John Berger's Comparison - Essay Example

?Introduction There is an inherent conflict between the meaning of fine art, such as art that would be found in a museum, and commercial art, which his art that might be found in an advertisement. Specifically, the writer and art critic John Berger believes that commercial art is limited in what it can tell the audience, because the commercial art is not the product of a lived experience. Fine art, on the other hand, is a product of this lived experience, therefore, according to Berger, fine art speaks to the audience more than commercial art does. While Berger does have a point, in that the meaning of commercial art does not come from lived experience or from the heart and soul of an individual artist, and its purpose may see crass to some, commercial art actually has the ability to speak to the audience moreso then fine art does. This is because fine art is often esoteric and ultimately meaningless. Art critics might be able to find meaning in certain works of art, but they would be the only ones. The common man would have great difficulty understanding the meaning of a man's urinal used as artwork. On the other hand, commercial art is supposed to be understandable and accessible or, at the very least, evoke powerful emotions. For this reason, commercial art is more successful in conveying messages to mass audiences then is fine art. Discussion John Berger states that abstract art has been adopted by corporate capitalism, which is causing these aesthetics to become emblems of economic power. He says that, through this process of reducing the aesthetics of fine art into something that is used to increase economic power for the entity that uses this art, the lived experience inherent in the art work is eliminated from the image of the art. This results, in his view, in a reduced area of experience, even though it claims to be universal (Berger, 2001, p. 296). This process of commercializing fine art, and the subsequent way that this transformation has robbed the art work of meaning is particularly anathema to Berger, as he feels that art comes from a primitive part of the artist, and that it comes from the lived experience of the artist (Berger, 2001, p. 296). For Berger, drawing and art is about discovery within the artist himself (Berger, 2001, p. 10). The power of the art comes from this lived experience, the faith that this experience can produce the art, and this is typically coupled with a skepticism of the society in which the artist finds oneself (Berger, 2001, p. 297). Thus, in transforming art in commercialism, it robs the art of this lived experience which is the essence, the very heart of the artwork. The meaning of the artwork is dead, at least the meaning that the artist intended, and the meaning is instead transformed into whatever the particular advertisement is attempting to sell. Berger was also highly critical of the fact that paintings have become so commodified. He states that no work of art may survive without becoming a valuable piece of property, and that this spells the death of the painting and sculpture, as “property, as once it was not, is now inevitably opposed to all other values. People believe in property, but in essence they only believe in the illusion of protection which property gives. All works of fine art, whatever their content, whatever the sensibility of an individual spectator, must now be reckoned as no more than props for the confidence of the world spirit of conservatism” (Berger, 2001, p. 215). Thus, the fact that paintings and sculptures must be commodified to survive in the long term spells the end of the art as we know it, in Berger's eyes. According to Papastergiadis (1993), Berger's issue with the commercialization of art would stem from the fact that Berger contends that art must give meaning to human experiences. In particular, art works to increase our understanding of the gap between freedom and alienation in everyday life. He also states that Berger is a combination of a Marxist, in which the art is integrated with the political, thus is an active expression of revolutionary struggle, and the romantic, which states that the artist is apart from society, but longs for the time that the balance will be restored (Papastergiadis, 1993, p. 38). As a Marxist, this would explain why Berger was uncomfortable with the marriage of art and commerce, as art should not be a tool to promote commercial concerns, but must be a message unto itself without a commodity co-opting the message for its own. For instance, Berger makes the example of the Cubist artists. These circle of painters were concerned with the revolutionary transformation of the world, thus they made a political choice (Berger, 2001, p. 77). Another example that Berger uses is the Dada artists who made political statements with their photo montages (Berger, 2001, p. 219). Thus, artists are using the art to make commentary about society and the world around them, and this message would be lost if the art was used for commercial purposes. What was meant to be an attack on the government, for instance, might be co-opted to make a message about, say, beer, thus completely negating the