. Nearly every newspaper or TV station art correspondent is pushing Marxist ideology in the form of Critical Theory. In order to do this we must be aware of both what we stand for and what the Marxist theorists stand for.

 

Liberation theology, condemned by the Church, is a failed attempt to reconcile Marxism and Christianity

The most powerful way to counter this threat to the Church is by creating a culture that reflects the beauty of God and the divine order that is more desirable than all others. A Christian culture is a beautiful gift that should be offered to all peoples, along with the Faith that it emanates from and directs us to. A Christian culture should characterize the society from which emanates and so, as Americans, we should aim to reestablish American culture, a culture that is beautiful, Christian, and characteristically American.

American gothic: Duke University Chapel, exterior and, below, interior

The Philosophy of Mainstream Art Education and Criticism: Part 2

The appeal of Neo-Marxism as a quasi religion, and the counter-revolutionary power of Christian sacred art.

Last week, in Part 1, I described how, despite the fact that it is often cited as the driving force of the contemporary art world, postmodernism as it appears in art schools is not distinguishable from Marxist ideology and one of its recent iterations, Critical Theory. This week I examine the nature of the Marxist ideology in more depth.

Marxism originated as a pseudo-scientific method of inquiry made in the 19th century by Karl Marx, and is therefore, ironically, firmly part of the ‘modernity’ that the contemporary art movement claims to be a reaction to. It was first known as ‘scientific socialism’ because it claimed a methodology that applied the principles of analysis of natural science to history, in order to predict the future of society. By tracing the chain of events in history and applying the laws of cause-and-effect, Marxists predict a Utopian future in which all human needs are met. The necessary causal influence for change that pushes mankind on to its final destiny is in their view, violence. The violence that will bring about the desired change is, they claim, the product of an ongoing struggle between oppressor classes and the oppressed that will lead first to the total destruction of present society, and then the rise of a utopia out of the ashes.

In this scenario the oppressors fight to maintain the status quo which benefits them, and the oppressed fight to destroy it. Building on ideas developed by the German philosopher Hegel, this ‘dialectic’ of opposites, oppressors and the oppressed, is not seen as a harmonious process of resolution by discussion, but rather one that can only be resolved by the victory of the oppressed over their oppressors. Violent conflict is seen therefore as a necessary component to its resolution.

This is not a political movement that seeks to change modern society into one that is more just. Rather, it is an ideology, a cultish pseudo-religion that seeks the total destruction of the present society so that a fresh start can be made. There is however, no template for what this new society will look like, for it is assumed that it will emerge naturally from human interactions free from the traditions of the past. 

In the 19th century and earlier 20th century, it was thought that the struggles between the capital-owning class, bourgeoisie, and the workers, would usher in the new Utopia. The Russian revolution of 1917 brought in a Marxist government, and the expectation was that this would be the first in a wave of such revolutions across the Western world.

It quickly became clear, however, that the expected wave of revolutions was not going to happen. The workers didn’t want to be revolutionaries because their living conditions were steadily improving in the capitalist system without the need for revolution. The response of the Marxist theorists to the failure of history was to revise the hypothesis.

Mexican revolutionary art

In the new theories, which began to take hold after the Second World War, the need for violent destruction of contemporary society remained, but the class struggle became one between a different set of parties. Rather than traditional class struggle with bourgeoisie as oppressors and workers as the oppressed, the violent dialectic of destruction was proposed as one between Caucasian men - the ‘white patrimony’ - as the oppressor class, and everybody else - minority groups -  as the oppressed. Therefore women, non-Caucasian races, gay men and women, and transsexual people  were all now classed as victims who are to be incited to fight for their freedom. This revised theory of Marxism is referred to today as Critical Theory and is the ethos that dominates modern universities. It is particularly prevalent in the humanities and fine arts programs.

The great appeal of socialist theory is that even though it is an atheist and materialist philosophy, it provides a narrative for the emergence of a perfect world, without requiring its adherents to believe in God or the Christian moral code. Its promise of a materialist Utopia is an atheist-materialist alternative to the salvation history offered by Christianity. Further, it indulges the unhappy, whom it recruits to its cause, by indulging their desire to blame others - the oppressor class - for their unhappiness.

