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Modernisms 1900-1980

Course: modernisms 1900-1980 > unit 1, contemporary art, an introduction.

Representation and abstraction: Millais's Ophelia and Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis
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"Getting" Contemporary Art

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Essay on Contemporary Art

Students are often asked to write an essay on Contemporary Art in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Contemporary Art

What is contemporary art.

Contemporary art is art made today by living artists. It shows what’s going on in the world and often uses new materials and ideas. It’s like a mirror that reflects our society, culture, and technology.

Styles in Contemporary Art

This art is very diverse. Some artists paint, others use computers or recycle things to make sculptures. There are no fixed rules, so artists can try whatever they like to express their thoughts and feelings.

Themes of Contemporary Art

Many contemporary artists talk about important topics like nature, politics, or personal stories. Their work can make us think and feel things about these issues.

Where to Find Contemporary Art

You can see contemporary art in museums, galleries, or even on the streets. Some art is only for looking, while other pieces invite you to touch or walk around them.

Why it Matters

Contemporary art helps us see the world in new ways. It can surprise, confuse, or excite us. It’s a way for artists to share their ideas with us, and for us to see things from a different point of view.

250 Words Essay on Contemporary Art

What is contemporary art.

Contemporary art is the art made today by living artists. It shows what is happening in our world and explores modern ideas, technology, and society. Artists create paintings, sculptures, videos, and other artworks that can surprise or make us think.

Styles and Materials

Artists in contemporary art use all sorts of materials, not just paint or clay. They might use plastic, glass, or even digital tools to make art. There are many different styles too, like abstract, which doesn’t look like anything real, or realistic, which looks very much like real life.

Themes and Messages

A lot of contemporary art talks about important topics like the environment, politics, or people’s rights. Artists want to share their thoughts and sometimes try to make the world a better place through their art.

Where to Find It

You can see contemporary art in museums, galleries, or even on the streets. Some art is made to be outside, like big sculptures in parks or murals on buildings.

Why It Matters

Contemporary art is special because it helps us see the world in new ways. It can make us feel happy, sad, or even confused, but that’s part of what makes it exciting. It’s like a conversation between the artist and us, and everyone can have their own opinion about it.

Contemporary art is all around us, and it’s a fun way to understand the thoughts and feelings of the people who make it. It’s a part of our world that keeps changing, just like we do.

500 Words Essay on Contemporary Art

Contemporary art is the art of today, created by living artists. It reflects the complex issues that shape our diverse, fast-moving world. Through paintings, sculptures, and all sorts of creative works, artists express ideas about society, culture, and technology. This kind of art can look very different from the art made in the past, and it often uses new methods and materials to surprise and engage people who see it.

Styles and Techniques

There are many styles in contemporary art. Some artists paint abstract pictures that don’t look like anything real but are all about colors and feelings. Others make realistic pictures that look like photographs, showing every small detail. Then there are artists who use new technology, like computers and video, to make their art. They might also use unexpected materials, like bits of plastic or old clothes, to create something new and exciting.

Themes in Contemporary Art

Artists today like to make art about things that are happening now. This could be about politics, the environment, or how people live with each other. For example, some artists make art about nature to show how important it is to protect the earth. Others might make art that asks questions about how we use technology and what it means for our future.

You can find contemporary art almost everywhere. Museums and galleries have exhibitions where you can see the latest artworks. Sometimes, art is even shown in public spaces like parks or train stations. This means that everyone can see and think about the art, not just people who go to museums.

Understanding Contemporary Art

Sometimes, looking at contemporary art can be confusing. An artwork might not be pretty or even look like much at all. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good or important. Often, the artist wants to make you think or feel something special. When you see a piece of contemporary art, try to imagine what the artist is trying to say. Think about the colors, shapes, or materials they used. You can also read the title or description, which can give you clues.

Artists and Audiences

Artists today work in a world where they can share their art with people all over the globe. Through the internet, people can see art made far away from where they live. This means that artists can have fans in different countries, and they can learn from each other, too. Audiences are important because they can talk about the art and share their own ideas, making the experience of art richer for everyone.

Contemporary art is all about the here and now. It can be fun, serious, beautiful, or strange. The main thing is to keep an open mind and try to see what the artist is sharing. Whether it’s in a museum or on the street, contemporary art has something to say about the world we live in, and it invites everyone, including school students like you, to join in the conversation.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Happy studying!

Why is Contemporary Art Important?

The Importance of Contemporary Art Explained

The public’s perception of contemporary art’s value and significance has changed in recent years due to the proliferation of new, often radical forms. However, art has consistently demonstrated its worth over time. Do you find this to be true even now in the realm of modern art?

One could be tempted to say “no” to this question given the widespread belief that “everything goes” when it comes to artistic expression today.

When looking at our recent art history, however, there is true consensus that contemporary art is still relevant now. Why is it the case?

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Impressionism Revolutionizing the Art World

As a byproduct and recorder of a particular age, contemporary art has significant historical worth. It allows us to bring attention to, halt the world, and encourage discussion about, specific social, cultural, or ideological/political phenomena.

Culture is laid out in art. It monitors global events constantly. This essay will explore the many facets of contemporary art and highlight its significance to humankind. We shall give a few succinct but concrete examples of the significance of contemporary art in recent history and in the present day.

We’ll also talk about the value of incorporating art into the classroom, whether through direct instruction or by taking a field trip to an art museum.

Should we still encourage our kids to explore the arts, and do they still have an interest in modern and contemporary art? In other words, what is the point of studying modern art?

What are the Variables in Art’s Worth?

The first type of value we meet is the historical worth of (modern) art. Its significance transcends time periods and cultures. Works of art serve as historical records of their respective eras.

This event is deeply ingrained in our communal consciousness and historical record. Also, it’s a complicated manifestation of a historical way of thinking, the product of a certain era’s outlook on the world. The Zeitgeist influences and produces art.

Take Modern Art as an example; it exemplifies the era’s distinctive Modernist conviction and faith in development. Last but not least, modern art serves as a record of significant events in human history.

Examples of the importance of art and how it can affect our daily lives include the Feminist Art movement, which serves as a historical record of the suffragist struggle.

The significance of art to society and culture comes next. Culture exists because of artistic expression. Many different cultural influences can be seen. It might also raise concerns about the future of culture.

In the decades following World War II, for instance, many individuals felt estranged due to the ill impacts of capitalism and consumer culture.

Artists such as Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, among others, responded to this trend with the Capitalist Realism painting movement. In most cases, these responses are prompted by social pressures.

Both traditional and modern art have an optimistic view of the world and work for a better future. Therefore, there is an inextricable link between social activity and the practices of today’s artists.

Politically and ideologically, contemporary art has immense value. Contemporary art, like its societal worth, can raise questions about the prevailing political and ideological atmosphere.

Art is a method of inquiry because it can be used to educate and inform through the very mechanisms that make it effective as a research tool: the very people who view and experience it.

Consequently, a society’s political structure or set of guiding ideologies undergoes a period of reflection, which in turn sparks a discussion

Then there is art’s potential to teach us anything. Contemporary Art can be used as a method of personal growth.

Art, like other forms of cultural expression like film, literature, and the performing arts, can help a person develop personally by exposing them to new perspectives or inspiring them to construct their own (see “Why is Art Important in an Educational Context?” below for more on this).

Despite the fact that modern art is no longer shackled to the alleged tyranny of estheticism, we nevertheless look to art for the sake of aesthetic pleasure. Value can be added in the form of embellishment or in the form of rest and recreation.

When it comes to the latter, we take in works of art for a variety of reasons, from a simple appreciation of beauty to a fascination with the daringly unique.

In closing, it’s important to emphasise the spiritual significance of art. However, when it comes to critiquing art, spirituality and art can be a dangerous combination. However, it is imperative that I emphasise the spiritual relevance of art, especially in the modern world.

As science has led to the secularisation and demystification of spirituality in many parts of the world, art has emerged as the pinnacle or only remaining manifestation and expression of spirituality.

Spirituality predates the dawn of human civilization. We strongly recommend having a mystical encounter, some time for quiet reflection. To be sure, this isn’t always easy to see in a godless, de-mystified worldview.

The spiritual dimension of art has always been present. If you give it any thought, you’ll see that museum behaviour is remarkably similar to that seen in a church. Sacred items, in this case, the artworks on display, inspire reverence and stillness in us. The soul food’ they provide is invaluable.

As an educational tool, why do we need to value the arts?

The significance of both historical art and current art has been demonstrated by the values and examples given above. Accordingly, the significance of this in a learning environment is self-evident. But before we wrap up, I have a few more points to make.

Expression, creativity, personal growth, and the ability to think critically and reflect on one’s culture and the world are all fostered via exposure to and participation in the arts. Students who take the time to learn about our past develop a more nuanced and critical historical perspective.

Students should start learning about art at a young age. Art is not as exclusive or mysterious as it first appears; indeed, it is a democratic form of expression that can be appreciated by people of all ages.