message at hand. A perfect example of this would be using the Beatles song Revolution, which was a song about creating a revolution in society in the 1960s into a Nike commercial, where the song, and its meaning, sound very different and not at all what the artists intended (The Pop History Dig, http://www.pophistorydig.com/?p=702). The conflict between “fine art” and “commercial art” is also seen in the realm of graphic design. This is because advertisements use semiotics, opposed to words. For this, advertising needs a talented graphics designer to design the layout and images to suit the brand that is being advertised. The change in emphasis from hard copy to art occurred around the turn of the century, thanks to Earnest Elmo Calkins, who was the founder of the Calkins & Holden advertising agency in New York City during this time. Calkins not only pioneered the usage of modern art in advertising, such as cubism and futurism, but he also used acclaimed magazine illustrators for his ads. He thus was the first to really see the need for dynamic new designs for advertisements, and letting these designs speak for themselves (Heller, 2001). Heller (2001) argues that this emphasis on design is crucial to advertising, yet graphic designers snobbishly refuse to acknowledge the contribution that graphic design brings to advertising, seeing as advertising is focused on the outcome, sales, and not the form, which is the art. Since advertising is seen as having a lower form of artistic value than the formalistic art, such as graphic design, graphic designers feel that to associate their art with advertising diminishes its value and makes their work “shrink in stature from a paradigmatic piece of graphics to kitsch” (Heller, 2001, p. 297). Heller argues that this schism is unnecessary, and that graphic designers should acknowledge that designs and art are used very prominently in advertising, and that these advertisements are works of art. This is illustrated by the fact that Alexey Brodovitch, a prominent advertising designer during the 1920s and 1930s, has seen his advertising artwork displayed in the New York Museum of Modern Art, with art historians proclaiming his posters for Martini to be “among the major products of the fruitful period” (Heller, 2001, p. 299). These images are the semiotics of many print ads, and these ads communicate without words, but with graphics. These ads owe much to advertising and graphics designers who live by the motto that a “picture says a thousand words.” These ads are important in our society, not just because they aim to sell merchandise, which, in and of itself, is very important, as the economy relies upon the smooth distribution of goods, which advertising helps facilitate, but for other reasons as well - reasons that are seen as somehow more “serious” than the mere hawking of wares. Since advertising relies upon semiotics, and the basis for this is that they are symbolic for something else, and this is where their persuasion lies, advertising has connotations that are related to a whole host of social issues. And, humans rely upon the visual for persuasion, and the visual is where the connotations make the connection between abstraction and symbolism (Heller, 2001, p. 300). This argument fleshes out what John Berger feels is the major problem with commercial art, as well as why there is a conflict between graphic artists and commercial artists, even though commercial art may speak to a wide variety of social issues which are common to man. Another view of the matter comes from Marcel Duchamp, who believed nearly the opposite of Berger. While Berger believed that only fine art is worthy, as commercializing art takes away the essence of what the artist is trying to say, in that it eliminates the lived experience within the art, Duchamp believed that fine art was inherently useless (Foljambe). Foljambe asserts that the art that Duchamp made was not meant to be political or to convey any message but, rather, existed purely for the form. There was no message inherent in his art, which sets him apart from the artists that Berger speaks of who commit to art from a primitive part of the person, or that art is used to make a particular message about something important. Cook (2001) states that Duchamp “trivialized” art (Cook, 2001, p. 265). The conflict between the meaning of the art, whether it be graphic art, fine art or commercial art comes from perception, and what one brings to the painting or art work at hand. For instance, a person makes connotations when he or she takes in art, and much of these connotations are occurring at a subliminal level. The psychoanalysts, Sigmund Freud being one of them, believe that humans operate on two levels – the conscious and the unconscious (Clarke, 2007, p. 75). Modern theorists have elaborated or reinterpreted Freud's basic concepts of the id (unbridled desire and fear), the superego (repression of this desire and fear ) and the ego (the mediator between the two), and have theorized that the human psyche is understandable by analyzing linguistic models and decoding, which includes visual decoding. One such theorist is Jacques Lacan, who divides the psyche into three