Given that man is made by God to desire God and heaven, and to recognize the account of salvation history recounted in Scripture as the truth, this alternative ideology with its superficial similarity to some aspects of what the Christian faith teaches, even though false, has the capacity to appeal powerfully to that part of us that yearns for God and for the truth. That place deep in the core of us which grasps such fundamental truths is referred to traditionally as ‘the heart’. It is in our hearts that we assent to, or reject, God. The false teachings of socialism fall very easily into the vacuum that is created in our hearts by the rejection of God.
   
Socialist ideology, therefore, plays the part of a quasi secular faith for so many of those who accept it. So strong is this appeal and the desire for it to be true that even when the events of history fail to confirm its hypothesis, many just flatly ignore the contradictions, or seek to revise the hypothesis to fit the facts rather than admit it is wrong.

Critical theory, the latest iteration of Marxist theory, is responsible for the grievance politics of race, gender, and sexual orientation that dominate so much political discourse today. They deliberately provoke disharmony and sometimes even violence between different groups of people, based upon race, gender and sexuality.

Chinese revolutionary art

Marxist theorists argue that all the current institutions that form the basis of Western society are created by Caucasian men as instruments of power that enable them to oppress all other groups of people. The critique is all encompassing and includes every aspect of contemporary society, including liberal democracy, the free market economy, the right to private property, our universities and schools, the Christian religion, and even the family. The critique of Western society and culture goes beyond the institutions that uphold them, it goes to the very ideas upon which they are founded. The existence of God, and even the existence of objective truth (beyond the Marxist narrative itself which is the only measure of truth they will acknowledge). All are viewed as instruments of oppression by the white patriarchy. Similarly, all art, architecture, music and other aspects of the culture that emanate from traditional Western values are seen as instruments of oppression, for they all help to sustain and transmit Western values.

The Marxist asserts that there is no possibility of modifying these institutions, because their very existence is built on the premises of Western thought. Therefore, the only way to remove the oppression and injustice, which they suppose is permeating all of Western society, is to destroy all the institutions, and every aspect of the culture that reflect it and have grown up within it and continue to transmit and sustain its values. This goal of destruction applies to everything, right down the family.

Marxists are aware of the profound influence of culture on forming opinion and have always sought to control and manipulate the institutions of the culture - universities, the news media, as well as political institutions. They have been extremely successful in manipulating the form and message of contemporary art, music, architecture, film etc., so that it is consistent with their world view. This at a time when Christians, who should have opposed this all the way, seem to have lost sight of the importance of a contemporary culture that supports a culture of faith.

At the same time, Marxists rarely reveal that this is what their theories are. So many who push Critical Theory will do so without fully revealing the source of these theories, or what their ultimate goal is. While the political rhetoric of Marxism is deliberately presented as though it is interested in righting wrongs and countering injustice, in practice it does the opposite. Its actions are aimed at amplifying the sense of victimhood and grievance. The intention in doing this is to raise anger in the assigned oppressed groups so that they will rise up violently.  To this end Marxists are happy to engage with any forces that are likely to engage in a forceful struggle against the West. This explains the apparent paradox in the Left’s tolerance of fundamentalist Islam, even when some tenets of the Islamic faith contradict those of Marxism.

As a result of this, the assumptions of Marxist ideology have seeped into the mainstream and adopted by people who very often are not aware of the implications of what they think. This is true of many who call themselves Christian.

Cuban revolutionary art

This runs deep. There are Catholics, for example, all the way to Rome who accept the Marxist critique of capitalism and the free economy, without realising that this critique promotes a worldview that is contrary to their own faith. It is not common for people to see private property as necessary evil rather than a good upon which a Christian society must be founded. Similarly there are many Christians who are sympathetic to other socialist or Marxist ideas, and who are unaware that they are working with a force that is directed towards the destruction of their Christian faith and all the main institutions of society. It sounds virtuous to be in favor of diversity and equality, for example, as long as we don’t investigate too far the consequences of the policies proposed to rectify the supposed lack of diversity and inequality.