It’s a popular belief that museums are boring and that we need to be “serious” and “intelligent” at all times when we visit one. There is, in reality, zero reason not to check out a show. As viewers, we might take pleasure in the works themselves, whether through their narratives or the comedy they include.

Most museums and galleries offer free admission, and those that charge a small fee try their best to keep rates reasonable. Therefore, we highly recommend that you occasionally take your children to an art show in addition to taking them to the playground. Imagine how shocked you’d be to see how they reacted!

You may choose to pursue a study in Contemporary Art.

Friends and family often discourage those who are drawn in this way by asking, “Why study contemporary art?”

It’s not uncommon for future artists’ loved ones to have trouble grasping the significance of art in today’s world and the contributions it can make.

People may instead encourage ambitious artists to become doctors or lawyers—careers that seem more significant. The reality is that art is vital. Find out more about the significant functions of contemporary art in modern culture.

Artistic Worth

The aesthetic value of modern art is one of its main advantages. To put it another way, the work has the potential to make the observer happy.

Despite the fact that aesthetic preferences differ from person to person, this genre of art offers a vast range of mediums and approaches, so there’s bound to be something that appeals to everyone.

Contemporary art can be utilised to decorate a wide variety of spaces due to its aesthetic appeal. In addition to sprucing up urban spaces, art can be housed in outdoor sculpture parks and made available to the public.

Not everyone can buy an art print or sculpture, but with replicas in print, practically anyone may have some piece of artwork to decorate their home.

Relaxation and Inspiration

Studies have shown that taking in an artwork can help viewers unwind. This is utilised for some of the mindfulness exercises that are currently so popular.

Art can serve to draw people out of their head of racing and wandering thoughts, into the present moment to experience what is in front of them. This is effective since it teaches people to do this also at other times, which can minimise symptoms of anxiety and despair.

Of course, certain specific art pieces may be more calming than others, and people can choose what appeals to them. At the same time, experiencing art, especially Modern and Contemporary Art, can motivate viewers.

This artistic movement attempts to both portray and critique the world as it is. Such depictions and criticism can inspire people to action and urge viewers to become better versions of themselves.

Moreover, you might broaden your horizons and experience a new culture by studying modern art in France or elsewhere.

Methods of Self-Expression

One of the benefits of Contemporary Art is that it provides individuals a medium of personal expression. Anyone can freely express themselves through the visual and performing arts without fear of reprisal.

Just as the views stated are valuable to society because they provide a rare glimpse into the brains and thoughts of the artists, so too are the views expressed.

The choice of art for one’s office or home is as much a statement of one’s individuality as is the act of creating that art.

Even if you don’t consider yourself artistically gifted or interested, you may still convey parts of your personality through your art collection by choosing works that speak to you. The aesthetic decisions make it easy for others to grasp what’s going on.

Remarks about Society

In addition to expressing themselves uniquely, contemporary artists are also able to critique the world around them through their work. Their opinions on anything from politics to pop culture can be portrayed, either literally or metaphorically.

The artist can express their thoughts and feelings through a conversation or story they make using images, forms, and other mediums. The artist’s conversation is activated when the viewer interacts with the work.

This genre of artwork not only serves as a commentary on the contemporary cultural and political situation, but also as a visual chronicle of human experience.

You may find not only names and dates in this document, but also the emotions of the persons who were present. Art is frequently meticulously kept because it provides a window into the past that can’t be found in textbooks.

Challenges one’s way of thinking

Most people will find contemporary art thought-provoking because it is both autobiographical and sociopolitical. True, this is why so many people take pleasure in visiting art galleries and contemplating works of art in private collections.

In doing so, people are given the opportunity to experience new ideas and feelings. Numerous people may benefit from this in the form of expanded knowledge, personal development, and career opportunities.

Sometimes, works of art have a way of forcing the viewer to reflect deeply on their own lives. This is due to the fact that it is primarily a visual medium of expression.

To properly interact with a work of modern art, it is important for the viewer to feel more than just their opinions about it. This prompts a thought process that may be shocking, dramatic, or even life-altering for the individual.

Summary of Why Contemporary Art is Important?

If a member of your immediate or extended family ever again raises doubts about the worth of art or an individual artist, you can simply point them to this list.

In addition, anyone thinking about pursuing a degree in Contemporary Art can rest assured that they will be able to make valuable and distinctive contributions to the world through their work.

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Contemporary artists, like many artists that preceded them, may acknowledge and find inspiration in art works from previous time periods in both subject matter and formal elements. Sometimes this inspiration takes the form of appropriation . Artist John Baldessari "borrowed" an image from 1505 of a stag beetle by the German artist Albrecht Dürer and made it his own. Using modern-day materials (ink-jet printing mounted on a fiberglass panel), Baldessari juxtaposed the original image with a piece of sculpture in the form of a giant steel pin. By inserting the steel pin into the canvas, Baldessari combines mediums in a very modern way.

In the 1960s, artists began to turn to the medium of video to redefine fine art. Through video art, many artists have challenged preconceived notions of art as high priced, high-brow, and only decipherable by elite members of society. Video art is not necessarily a type of art that individuals would want to own, but rather an experience. Continuing the trend of redefining earlier ideas and ideals about art, some contemporary video artists are seeking to do away with the notion of art as a commodity. Artists turning to video have used the art form as a tool for change, a medium for ideas. Some video art openly acknowledges the power of the medium of television and the Internet, thus opening the doors of the art world to the masses.

Such artists seek to elevate the process of creating art and move beyond the notion that art should only be valued as an aesthetically pleasing product. Video art exemplifies this, for the viewer watches the work as it is actually being made; they watch as the process unfolds. Video installation pieces combine video with sound, music, and/or other interactive components. In Nicole Cohen's Please Be Seated , viewers are asked to be active participants. Using innovative video technologies, participants can sit on replicas of 18th-century French chairs and watch television screens in which they are virtually inserted in historic recreations of 18th-century French spaces. While traditional works of art are in galleries with signs that say "Do not touch," Cohen invites you to physically participate. In this way, the viewer becomes part of the work of art.

Robert Irwin is another artist who sought to involve the viewer, as seen in his garden at the Getty Center. In the Central Garden, which Irwin has playfully termed "a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art," viewers can experience a maze-like configuration of plants, stones, and water. Here visitors get completely immersed in the sensation of being within the work of art. The sense of smell, touch, and sound are juxtaposed with the colors and textures of the garden. All of the foliage and materials of the garden were selected to accentuate the interplay of light, color, and reflection. A statement by Irwin, "Always changing, never twice the same," is carved into the plaza floor, reminding visitors of the ever-changing nature of this living work of art. In this way, Irwin subverts the idea that a work of art should be paint on a canvas. Rather, nature can be art. By creating a garden specifically designed for the Getty Center, Irwin engages in site-specific art. Many contemporary artists who create site-specific works move art out of museums and galleries and into communities to address socially significant issues and/or raise social consciousness. In the case of Irwin's garden and Martin Puryear's That Profile (also on view at the Getty Center), works of art are commissioned by museums to enhance and incorporate their surrounding environments. That Profile , stationed on the plaza at the foot of the stairs leading to the Museum, mimics the grid-like patterns of the Getty Center building itself. Weighing 7,500 pounds, That Profile is massive. However the work's graceful and curving lines have a "light and airy" quality that capitalizes on the surrounding mountains and ocean views visible from the Getty's plaza. Questions such as "What is art?" and "What is the function of art?" are relatively new. Creating art that defies viewers' expectations and artistic conventions is a distinctly modern concept. However, artists of all eras are products of their relative cultures and time periods. Contemporary artists are in a position to express themselves and respond to social issues in a way that artists of the past were not able to. When experiencing contemporary art at the Getty Center, viewers use different criteria for judging works of art than criteria used in the past. Instead of asking, "Do I like how this looks?" viewers might ask, "Do I like the idea this artist presents?" Having an open mind goes a long way towards understanding, and even appreciating, the art of our own era.

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Getting started: an introduction to teaching with contemporary art.

Contemporary Art in Context

In this section

Contemporary Approaches to Teaching
Starting the Conversation
Using Art21 Resources in the Classroom

What is Contemporary Art?

Art21 defines contemporary art as the work of artists who are living in the twenty-first century. Contemporary art mirrors contemporary culture and society, offering teachers, students, and general audiences a rich resource through which to consider current ideas and rethink the familiar. The work of contemporary artists is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that challenge traditional boundaries and defy easy definition. Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or -ism. In a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world, contemporary artists give voice to the varied and changing cultural landscape of identities, values, and beliefs.

Audiences play an active role in the process of constructing meaning about works of art. Some artists say that the viewer contributes to or even completes the artwork by offering his or her personal reflections, experiences, opinions, and interpretations. One of the cornerstones of Art21’s philosophy is to allow artists to present their work in their own words and to encourage viewers to consider, react, and respond to visual art.

Curiosity, openness, and dialogue are the most important tools for engaging with works of art. Instead of questioning whether an artwork is good or bad, the study of contemporary art requires an open-ended methodology and an inquiry-based approach. Asking questions that ignite discussion and stimulate debate is an important first step toward appreciating and interpreting works of art that can defy expectation, may provoke strong responses, or contradict personal beliefs or societal values.