categories, each of which have application to visual culture (Clarke, 2001, p 75). How one approaches the visual in advertising has much to do with the identity that one has. This is because the visual, like words, are deconstructed by the individual, and that individual brings his or her own meaning to the ad. Advertisements meanings are fluid and personal, and have a multitude of different meanings that are dependent upon one's culture and identity. The identities that Clarke (2007) notes are that of the gay identity, in which, Clarke argues, the identity is one of resistance to the mainstream culture's oppression of their group; racial identity, in which there are disparities between the interpretation of visual objects and culture, depending upon the race of the person who is behind the visual object; and post-colonialism, which states that meta narratives, which are “universalising systems of belief or theory” are what colors one's identity, and that visual culture manifests these complexities” (Clarke, 2001, p. 79). Commercial art may co-opt fine art, thus tying itself with the education and glamour of the art work, as well as benefiting from the connotation that is served by linking their product with the fine work of art. Art gives the commercial or advertisement a kind of cultural authority that it did not have before, thus benefits from this connection (Berger, 1972, p. 67). This therefore plays into the subliminal and the identity that a person has, which are dictate the way that a person may respond to a work of art or to an advertisement. The subliminal message states to the person that they may have happiness or beauty, as shown by the particular work of art, if they would simply buy the product X. The person's identity may also be strengthened by witnessing this advertisement, or their identity may simply help the person with interpretation. In my view, fine art does not have the same power or accessibility of the commercial art. Commercial art does not have the restrictions on what can be said to the audience, and, unlike fine art, it often is not as obscure. While certain works of fine art, such as Marcel Duchamp's art or the art of Francis Bacon, might require one to have a certain level of education about the different types of art, and the background of the artist, and art criticism in general, to come up with the meaning of the art, commercial art is different. Because commercial art strives to convey a message, and this message would not be effective if the person has to have a PhD in art history to decipher it, it makes art much more useful then does fine art. In other words, everybody, from the professor down to the common man working in a factory, can access commercial art without a problem. Therefore the message is more clear to everybody, and is more universal. While Berger's thesis does have merit – art is meant to come from the heart and the soul of the artist, and this meaning gets lost when it is used in an advertisement, as the meaning of the advertisement itself becomes the meaning of the art – this thesis becomes less important when one considers how obscure art often is. Take, for instance, Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal, in which the intention was to show everyday audiences that there are hidden meanings in everyday objects (Faerna, 1995, p. 6). While this is certainly the intention of the artist, and, for Berger, this intention is the most important thing about art, the average person just wouldn't get it. They would see the urinal and think - “And this is art because?????” On the other hand, this same urinal can be transformed into a message that is readily accessible to everybody with just a few words of a simple note of explanation in an advertisement. Perhaps it would be transformed into a joke or into a social issue, but, whatever it is transformed into will be readily accessible and immediately apparent to the audience, as the advertisement cannot afford to be obscure. They are selling a message, and this message must be obvious. For this reason, commercial art is superior to fine art, as both have messages and something to say, but only commercial art is apparent to the common man. For instance, one looks at the advertisement for the United Colors of Benetton, which is a clothing store. 1 The ad has three different hearts that look exactly the same – but one belongs to a black man, one belongs to a yellow man and one belongs to a white man. The message is clear – we are all the same. We all have the same heart, our hearts beat the same, etc. It is a clear message against discrimination against another person on the basis of skin color, and shows how absurd this kind of discrimination really is. Now, this image, if it was fine art, would be obscure and would leave it to the person to figure out what the message is. Probably it would just be a photograph of three identical hearts without any kind of wording. In that case, the message would not be effective, because one could not really tell what the message is. However, labeling these hearts is a very effective way of conveying the message, because there is no mistaking what the hearts signify and what they are trying