Christ Carrying His Cross by Annibale Caracci, Italian, 17th century baroque

Above and below: Christian sacred art, which I present by way of contrast to the revolutionary art shown. It is important for Christians to assert the story of the Salvation in order to supplant the story of the revolution. All aspects of the culture should play a part in this, and by all good means possible. However, the source and summit of our weapons in this cultural war should be in the liturgical forms.

Regarding sacred art, I suggest that as a starting point, we can consider that what was good for the Catholic Counter-Reformation is good for the the Catholic Counter-Revolution. Just as sacred art played a vital part in the Counter-Reformation (in the form of the Baroque art) so it will now.

Notice how this Christian art shows not conventional victorious heroes, in the manner of the Marxist inspired art, but rather, the paradoxical victory by death and suffering. Christian ‘counter-revolutionary’ art is sacred art in which the New Jerusalem is ushered in not by a a military or political leader, but by God through Christ, whose victory was achieved through his own death. And the measure of that victory is peace in the hearts of Christians. It is the peace that passeth understanding that will displace the Marxist ‘anti-faith’ from the hearts of men.

The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew by Mattia Preti (1653-60). The great Christian counter-revolutionary heroes are the martyrs who accept suffering for their faith and participate in this victory.

And the greatest counter-revolutionary is Mary the Mother of God, whose humility and maternal love is the antithesis of all that the Marxist theorists stand for. This is painted by Theophan the Greek, who was born in Constantinople in the 14th century and moved to Russia, becoming influential on Russian iconography.

The Philosophy of Mainstream Art Education and Criticism: Part 1

Postmodernism: an art movement that doesn’t really exist?

In the past, when someone decided that they wanted to be an artist, it was usually because they liked to draw and paint or sculpt, and thought they were good at it. Learning to be a good artist always meant primarily learning how to be better at drawing, painting or sculpting.  

This is not the case nowadays. It is still true that many artists begin their journey as children when they first pick up a crayon and draw. However, many of those who complete fine art degrees at university do not spend a high proportion of their time studying what used to be considered the basic skills of the artist. Rather, if they complete a fine arts degree, they have very likely lost the desire to draw, under the influence of their art-school education. Typically, contemporary art students are told that they must conform to a worldview that rejects the values that underlie traditional art, and abandon traditional methods altogether. Those who resist will not do well unless they can persuade their teachers that their use of drawing skill is in pursuit of ‘irony’. If they use their art to mock those traditions, then they will be permitted to flourish.

Above: My Bed, by Tracy Emin, contemporary British, post-modernism. Shortlisted for the Turner Art Prize, she argued that her work was like Turner’s because Turner was a ‘really raunchy man’. It sold most recently for over $2.5M.

William Turner, British, 1838: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up. Putting aside the alleged raunchiness of the artist for a moment, does this look like Tracy Emin’s art to you?

This is a generalization of the situation today, but to a greater or lesser extent it is true for most art schools that participate in the modern university system. The highest praise that the teacher and critics can give an artist is that he ‘challenges established norms’ (here meaning Christian and Judeo-Christian values). So, for example, any artist who  expresses, through his work, an unorthodox approach (from a Christian point of view) to sexual morality will be praised for doing so, especially if his art has the power to shock conservatively minded people.

A typical example of work consistent with these ideas is by the British artist, Chris Ofili who was born in 1968. In 1999 a painting of his was part of an exhibition shown in New York City. It was a Madonna described by Wikipedia as follows: 

Chris Ofili: The Holy Virgin Mary - image designated Fair Use

On a yellow-orange background, the large painting (8 feet high and 6 feet wide) depicts a black woman wearing a blue robe, a traditional attribute of the Virgin Mary. The work employs mixed media, including oil paint, glitter, and polyester resin, and also elephant dung, map pins and collaged pornographic images. The central Black Madonna is surrounded by many collaged images that resemble butterflies at first sight, but on closer inspection are photographs of female genitalia; an ironic reference to the putti that appear in traditional religious art. A lump of dried, varnished elephant dung forms one bared breast, and the painting is displayed leaning against the gallery wall, supported by two other lumps of elephant dung, decorated with coloured pins: the pins on the left are arranged to spell out “Virgin” and the one on the right “Mary.” 