We believe:

Bringing contemporary art into schools and communities enables educators to promote curiosity, encourage dialogue, and initiate debate about the world and the issues that affect our lives.
Art21 artists serve as creative role models, who can inspire people of all ages to consider how ideas are developed, articulated, and realized in the contemporary world, offering educators opportunities to support diverse learning styles.
Contemporary artists address both current events and historical ideas. These references help educators and students make connections across their curriculum and support interdisciplinary thinking
As artists continue to explore and employ new technologies and media, the work they create encourages media literacy in an increasingly media-saturated society.
Art21 enables students to understand that contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger frameworks, such as ideas about beauty, personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

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Mark Dion in "Ecology"

Trenton Doyle Hancock in "Stories"

Mary Mattingly Owns Up

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What's the Difference Between Modern and Contemporary Art?

Asking the elusive question.

By Google Arts & Culture

Landscape with Church (Landscape with Red Spots I) (1913) by Wassily Kandinsky Museum Folkwang

Modern, contemporary. Contemporary, modern. These terms are often used interchangeably. So is there actually any difference between them? And if so, why? One answer is simple: time. Modern art came before contemporary art. Most art historians and critics put the beginning of modern art in the West at around the 1860s, continuing up to the 1960s. Whereas, contemporary art means art made in the present day. But it can be hard to define what the ‘present day’ really means. Is that art made by living artists? Art made in our lifetimes? Or is it artists making work that references or engages with the culture of the present day? Perhaps even artwork made in a way that defines what the ‘present day’ is? So, the start date of contemporary art is, perhaps paradoxically, most often set back in the 1960s and 70s.

Musée d'Orsay, accrochage salle Van gogh (2012) by Musée d'Orsay, display in the Van Gogh room Musée d’Orsay, Paris

But as well as time difference, there are also other differences—in method, medium, and approach. And when we talk about modern and contemporary art, we’re also talking about lots of different movements and forms, from Post-Impressionism, to Dada, to Pop Art, to Installation Art.

Luncheon on the Grass (1863) by Edouard Manet Musée d’Orsay, Paris

So first let’s take a look at modern art . When we see Monet printed on tea towels and Cézanne on the cover of biscuit tins, it can be hard to imagine how radical and shocking this style of painting was in its day. Modern art and ‘modernism’ was a radical departure from the kinds of art that had gone before; its rejection of traditional perspective and subject matter was especially innovative.

Many art historians say that Édouard Manet was the first ‘modern’ artist—specifically his painting from 1863, Luncheon on the Grass . This is because the piece didn’t try to portray the scene in a way that looked ‘real’ and three dimensional. Manet’s figures look like they sit on top of one another; the woman bathing in a stream almost seems to be hovering over the other characters, as though she could fall off her perch and land in their laps at any moment. Manet was also criticized for the lack of shading between the light and dark areas of the picture and for the 'lowly' subject matter of his painting.

Window Opening on Nice (1928) by DUFY, Raoul Shimane Art Museum

This movement away from attempts to accurately represent the outside world ushered in a new era of art, which encompassed Impressionism , Post-Impressionism , Japonism , Fauvism , Cubism , Futurism , and Expressionism .

So how did we get from here, to contemporary art, with its piles of bricks and $10,000 'non-visible' artworks ? A kind of mini-turning point in the transition between modern and contemporary art came with the movement known as ' abstract expressionism ’, as this ushered in a movement away from the content of the picture, and towards a focus on the process of making the artwork itself. Take Jackson Pollock; his artworks were as much about the act of dripping paint and moving around the canvas, cigarette in mouth , as it was about the finished product per se. This movement was a small stepping stone on the road towards what we now think of as contemporary art.

Jackson Pollock by Hans Namuth Sound and Music

Wirtschaftswert Speisekuchen (1977/1977) by Joseph Beuys MUSEION

The sea-change came in the 1960s and 70s, with a revolution in the way we make, and think about, art. Much modernist art, including abstract expressionism, took itself very seriously, privileging the 'genius' of the artist. Pop art , minimalism , conceptual art , and performance art, however, turned this on its head, making artwork that looked at modernism's preconceptions about art with a wry smirk. Instead of beauty and form, artists were often now more interested in the concept behind the artwork, so art now took on lots of different forms—video, performance, installation—and often lived outside of galleries or traditional art spaces altogether.

Will Britain get through this recession (1992/1993) by Gillian Wearing British Council

An important part of contemporary art isn’t held in the brushstrokes of paint, or the marble of a sculpture; it isn’t even in the artwork at all, rather, it’s the viewer's impression of the artwork. Contemporary artworks often focus on the effect on, and experience of, an artwork’s viewer. To many critics and art theorists, we make the artwork what it is. In some cases, the artwork is only made up of the people who experience it, as with many performance and social action projects.

Jeremy Deller, Valerie's Snack Bar (2008) Hayward Gallery

A question that so often gets leveled at contemporary art is usually something along the lines of, “but is it art though?’ or, “my four-year-old could do that”. But, funnily enough, this shows that contemporary artists are doing their jobs properly. How? Because a lot of contemporary art is interrogating our conception of ‘aesthetics’. Aesthetics is the philosophical enquiry into what makes something art. So when we look at a pile of bricks, or a urinal in an art gallery, the artists are actually trying to make us question whether or not their work is art, and if it is, what makes it so.

Tomorrow (2013) UCCA Center for Contemporary Art

Contemporary art is often an experiment in pushing boundaries and asking questions about what art is and can be. So when you say, ‘is it art though?’, that’s exactly the kind of question the artist wants you to ask. Learn more about: - Modern art

Museum Folkwang

Phyllis tate: a quiet maverick, sound and music, henri matisse 1869-1954: a retrospective exhibition, hayward gallery, folk archive, british council, from station to the renovated musée d'orsay, musée d’orsay, paris, scenes in and around kyoto, shimane art museum, collecting for tomorrow, new directions: li ming, ucca center for contemporary art, vincent van gogh up close, northern innovation and the british music collection, anthony caro, fashion utopias: international fashion showcase 2016, collection of shimane art museum, museion #10yearson, peter wayne lewis & frederick j. brown.

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IN MOSCOW, 50-YEAR-OLD MODERN ART IS A 4-MONTH WONDER

By Serge Schmemann, Special To the New York Times

Oct. 19, 1981

After four months and more than 600,000 visitors, including the Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev, the largest exhibition of Russian and French modern art ever shown in the Soviet Union ended this month, leaving Russians exhilarated at the esthetic feast and occasionally bitter at its 50-year delay.

Up to the last day, the line of ticket holders winding around the Pushkin Museum had to run the gantlet of people hoping for a lastminute cancellation. Inside, the halls were as crowded and steamy as they had been throughout the summer, with people of all ages from across the Soviet Union, many of whom had come expressly for the show.

''There hasn't been an exhibition like this in a hundred years,'' marveled a woman as she jockeyed for position to study the collection of Suprematist, Constructivist, Cubist and abstract modern art kept so long in official shadows. ''And there probably won't be another one in another hundred years.''

'No Longer a Threat'

It was a mixture of feelings expressed by several Moscow intellectuals who had made repeat visits to the exhibition. ''The first time I came as a beggar, grateful for the chance to see Kandinsky, Malevich, Larionov,'' recalled a young Moscow writer, mimicking his feelings with palms held out in cringing supplication. ''But when I returned the second time, I became more and more furious: how dare they have kept this from me so long? How could they have shown these things abroad and kept them hidden at home?''

An old artist, who had known some of the masters exhibited at the Pushkin, broke in sadly: ''At the end of the 20th century they finally show things created at its beginning. Finally they've concluded that abstract art is no longer a threat.''

Whatever feelings the show raised about official Soviet attitudes to the arts, Moscow's intelligentsia was unanimous in extolling this first comprehensive introduction to the great Russian and Parisian artists who opened the century in a blaze of creativity and experimentation - Kandinsky, Malevich, Larionov, Chagall and Popova in Russia, and Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani and Pougny in Paris - only to be banned in the Soviet Union by Stalin and his proclamation of Socialist Realism. Many of the masterpieces of the period were consigned to the storerooms of Soviet museums, occasionally lent abroad but rarely shown at home.

The impact of the exhibition on the future of art in the Soviet Union is an open question. At a recent party some Muscovites argued that the implicit endorsement represented by Mr. Brezhnev's visit to the exhibition would make it difficult for cultural watchdogs to reject modern works in future shows. More skeptical Russians retorted that Mr. Brezhnev's visit was designed more as a diplomatic gesture to the French, who designed the show and exhibited it first at the Pompidou Center in Paris, than as a tribute to the modernist masters. And they noted that in the course of the exhibition the Soviet cultural press had given no indication of softening its position on the revolutionary avant-garde. Visit Shown on TV News

Soviet press accounts of Mr. Brezhnev's visit in the final week of the exhibition reported no comments by the Soviet leader on the content of the show. The only remark carried by Tass, the press agency, was a tribute to the exhibition for helping the Soviet and French people ''to get to know each other better and to strengthen the traditional friendship between the Soviet Union and France.''