to say. Thus, the social issue and significance is obvious to anybody, and this makes this message much more effective then if it were simply modern art without any kind of explanation attached. Another example is the advertisement for Central Coast Wines.2 This print ad features a lovely maiden with long blonde hair who is flying through the air behind a bicycle that has wings on the pedal. The maiden is completely naked. While this advertisement is more esoteric then the Benetton ad, the ad still speaks to the everyday man because it appeals to the emotions and feelings of the person looking at the ad. The ad has a heavenly, ethereal feeling to it, while also being highly erotic. The ad says that the wine that is being sold is heavenly and light, while also saying that the wine is out of this world. It doesn't speak to social issues or anything deep, but its appeal to emotions makes the ad accessible to everybody. On the other hand, one might examine two pieces of fine art. The first is called Bike Wheel and Stool by Marcel Duchamp.3 The picture is just what it says – it is a bike wheel on top of a stool. Now, Duchamp is famous for this sort of thing, as the urinal piece of art would attest. However, the only people who can appreciate Duchamp would be art critics and college students who have studied him and his work. The average guy would not know what he is trying to say with the bike wheel and the stool. In fact, even art critics and college students would have trouble interpreting the work. The point of the work is that Duchamp wants to stretch the boundaries on what is considered art, and wants to encourage the audience to see what is hidden in everyday objects, but this is not immediately obvious when just viewing this piece. The second piece to make this point is Kurt Schwitter's Cherry.4 There are cherries in the middle of the piece, but, other than that, it is difficult to tell what is going on. There are a few letters here and there that appear to be cut out of newspapers or magazines, and a couple of little kittens almost hidden. The rest of the piece appears to be bits and pieces of....something. What does it all mean? Who knows? Even the artist probably doesn't know. Or, perhaps the artist does know, but it is difficult to imagine that the work has any meaning in it at all. Once again, an art critic might be able to interpret the work, if the critic is familiar with the artist, and the critic is familiar with the genre of art in which Schwitter works. But the average person would just shake their heads in disbelief or frustration. There is nothing in the work that brings any emotions up or makes one feel, so, for the average person, this work is a failure. Conclusion While John Berger proclaims that commercial art is restrictive in what it says to audiences compared to fine art, just the opposite is true. Fine art, such as the two pieces examined in this paper, is esoteric and inaccessible. One can't help but think that the artists probably do not know the meaning of their own work and just pretend that there is a meaning. And, if there is some kind of meaning, it is inaccessible to the common man. Nobody but art critics and those who study these artists intensely can possibly begin to know what these artworks mean. On the other hand, commercial art needs to be clear, for its goal is to sell products. Frustrating the consumer on the meaning of the art in these advertisements is not the goal of the ads. If the ad isn't completely clear on its meaning, as with the winery ad above, it nevertheless evokes positive emotions – such as the emotions of pleasure and lust that would affect most people who view the beautiful maiden in the winery ad. For these reasons, commercial art is more accessible to the common man, and gives more meaning to the common man then does fine art. Bibliography Berger, J. (2001) “Drawing,” in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (2001) “The Moment of Cubism,” in in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (2001) “Understanding a Photography,” in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (2001) “The Political Uses of Photo-Montage,” in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (2001) “The Primitive and the Professional,” in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (2001) “A Load of Shit,” in in Selected Essays of John Berger. Pantheon Books, New York. Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Series with John Berger. Penguin Group, London. Clarke, M. (2007) Verbalising the Visual: Translating Art and Design Into Words. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications. Cook, A. (1986) “The Meta-Irony of Marcel Duchamp,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 44, no. 3: pp. 263-270. Foljambe, A. “Useless to Everyone: Marcel Duchamp Reinvents the Wheel,” Available at:http://independent.academia.edu/AlanFoljambe/Papers/713800/Useless_to_Everyone_Marcel_Duchamp_Reinvents_the_Wheel Heller, S. (2001). “Advertising: The Mother of Graphic Design.” In Graphic Design History, edited by Steven Heller and Georgette Ballance. New York, NY: Allworth Press, pp. 294-302. 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