A distorted image of the Virgin Mary adorned with pornography and elephant dung was clearly intended to deride Christian values. I have read accounts of comments by the artist that, along with everything else, he thought the depiction of Virgin Mary as a black woman did this too.  If so this was a mistake on his part, given the tradition of the portrayal of black and brown skinned Madonnas in both Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

Our Lady of Czestochowa

Initially Ofili’s painting did not attract much attention. This changed, however, when the then mayor of New York, Rudy Guiliani, publicly objected to it. His discomfort and the wider interest it generated, combined with the fact that Christians and conservatives who were now aware of it also hated it, delighted the art world. The fact that Ofili had succeeded in baiting such people gave his work new value in their eyes. As a result of the publicity it attracted, the painting was quickly snapped up by a collector, and sold in 2015 by Christie’s for $4.6M before being given to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The artist himself was elevated into the mainstream of the art establishment as a result. He would go on to win the Turner Art Prize - one of the most prestigious awards the British art establishment can bestow, to become a member of the Royal Academy, and to sit on the board of the Tate Modern gallery in London.

What is the basis of the philosophy of this particular brand of anti-traditionalism that Ofili typifies? It is often characterized as postmodernism. The Tate Modern website tells us that artistic postmodernism started to catch on around 1970 and defines it as ‘a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century. The term is associated with skepticism, irony and philosophical critiques of the concepts of universal truths and objective reality’.

This, it seems to me, is disingenuous, because it does not tell the full story. While artists today do challenge the principle of objective truth and any institution based upon that principle such as mainstream religion, they are certainly not even-handed about it. It is Christianity and especially the Church over and above all other religions (with the possible exception of orthodox Judaism) that is targeted. Similarly, while all natural science is founded on the principle of objective truth, there seems to be a selective approach to their challenges to the scientific establishment too. Rarely do we see ‘postmodern’ artists attacking such politically fashionable scientific hypotheses as anthropogenic climate change or Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The driving principle behind the contemporary art movement is not, in fact,  post-modernism as it is described by Tate Modern, but rather the latest iteration of Marxism called Critical Theory.

Marxism originated as a materialist, pseudo-scientific method of inquiry made in the 19th century by Karl Marx, therefore it is part of the ‘modernity’ that the contemporary art movement claims to be a reaction to. It was first known as ‘scientific socialism’ because it claimed a methodology that applied the principles of analysis of natural science to history in order to predict the future of society. By tracing the chain of events in history and applying the laws of cause-and-effect, Marxists predict a Utopian future in which all human needs are met. The necessary causal influence for change that pushes mankind on to its final destiny is in their view, violence. The violence that will bring about the desired change is, they claim, the product of an ongoing struggle between oppressor classes and the oppressed that will lead first to the total destruction of present society, and then the rise of a utopia out of the ashes.

In this scenario the oppressors fight to maintain the status quo which benefits them, and the oppressed fight to destroy it. Building on ideas developed by the German philosopher Hegel, this ‘dialectic’ of opposites, oppressors and the oppressed, is not seen as a harmonious process of resolution by discussion, but rather one that can only be resolved by the victory of the oppressed over their oppressors. Violent conflict is seen therefore as a necessary component to its resolution.

This is not a political movement that seeks to change modern society into one that is more just. Rather, it is an ideology, a cultish, pseudo-religion that seeks the total destruction of the present society so that a fresh start can be made. There is however, no template for what this new society will look like, for it is assumed that it will emerge naturally from human interactions free from the traditions of the past.

Part 2 to come: Marxism and Critical Theory in the culture.

The Mother of God, by Theophanes the Greek, painted in Russia in the 14th century

See also my past article The Fallacy that Christian Art Generally Portrays Christ as a Northern European Man.