Mr. Brezhnev's carefully staged visit to the Pushkin Museum, which was shown on the evening news, contrasted with the legendary visit 19 years earlier by his predecessor, Nikita S. Khrushchev, to the first -and, for a long time, only - official exhibition of contemporary Soviet abstract art, at the Manezh Exhibition Hall, outside the Kremlin. Mr. Khrushchev's colorful debate with the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny highlighted a period of loosened official reins on the arts and led to a curious friendship that culminated in Mrs. Khrushchev's commissioning Mr. Neizvestny to carve her husband's tombstone. Mr. Neizvestny has since emigrated and lives in the United States. Nonconformists Advance

Under Mr. Brezhnev, the official attitude toward the arts has been conservative and stern. Nonconformist artists have made some advances since an outdoor exhibition of their works was violently disrupted seven years ago, but official galleries and museums still lean overwhelmingly toward representative works or folk art.

At the same time, Soviet officials have gained an appreciation of the economic and propaganda value of displaying works that with time have gained renown outside the Soviet Union. In a related process, such writers as the novelist Boris Pasternak and the poet Anna Akhmatova, vilified in the past, are now being published in limited editions.

Thus, while the success of the Moscow art show may lead to more frequent exhibition of revolutionary modernists and perhaps to the first display of more works now held in museum storerooms, it appears unlikely that today's nonconformist artists can expect immediate official respite.

Boris Groys

Professor of philosophy at the european graduate school / egs..

Boris Groys (b.1947) is a philosopher, essayist, art critic, media theorist and an internationally renowned expert on Soviet-era art and literature, specifically, the Russian avant-garde. He is a Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, and a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS. His work engages radically different traditions from French poststructuralism to modern Russian philosophy, yet is firmly situated at the juncture of aesthetics and politics. Theoretically, Boris Groys’s work is influenced by a number of modern and post-modern philosophers and theoreticians, including Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Walter Benjamin.

Born in the former German Democratic Republic, Groys grew up in the USSR. He studied philosophy, mathematics, and logic at Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University). While a student, he immersed himself in the unofficial cultural scenes taking place in Leningrad and Moscow, and coined the term “Moscow conceptualism.” The term first appeared in the essay “Moscow Romantic Conceptualism,” published in 1979, in the art magazine A-YA . During this time in the Soviet Union, Groys published widely in a number of samizdat magazines, including 37 and Chasy . Between 1976 and 1981, Boris Groys held the position of Research Fellow in the Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics at Moscow State University. At the end of this fellowship, he left the Soviet Union and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 1992, Groys earned his doctorate in philosophy from the Universität Münster, where he also served as an assistant professor in philosophy from 1998-1994. During this time, Groys was also a visiting professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by another appointment at the University of Southern California, also in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature. From 1994 to 2009, Groys was Professor of Art History, Philosophy, and Media Theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, where he remains a senior research fellow. In 2001, he was the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and from 2003 to 2004, he spearheaded the research program Post-Communist Condition , at the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany. He assumed the position of Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University in 2005 and in 2009 he became a full Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. Groys is also a senior Fellow at the International Center for Cultural Studies and Media Theory at the Bauhaus Universität (Weimar); a member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA); and has been a senior scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art (London); and a fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK, Vienna), Harvard University Art Museum, and the University of Pittsburg.

In the Anglo-American world, Boris Groys is best known as the author of The Total Art of Stalinism (1992), and for introducing the western world to Russian postmodernist writers and artists. His contributions stretch across the field of philosophy, politics, history, and art theory and criticism. Within aesthetics, his major works include Vanishing Point Moscow (1994) and The Art of Installation (1996). His philosophical works include A Philosopher’s Diary (1989) , The Invention of Russia (1995), and Introduction to Antiphilosophy (2012). More recently, he has also published Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of the Media (2000) , Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment (2006) , and The Communist Postscript (2010). In addition to these works, other significant works in art, history, and philosophy include: History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism (2010), Going Public (2010), Art Power (2008), The Total Enlightenment: Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960-1990 (2008), Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Period (2004), Apotropikon (1991), and Thinking in Loop: Three Videos on Iconoclasm, Ritual and Immortality (DVD, 2008), which is a trilogy of video-text syntheses, wherein Groys reads the composed text superimposed onto a collage of footage fragments taken from movies and film documentations.

As a prominent contemporary art theorist and critic, Boris Groys has also curated a number of notable exhibitions, including: Fluchtpunkt Moskau at Ludwig Forum (1994, Aachen, Germany), Dream Factory Communism at the Schirn Gallery (2003-2004, Frankfurt, Germany), Privatizations at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art (2004, Berlin, Germany), Total Enlightenment: Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960–1990 at the Kunsthalle Schirn (2008-2009 Frankfurt, Germany; Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain), Medium Religion with Peter Weibel at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2009, Karlsruhe, Germany), Andrei Monastyrski for the Russian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011, Venice, Italy), After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer , at BAK Utrecht (2012, Netherlands).

While Boris Groys teaches, lectures, and writes on philosophy, politics, and history, it has been his work in aesthetics, and his co-mingling of ideas through aesthetics, that has brought him the most recognition and where he has made his most significant contributions. Groys proposes and underscores the involvement of the Russian avant-garde in the Bolshevik movement as well as in the early stages of the Bolshevik State. Following this premise, Groys’s work explores the implications of this relationship. One of his fundamental theses is that these artists––like their political counterparts––tried to outpace the developments of modernity, and so, they, like the Bolsheviks themselves, attempted to skip the steps supposed to be necessary and constitutive of historical progress.

While it is widely acknowledged in modern Russian art history that an opposition developed among artists during the revolutionary period between those constituting an avant-garde and those complicit with the state sanctioned art of the Soviet Union, Boris Groys contends that this was the result of a split and not a continuation of a pre-Revolutionary division. More specifically, Groys posits a more refined understanding of the period such that these artists cannot be simply and uniformly grouped as having been in partnership with the state Party and then, slowly, over the period split off into an opposing position. Indeed, he contends that much of the avant-garde remained on the ideological side of the state Party well past its early stages. Moreover, these artistic developments entered the political field and thereby became its extension. Under the leadership of the state, Soviet realism helped fulfil the avant-garde’s dream of demiurgic power. It is in this respect that Groys then posits the relationship between romanticism and twentieth century Russian avant-garde art. The partnership between Soviet realism and the state Party’s ideology resulted in (authorized) artworks as understood as the realization of socialism, thereby abolishing the supposed boundaries between life, art, and politics. According to Groys, the Lenin Mausoleum stands as the embodiment of this achievement of synchrony. Complicating and pushing this position further, Groys finds this phenomenon not at all exclusive to the Soviet Union, but in fact points to its uncanny parallel in the readymades of Marcel Duchamp.

Much of Groys’s work has centered on exploring the consequences of this suture resulting in a particular framework in which to think post-Stalinist art. With the fall of Stalinism, and its “iron laws of history,” Russian artists, both of the post-Stalin period of the Soviet Union and the post-Cold War period, have had to confront the difficult task of overcoming a notion of utopia without falling out of history, or rather, how to dissolve the notion of teleology without falling into the abyss of the end of history. Within this framework, Groys investigates not only the historical, political, and aesthetic relations in the Soviet Union and Russia, but as well specific artistic and literary works such as those by Ilya Kabakov, Komar and Melamid, and Prigov.

Without pronouncement, Boris Groys’s work, in all its varied forms, appears to follow a sustained thesis: art is a symptom of society. While the majority of his work is within aesthetics, his thesis is not exclusive to aesthetics. Rather, Groys tends to think politics, and philosophy, with and through the medium of art. This idea is underscored in a conversation between John-Paul Stonard and Boris Groys while he was Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum, which was transcribed and published in the Institute’s journal, immediations (Vol.1, No. 4, 2007). In response to Stonard’s question as to whether “philosophers have a naturally closer relationship with artists than do art historians?” Groys responded, “We can look at artists in two ways. First, as if we were biologists, trying to construct a neo-Darwinian story of ‘art species’; how artists developed, how they succeeded, failed, survived. In these terms art history is formulated a little like botany or biology. The second way of considering art history is as part of the history of ideas. We have the history of philosophy, the history of science, the history of cultural history, just as we can have the history of art. So the question is whether we define art history more like botany, or more like the history of philosophy – and I tend more to the latter, because, as I have suggested, the driving force of art is philosophical.”

––Srdjan Cvjeticanin

Kommunisticheskiy Postskriptum , Groys, Boris. Kommunisticheskiy Postskriptum. Ad Marginem, 2014. ISBN: 5911031817

Google: Words beyond Grammar/Google: Worte jenseits der Grammatik , Groys, Boris. Google: Words beyond Grammar/Google: Worte jenseits der Grammatik. Hatje Cantz, 2011. ISBN: 3775728953

Unter Verdacht: Eine Phänomenologie der Medien , Groys, Boris. Unter Verdacht: Eine Phänomenologie der Medien. Carl Hanser Verlag, 2010. ISBN: 3446236023

Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of Media , Groys, Boris. Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of Media. Translated by Carsten Strathausen. Columbia University Press, 2012. ISBN: 0231146183

Going Public , Groys, Boris. Going Public. Sternberg Press, 2010. ISBN: 1934105309

History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism , Groys, Boris. History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism. MIT Press, 2010. ISBN: 0262014238

Einführung in die Anti-philosophie , Groys, Boris. Einführung in die Anti-philosophie. Carl Hanser, 2009. ISBN: 3446234047

An Introduction to Antiphilosophy , Groys, Boris. An Introduction to Antiphilosophy. Translated by David Fernbach. Verso, 2012. ISBN: 0231146183

Art Power , Groys, Boris. Art Power. MIT Press, 2008. ISBN: 0262518686

Drei Videos über das Ikonoklastische: Rituelle und Unsterbliche/Thinking in Loop: Three Videos on Iconoclasm, Ritual and Immortality. , Groys, Boris. Drei Videos über das Ikonoklastische: Rituelle und Unsterbliche/Thinking in Loop: Three Videos on Iconoclasm, Ritual and Immortality. ZKM/Hatje Cantz, 2008. ISBN: 3775723374

Die Kunst des Denkens , Groys, Boris. Die Kunst des Denkens. Philo Fine Arts, 2008. ISBN: 3865726399

Ilya Kabakov. The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment , Groys, Boris. Ilya Kabakov. The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment. Afterall/MIT Press, 2006. ISBN: 1846380049

Das Kommunistische Postskriptum , Groys, Boris. Das Kommunistische Postskriptum. Suhrkamp, 2006. ISBN: 351812403X

The Communist Postscript , Groys, Boris. The Communist Postscript. Verso, 2010. ISBN: 1844674304

Le Post-scriptum Communiste , Groys, Boris. Le Post-scriptum Communiste. Translated by Olivier Mannoni. Libella/Maren Sell, 2008. ISBN: 2355800057

Postscriptum Comunista , Groys, Boris. Postscriptum Comunista. Translated by Gianluca Bonaiuti. Metemi Melusine, 2008. ISBN: 8883536738

Die Muse im Pelz , Groys, Boris. Die Muse im Pelz. Literaturverlag Droschl, 2004. ISBN: 3854206720

Topologie der Kunst , Groys, Boris. Topologie der Kunst. Carl Hanser, 2003. ISBN: 3446203680

Kommentarii k Iskusstvu , Groys, Boris. Kommentarii k iskusstvu. KhZh, 2003. ISBN: 5901116089

Politik der Unsterblichkeit: Vier Gespräche mit Thomas Knöfel , Groys, Boris. Politik der Unsterblichkeit: Vier Gespräche mit Thomas Knöfel. Carl Hanser, 2002. ISBN: 3446201394

Politique de l’Immortalité , Groys, Boris. Politique de l’Immortalité. Quatre entretiens avec Thomas Knoefel. Translator Olivieri Mannon. Maren Sell Editeurs, 2005. ISBN: 2350040232

Dialogi , Groys, Boris, and Ilya Kabakov. Dialogi. Ad marginem, 1999. ISBN: 593321003X

Logik der Sammlung , Groys, Boris. Logik der Sammlung. Carl Hanser, 1997. ISBN: 3446189327

Kunst-Kommentare , Groys, Boris. Kunst-Kommentare. Passagen, 1997. ISBN: 3851652916

Die Kunst der Installation , Groys, Boris, and Ilja Kabakov. Die Kunst der Installation. Carl Hanser, 1996. ISBN: 3446185275

Die Erfindung Russlands , Groys, Boris. Die Erfindung Russlands. Carl Hanser, 1995. ISBN: 3446180516

Über das Neue , Groys, Boris. Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie. Carl Hanser, 1992. ISBN: 3446165428

On the New , Groys, Boris. On the New. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. Verso, 2014. ISBN: 1781682925

Sobre lo Nuevo , Groys, Boris. Sobre lo Nuevo. Pre-textos, 2005. ISBN: 848191648X

Du Nouveau , Groys, Boris. Du Nouveau: Essai d’économie culturelle. Jacqueline Chambon, 1995. ISBN: 2877111156

Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Moskau: Von der Neo-Avantgarde zum Post-Stalinismus ,Groys, Boris. Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Moskau: Von der Neo-Avantgarde zum Post-Stalinismus. Klinkhardt u. B., 1991. ISBN: 3781403033

Die Kunst des Fliehens , Groys, Boris, and Ilya Kabakov. Die Kunst des Fliehens. Carl Hanser, 1991. ISBN: 3446160779

Dnevnik filosofa , Groys, Boris. Dnevnik Filosofa. Beseda/Sintaksis, 1989.

全体芸術様式スターリン/ Zentai Geijutsu Yōshiki Sutārin , Groys, Boris. 全体芸術様式スターリン/ Zentai Geijutsu Yōshiki Sutārin. Translated by Ikuo Kameyama and Yoshiaki Koga. 現代思潮新社, 2000. ISBN: 4329004119

Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin , Groys, Boris. Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin. Translated by Desiderio Navarro. Pre-textos, 2008. ISBN: 848191925X

Lo Stalinismo Ovvero l’Opera d’Arte Totale , Groys, Boris. Lo Stalinismo Ovvero l’Opera d’Arte Totale. Translated by Emanuela Guercetti. Garzanti, 1992. ISBN: 8811598346

The Total Art of Stalinism: Russian Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. , Groys, Boris. The Total Art of Stalinism: Russian Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. Verso, (1992) 2011. ISBN: 1844677079

Staline: Oeuvre d’Art totale , Groys, Boris. Staline: Oeuvre d’Aart totale. Jacqueline Chambon, 1990. ISBN: 2877110370

Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin , Groys, Boris. Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin. Die Gespaltene Kultur in der Sowjetunion. Translated by Gabriele Leupold. Carl Hanser, (1988) 2008. ISBN: 3446187863

Edited Works

Moscow Symposium: Conceptualism Revisited

Groys, Boris, ed. Moscow Symposium: Conceptualism Revisited . Sternberg Press, 2012. ISBN: 3943365115

Empty Zones: Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Action

Groys, Boris, Claire Bishop, and Andrei Monastyrski, eds. Empty Zones: Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Action . Black Dog, 2011. ISBN: 1907317341

Die totale Aufklärung: Moskauer Konzeptkunst 1960-1990/The Total Enlightenment: Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960-1990

Groys, Boris, Max Hollein, and Manuel Fontan del Junco, eds. Die totale Aufklärung: Moskauer Konzeptkunst 1960-1990/The Total Enlightenment: Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960-1990 . Exhibition catalogue. Hatje Cantz, 2008. ISBN: 377572124 X

Die Neue Menschheit

Groys, Boris, and Michael Hagemeister, eds. Die Neue Menschheit . Suhrkamp, 2005. ISBN: 351829363 X

Am Nullpunkt

Groys, Boris, and Aage Hansen-Löve, eds. Am Nullpunkt . Suhrkamp, 2005. ISBN: 3518293648

Zurück aus der Zukunft. Osteuropäische Kulturen im Zeitalter des Postkommunismus

Groys, Boris, and Anne von der Heiden, eds. Zurück aus der Zukunft. Osteuropäische Kulturen im Zeitalter des Postkommunismus . Suhrkamp, 2005. ISBN: 3518124528

Privatisierungen/Privatisations

Groys, Boris, ed. Privatisierungen/Privatisations . Revolver, 2004. ISBN: 3865882285

Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era

Groys, Boris, and Max Hollein, eds. Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era . Hatje Cantz, 2003. ISBN: 377571328 X

Kierkegaard

Groys, Boris, ed. Kierkegaard . Schriften. Diederichs, 1996. ISBN: 3424012874

Fluchtpunkt Moskau

Groys, Boris, ed. Fluchtpunkt Moskau. Cantz, 1994. ISBN: 3893226125

Utopia i Obmen

Groys, Boris, ed. Utopia i Obmen . Izd-vo Znak, 1993. ISBN: 5877070010

Today’s Legacy of Classical Modernism

Thinking Media and the Man-Machine Relation

Alexandre Kojève

Marx and Engels On Literature and Art

Source : Marx Engels On Literature and Art . Progress Publishers. Moscow 1976; Transcribed : by Andy Blunden .

This volume offers the reader a selection of both excerpts and complete works and letters by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, giving their views on art and its place in society. Though it contains far from all that was written by the founders of scientific communism on this subject, it will nevertheless acquaint the reader with Marx’s and Engels’ most important ideas about artistic work.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had an excellent knowledge of world art and truly loved literature, classical music, and painting. In their youth both Marx and Engels wrote poetry; in fact Engels at one time seriously contemplated becoming a poet.

They were well acquainted not only with classical literature, but also with the works of less prominent and even of little known writers both among their contemporaries and those who lived and worked in more distant times. They admired Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Dickens, Fielding, Goethe, Heine, Cervantes, Balzac, Dante, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, and mentioned many other less famous people who had also made their mark in the history of literature. They also displayed a great love for popular art, for the epics of various nations and other types of folklore: songs, tales, fables and proverbs.

Marx and Engels made extensive use of the treasures of world literature in their own works., Their repeated references to literary and mythological figures, and use of aphorisms, comparisons and direct quotations, masterfully woven into their works, are a distinctive feature of their style. The writings of Marx and Engels are notable not only for profundity of content, but also for their exceptional artistic merits. Wilhelm Liebknecht gave high praise to Marx’s style, citing his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte as an example. “If ever hatred, scorn and passionate love of liberty were expressed in burning, devastating, lofty words,” wrote Liebknecht, “it is in The Eighteenth Brumaire, which combines the indignant severity of a Tacitus with the deadly satire of a Juvenal and the holy wrath of a Dante. Style here is the stilus that it was of old in the hand of the Romans, a sharp stiletto, used to write and to stab. Style is a dagger which strikes unerringly at the heart” ( Reminiscences of Marx and Engels , Moscow, 1956, p. 57).

Marx and Engels used artistic imagery to express their thoughts more forcefully and vividly in their journalistic and polemical works, and even in their fundamental theoretical works such as Capital and Anti-D�hring. Marx’s pamphlet Herr Vogt, directed against Karl Vogt who was slandering the proletarian party, is one of the most striking examples. The biting sarcasm of this pamphlet is particularly effective due to the author’s skilful use of works by classical writers such as Virgil, Plautus, and Persius, by the medieval German poets Gottfried von Strassburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach, and also by such classics of world literature as Balzac, Dickens, Schiller and Heine.

Their superb knowledge of world art helped Marx and Engels to elaborate genuinely scientific aesthetic principles. The founders of scientific communism were thus not only able to answer the complex aesthetic questions of the previous age, but also to elaborate a fundamentally new system of aesthetic science. They did so only as a result of the great revolutionary upheaval they had brought about in philosophy by creating dialectical and historical materialism and laying down the foundations for the materialist conception of history. Though Marx and Engels have left no major writings on art, their views in this field, when collected together, form a harmonious whole which is a logical extension of their scientific and revolutionary Weltanschauung. They explained the nature of art and its paths of development, its tasks in society and social aims. Marxist aesthetics, like the whole teaching of Marx and Engels, are subordinated to the struggle for the communist reorganisation of society.

When developing their theory of aesthetics, Marx and Engels naturally based themselves on the achievements of their predecessors. But the main aesthetic problems — and above all the problem of the relationship between art and reality — were solved by them in a fundamentally new way, on the basis of materialist dialectics. Idealist aesthetics considered art as a reproduction of the ideal, standing over and* above actual reality. The origin of any art form, its development, flowering, and decay, all remained incomprehensible to the art theoreticians and historians of the pre-Marxian period, inasmuch as they studied these in isolation from man’s social existence.

Marx and Engels considered it absolutely impossible to understand art and literature proceeding only from their internal laws of development. In their opinion, the essence, origin, development, and social role of art could only be understood through analysis of the social system as a whole, within which the economic factor — the development, of productive forces in complex interaction with production relations — plays the decisive role. Thus art, as defined by Marx and Engels, is one of the forms of social consciousness and it therefore follows that the reasons for its changes should be sought in the social existence of men.

Marx and Engels revealed the social nature of art and its development in the course of history and showed that in a society with class antagonisms it was influenced by class ‘contradictions and by the politics and ideologies of particular classes.

Marx and Engels gave a materialist explanation of the origin of the aesthetic sense itself. They noted that man’s artistic abilities, his capacity for perceiving the world aesthetically, for comprehending its beauty and for creating works of art appeared as a result of the long development of human society and were the product of man’s labour. As early as in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 , Marx pointed to the role of labour in the development of man’s capacity to perceive and reproduce the beautiful and to form objects also “in accordance with the laws of beauty” (Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1975, p. 277).

This idea was later developed by Engels in his work Dialectics of Nature, in which he noted that efforts of toil “have given the human hand the high degree of perfection required to conjure into being the pictures of a Raphael, the statues of a Thorwaldsen, the music of a Paganini” (see pp. 128-29 of this book). Thus both Marx and Engels emphasise that man’s aesthetic sense is not an inborn, but a socially-acquired quality.

The founders of Marxism extended their dialectical view of the nature of human thought to analysis of artistic creativity. In examining the development of art together with that of the material world and the history of society, they noted that the content and forms of art were not established firmly once and for all, but that they inevitably developed and changed according to definite laws along with the development of the material world and of human society. Each historical period has inherent aesthetic ideals and produces works of art corresponding to its particular character and unrepeatable under other conditions. Comparing, for example, the works of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Titian, Marx and Engels emphasised that “Raphael’s works of art depended on the flourishing of Rome at that time, which occurred under Florentine influence, while the works of Leonardo depended on the state of things in Florence, and the works of Titian, at a later period, depended on the totally different development of Venice” (p. 177).

The fact that the level of development of society and its social structure determine the content of artistic works and the prevalence of any particular literary or artistic genre was seen by Marx as the main reason that art in different periods never repeats itself and, in particular, that there was no possibility to create the mythology or epic poetry similar to those of the ancient Greeks under the conditions of the nineteenth century. “Is the conception of nature and of social relations which underlies Greek imagination and therefore Greek (art),” wrote Marx, “possible when there are self-acting mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs?” (p. 83).

It goes without saying that Marxism has a far from open-and-shut understanding of the relations between the forms of social consciousness (and of art in particular) and their economic basis. For Marx and Engels, any social formation constituted a complex and dynamic system of interacting elements, each influencing the other — a system in which the economic factor is the determining one only in the final analysis. They were in no way inclined to qualify art as a passive product of the economic system. On the contrary, they emphasised that the various forms of social consciousness — including, of course, artistic creation — actively influence the social reality from which they emerge.

As if to forestall sociological vulgarisations of the problems of artistic creation, Marx and Engels drew attention to the fact that social life and the ideology of particular classes are reflected in art in a far from mechanistic manner. Artistic creativity is subordinate to the general laws of social development but, being a special form of consciousness, has its own distinctive features and specific patterns.

One of art’s distinctive features is its relative independence as it develops. The fact that works of art are connected historically with particular social structures does not mean that they lose their significance when these social structures disappear. On this point Marx cites the art and epic poetry of the ancient Greeks which “still give us aesthetic pleasure and are in certain respects regarded as a standard and unattainable ideal” (p. 84). He also provides a profound explanation for this phenomenon: Greek art reflected the naive and at the same time healthy, normal perception of reality characteristic of mankind in those early stages of its development, the period of its childhood; it reflected the striving for “natural veracity,” with its unique attractiveness and special charm for all (p. 84).

This example expresses an important Marxist aesthetic principle: in looking at works of art as basically reflections of particular social conditions and relationships, it is imperative also to see the features that make the lasting value of these works.

Marx and Engels considered as another particular feature of art the fact that its periods of upsurge do not automatically coincide with social progress in other fields, including that of material production. Thus Marx wrote in the Introduction to his Economic Manuscripts of 1857-1858: “ As regards art, it is well known that some of its peaks by no means correspond to the general development of society; nor do they therefore to the material substructure” (p. 82 of this book). Marx and Engels saw the reason for this imbalance between the development of art and of society as a whole in the fact that the spiritual culture of any period is determined not only by the level of development of material production — the “material basis” of society — but also by the character of the social relations peculiar to that period. In other words, such factors as the specific character of social relations, the degree of development of class antagonisms and the existence in any period of specific conditions for the development of man’s individuality, all have an important bearing on art, determining its nature and development.

As far as capitalist society is concerned, this imbalance, according to Marx and Engels, must be considered as an expression of capitalism’s fundamental contradiction, the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation. From his analysis of the contradictions of capitalism, Marx draws a conclusion which is of extraordinary importance for aesthetics, namely that “capitalist production is hostile to certain branches of spiritual production, for example, art and poetry” (p. 141). This proposition in no way denies the development of literature and art under capitalism, but means that the very nature of the capitalist system of exploitation is in profound contradiction with the humanist ideals which inspire genuine artists. The more conscious artists are of the contradiction, between their ideals and the capitalist reality, the louder and clearer do their works (often despite the class origin of the very author) protest against the inhumanity of capitalist relations. Bourgeois society’s hostility towards art begets, even in bourgeois literature, criticism of capitalism in one form or another, with capitalist reality being depicted as one filled with tragic collisions. This, in Marx’s and Engels’ opinion, is a dialectical feature of the development of art under capitalism. It is for this very reason that bourgeois society has produced Shakespeare, Goethe, Balzac and other writers of genius who were capable of rising above their epoch and class environment and condemning with immense artistic power the vices of the capitalist system of exploitation.

In their works, Marx and, Engels set forth a number of profound ideas on the class nature of art in a society of antagonisms. They showed that even great writers, who were able, often despite their own class positions, to give a true and vivid picture of real life, were, in a class society, pressured by the ideas and interests of the ruling classes and frequently made serious concessions to these in their works. Taking Goethe, Schiller, Balzac, and other writers as examples, Marx and Engels found that the contradictions peculiar to them were not the result of purely individual features of their psychological make-up, but an ideological reflection of real contradictions in the life of society.

The founders of Marxism emphasised that art was an important weapon in the ideological struggle between classes. It could reinforce just as it could undermine the power of the exploiters, could serve to defend class oppression or, on the contrary, contribute to the education and development of the consciousness of the toiling masses, bringing them closer to victory over their oppressors. Marx and Engels therefore called for a clear distinction to be made between progressive and reactionary phenomena in feudal and bourgeois culture and put forward the principle of the Party approach to art that it be evaluated from the position of the revolutionary class.

While showing that a link existed between art and the class struggle, Marx and Engels always fought against attempts to schematise this problem. They pointed out that classes were not static and unchangeable but that class interrelationships changed in the course of history, the role of the classes in the life of society undergoing complex metamorphoses. Thus, in the period of struggle against feudalism, the bourgeoisie was able to create considerable spiritual values, but having come to power as a result of the anti-feudal revolutions, it gradually began to reject the very weapon it had itself forged in the struggle against feudalism. The bourgeoisie accomplishes this break with its revolutionary past when a new force appears on the historical arena — the proletariat. Under these conditions, attempts by individual members of the bourgeois intelligentsia, in particular cultural and artistic figures, to gain a deeper understanding of reality, to go beyond the framework of bourgeois relations and express their protest against these in some art form, inevitably lead them to conflicts with official bourgeois society and to their departure from bourgeois positions.

Marx and Engels apply their dialectical and materialist theory of knowledge to analysis of art and literature. In their opinion, artistic creation is one of the ways of reflecting reality and, at the same time, of perceiving and apprehending it; it is also one of the strongest levers of influencing the spiritual development of humanity. This approach to art forms the basis of the materialist understanding of its social importance and prominent role in the progress of society.

Naturally enough, when examining literature and art, Marx and Engels concentrated their attention on the problem of realism — the most accurate depiction of reality in an artistic work.

They considered realism, as a trend in literature and a method of artistic creation, to be the supreme achievement of world art. Engels formulated what is generally recognised as the classical definition of realism. “Realism, to my mind,” he wrote, “implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances” (p. 90). Realistic representation, Marx and Engels emphasised, is by no means a mere copy of reality, but a way of penetrating into the very essence of a phenomenon, a method of artistic generalisation that makes it possible to disclose the typical traits of a particular age. This is what they valued in the work of the great realist writers such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Balzac, Pushkin and others. Marx described the English realists of the 19th century — Dickens, Thackeray, the Bront�s, and Gaskell — as a brilliant pleiad of novelists “whose graphic and eloquent pages have issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together” (p. 339). Engels developed a similar line of thought when analysing the works of the great French realist writer Balzac. Writing about the Com�die humaine, he noted that Balzac gave the reader “a most wonderfully realistic history of French society ... from which, even in economic details (for instance the re-arrangement of real and personal property after the Revolution) I have learned more than from all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together” (p. 91).

Marx and Engels set out some very important ideas about realism in their letters to Lassalle in the spring of 1859, in which they sharply criticise his historical drama Franz von Sickingen dealing with the knights’ rebellion of 1522-23, on the eve of the Peasant War in Germany. These two letters are of great. significance because they contain a statement of the fundamental principles of Marxist aesthetics (pp. 98-107).

Marx’s and Engels’ demands on the artist include truthfulness of depiction, a concrete historical approach to the events described and personages with live and individual traits reflecting typical aspects of the character and psychology of the class milieu to which they belong. The author of genuinely realistic works communicates his ideas to the reader not by didactic philosophising, but by vivid images which affect the reader’s consciousness and feelings by their artistic expressiveness. Marx and Engels considered that Lassalle had carried even further some of the weaknesses in the artistic method of the great German poet and playwright Schiller — in particular his penchant for abstract rhetoric, which resulted in his heroes becoming abstract and one-dimensional declaimers of certain ideas. In this regard they preferred Shakespeare’s realism to Schiller’s method. Both pointed out to Lassalle that, in imitating Schiller, he was forgetting the importance for the realist writer to* combine depth of content and lofty ideals with efforts to achieve a Shakespearian ability to depict genuine passions and the multiple facets of the human character.

In their letters to Lassalle, Marx and Engels also touched upon the question of the links between literature and life, between literature and the’ present day. Marx by no means condemned Lassalle for his intention to draw an analogy between the events of the 16th century described in the play and the situation in the mid-19th century, and to bring out the truly tragic collision which “spelled the doom ... of the revolutionary party of 1848-1849” (p. 98). He saw the author’s mistake in his incorrect, idealistic interpretation of this collision, in the reduction of the reasons for it to the allegedly age-old abstract “tragedy of revolution,” which lacks any concrete historical or class content. Marx criticised Lassalle not for the political tendency of his drama, but for the fact that it was essentially mistaken from the point of view of the materialist conception of history and of the world outlook of the proletarian revolutionaries. Marx and Engels were highly critical of attempts to place literature above politics and of the theory of “art for art’s sake.” They insisted that the works of realist writers should reflect a progressive world outlook, be permeated with progressive ideas and deal with truly topical problems. It was in this sense that they welcomed tendentiousness in literature, interpreted as ideological and political partisanship. “I am by no means opposed to tendentious poetry as such,” wrote Engels to the German writer Minna Kautsky on November 26, 1885. ‘Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, and Aristophanes, the father of comedy, were highly partisan poets, Dante and Cervantes were so no less, and the best thing that can be said about Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe is that it represents the first German political problem drama. The modern Russians and Norwegians, who produce excellent novels, all write with a purpose” (p. 88). Marx and Engels were at the same time resolute opponents of stupid tendentiousness — bare-faced moralising, didacticism instead of artistic method, and abstract impersonations instead of live characters. They criticised the poets in the “Young Germany” literary movement for the artistic inferiority of their characters and attempts to make up for their lack of literary mastery with political arguments. Engels provides an apt definition of genuine tendentiousness in his letter to Minna Kautsky: “I think however that the purpose must become manifest from the situation and the action themselves without being expressly pointed out and that the author does not have to serve the reader on a platter the future historical resolution of the social conflicts which he describes” (p. 88).

Both Marx and Engels were deeply convinced that progressive literature had to reflect truthfully the deep-lying, vital processes of the day, to promulgate progressive ideas, and to defend the interests of the progressive forces in society. The modern term the Party spirit in literature expresses what they understood by this. They felt that the very quality that was lacking in Lassalle’s play — the organic unity of idea and artistry — was the sine qua non of genuinely realistic art.

In setting out the principles of materialist aesthetics and the fundamental and most general laws governing the development of art, the founders of scientific communism laid the basis of Marxist literary and art criticism and proposed the primary tenets of the materialist interpretation of the history of art and literature. In their works and correspondence, they threw new light on the most important questions of the historical and literary process and revealed such aspects in the works of both classical and contemporary writers which were beyond the comprehension of bourgeois literary historians. In the present collection, the reader will find Marx’s and Engels’ views of the artistic works of the most important ages in mankind’s history — their evaluation of art in ancient and medieval times, of Renaissance culture and literature, of literature in the period of the Enlightenment, and, finally, of the work of the romantic and realist writers of the 19th century. In addition, the reader will discover the attitude of the founders of Marxist aesthetics towards the main literary and artistic trends in general and their opinions on individual writers and other artists.

Marx’s and Engels’ view of ancient art has already been discussed briefly above. Let us now turn to their evaluation of the art of other ages.

Their genuinely scientific explanation of the specific features of the social system and culture of medieval times is of exceptional interest. Marx and Engels stripped away the romantic idealisation of the Middle Ages and, at the same time, demonstrated the inconsistency of the abstract view held by the Enlighteners that this was merely an age of social and cultural regression. They pointed out that the transition from slave-owning to feudal society was historically inevitable and showed that the establishment of the feudal mode of production was a step forward in the development of human society, compared to the reign of slavery which had preceded it. This enabled Marx and Engels to form a new approach to medieval culture and art and point out those features in them which reflected the progressive course of historical development. Engels wrote that “. . as a result of the intermingling of nations in the early Middle Ages new nationalities gradually developed” (Marx/Engels, Werke, Bd. 21, S. 395), the appearance of which was a prerequisite for further social and cultural development of mankind. Analysing various epic poems of the early Middle Ages such as the Elder Edda and other Icelandic and Irish sagas, Beowulf, the Lay of Hildebrand and the Chanson de Roland, Marx and Engels showed that they reflected the gradual transition from the earliest stages of the tribal system to new levels of social consciousness connected with the early period of the formation of European nationalities. The epic and national-heroic poetry of the Middle Ages is notable, as Engels pointed out, for characteristics which show their new cultural-historical and aesthetic quality, as compared with the classical epic poetry of the ancient world. The same also applies to the later lyric poetry of the feudal Middle Ages — the medieval romance lyrics, best exemplified by the works of the Provencal troubadours. In his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Engels wrote that “no such thing as individual sex love existed before the Middle Ages” (p. 215). For this reason, he said, the appearance and poetic glorification of individual love in the Middle Ages was a step forward compared to antiquity. Moreover, the medieval love poems influenced the following generations and prepared the ground for the flowering of poetry in the modern age.

Marx and Engels formulated and substantiated a new view of the Renaissance, one which differed radically from the views of earlier bourgeois cultural historians and also in many ways from those of contemporary and later bourgeois historiography. This new understanding of the basic historical meaning of the Renaissance in Western Europe was presented by Engels in its most developed form in 1875-76 in one of his versions for the Introduction to the Dialectics of Nature (pp. 251-53). Engels emphasised that, contrary to the traditional view of bourgeois science, the Renaissance must not be seen as merely an upheaval in the ideological and spiritual life of the times. The origins of this new age, he states, should be sought above all in the economic and political. changes that brought about the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. Engels penetrated to the very essence of the phenomena which made possible the immense leap forward in the culture, literature and art of that period, some achievements of which remained unequal led even in the more mature bourgeois society. The art of the Renaissance, as Engels noted, developed not in a period of already settled bourgeois society but “in the midst of the general revolution” (Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Moscow, 1974, p. 21). Social relations were at that time in a state of constant flux and change and had not yet become, as they did in mature bourgeois society, a force which to a certain extent limited the development of personal initiative, talent and capabilities but, on the contrary, actively contributed to their development. Because of its revolutionary character this age, the one of “the greatest progressive revolution that mankind had so far experienced,” stated Engels, “called for giants and produced giants ... in power of thought, passion and character, in universality and learning.” This is why “the men who founded the modern rule of the bourgeoisie had anything but bourgeois limitations” (pp. 252-53).

Engels also noted that “the heroes of that time were not yet in thrall to the division of labour, the restricting effects of which, with its production one-sidedness, we so often notice in their successors” (p. 253). To clarify his idea, Engels described Leonardo da Vinci who “was not only a great painter but also a great mathematician, mechanic and engineer, to whom the most diverse branches of physics are indebted for important discoveries” and reviewed the work of Albrecht D�rer, a “painter, engraver, sculptor, and architect” and inventor of a fortification system. Engels also pointed to the great diversity of interests and erudition of other Renaissance figures (p. 253).

Marx’s and Engels’ evaluation of the Renaissance as an age of “the general revolution,” “the greatest progressive revolution,” explains the warm sympathy they felt for the “giants” of that age. They saw the great men of the Renaissance not just as outstanding scholars, artists, or poets, but, at the same time, as great revolutionaries in world science and culture.

Engels considered the most important trait of the heroes of the Renaissance to be that “they almost all live And pursue their activities in the midst of the contemporary movements, in the practical struggle; they take sides and join in the fight, one by speaking and writing, another with the sword, many with both” (p. 253). It is not difficult to see that this was also what Engels expected of the artists of the future. Referring to the ability of the people of the Renaissance to live by the interests of their time, to “take sides,” Engels emphasised those traits which lifted them above the level of the professionally narrow, armchair science of the bourgeoisie, and above the level of the 19th-century bourgeois writers and artists who preached “non-partisanship” and “pure art.” These traits brought the great men of the Renaissance closer to the ideals of socialist culture and of the revolutionary movement of the working class.

Marx and Engels considered Dante one of the great writers whose works announced the transition from the

Middle Ages to the Renaissance. They saw him as a poet and thinker of genius and, at the same time, as an inflexible warrior whose poetic works were infused with Party spirit (Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 6, Moscow! 1976, p. 271) and were inseparable from his political ideals and aspirations. According to Wilhelm Liebknecht, Marx knew the Divina Commedia almost by heart and would often declaim whole sections of it aloud. Marx’s “Introduction” to Capital in fact ends with the great Florentine’s proud words: “Go your own way, and let people say what they will!” The author of Capital placed Dante among his most beloved poets — Goethe, Aeschylus, and Shakespeare. Engels called Dante a person of “unequalled classic perfection” (p. 247) and “a colossal figure” (p. 248). Marx and Engels held the great Spanish writer Cervantes in high esteem too. Paul Lafargue noted that Marx set the author of Don Quixote, together with Balzac, “above all other novelists” (p. 439). Finally, Marx’s and Engels’ admiration for Shakespeare, one of their most beloved writers, is known to all. Both considered his plays with their far-ranging depiction of the life of his time and their immortal characters to be classical examples of realist drama. Lafargue wrote that Marx “made a detailed study” of Shakespeare’s works. “His whole family had a real cult for the great English dramatist” (p. 438). Engels shared his friend’s views on Shakespeare. On December 10, 1873, he wrote to Marx. “There is more life and reality in the first act of the Merry Wives than in all German literature” (p. 260).

The most important comment by the founders of scientific communism about classicism, the literary movement of the 17th-18th centuries, was made by Marx in a letter to Lassalle on July 22, 1861 (p. 269). On the basis of a materialist understanding of the development of culture, Marx in his letter rejected the unhistorical idea that classicism was the result of a misunderstanding of the laws of classical drama and of classical aesthetics, with their famous principle of the three unities. He pointed out that, though the theoreticians of classicism had misunderstood classical Greek drama and Aristotle’s Poetics, this was no accident or a misunderstanding of history, but a historical inevitability. Classicist playwrights “misunderstood” Aristotle because the “misunderstood” Aristotle corresponded exactly to their taste in art and their aesthetic requirements, formed by the specific social and cultural conditions of the time.

Unlike previous historians of culture who were unable to understand the class content of ideas, Marx and Engels uncovered the social, class-historical basis of the ideas of the 18th-century Enlightenment. They showed that the Enlightenment was not just a movement in social thought, but an ideological expression of the interests of the progressive bourgeoisie, which was rising up to struggle against feudal absolutism on the eve of the Great French Revolution.

Marx and Engels held in high esteem the heritage of the English and French 18th-century Enlighteners including their fiction and works on aesthetics. Their comprehensive analysis of the activity of the Enlighteners explains its close links with the life of society and the class struggle during the preparation for the French bourgeois revolution and draws a line between the moderately bourgeois and the democratic elements in their heritage.

Marx’s and Engels’ works and letters show that they had a superb knowledge of both English and French philosophical and economic literature and fiction of the age of the Enlightenment. They do not merely mention Defoe, Swift, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, the Abb� Pr�vost, Beaumarchais, but give laconic and at the same time brilliantly profound and accurate evaluations of them, while also using their works to draw generalisations concerning the most important aspects of literary life in the age of the Enlightenment.

It should also be noted that Marx included Denis Diderot among his favourite writers. He delighted in Diderot’s novels, especially Le Neveu de Rameau, which he called a “unique masterpiece” (p. 279). Engels shared his friend’s

opinion on Diderot and wrote in 1886: “If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the ‘enthusiasm for truth and justice’ — using this phrase in the good sense — it was Diderot, for instance” (p. 279).

Marx and Engels also wrote about the leading men of the Enlightenment in Germany — Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Wieland. Revealing the economic and socio-political conditions in Germany, whose feudal division and reactionary small-power absolutist system had been hardened as a result of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), they showed that these conditions had made a definite mark on the ideas and feelings of the majority of the most prominent figures of the “great age of German literature” (p. 346). Together with the rebellious spirit and indignation at the social system of the time that were characteristic of German classical literature, it also reflected the feelings of the petty bourgeoisie (the predominating social stratum in Germany) whose inherent characteristic was admiration for and servility towards the powers that be. “Each of them was an Olympian Zeus in his own sphere,” Engels wrote about Goethe and Hegel, “yet neither of them ever quite freed himself from German Philistinism” (p. 349). In spotlighting not only the strong, but also the weaker points in Goethe, Schiller, and other German writers and thinkers of that period, Marx and Engels in no way sought to belittle their immense, world-wide importance. This is confirmed by Marx’s attitude towards Goethe, who, as already mentioned, was one of his most beloved poets. Contemporaries who knew Marx well stated that he was a constant reader of the great German poet’s works. In their writings and conversations, both Marx and Engels frequently quoted from Faust and other works by Goethe. In 1837 the young Marx, while still a student at Berlin University, wrote an epigram defending Goethe against the Lutheran pastor Pustkuchen, who was one of the leaders in the struggle of German reactionaries of the 1830s against the poet. Engels devoted one of his essays in literary criticism to an analysis of Goethe’s

work. This was “German Socialism in Verse and Prose” (pp. 361-74) in which he attacked the aesthetics of German philistine “true socialism.”

Marx’s and Engels’ analysis of West European romanticism is of great importance to the elaboration of a genuinely scientific history of literature. Considering romanticism a reflection of the age beginning after the Great French Revolution, of all its inherent social contradictions, they distinguished between revolutionary romanticism, which rejected capitalism and was striving towards the future, and romantic criticism of capitalism from the point of view of the past. They also differentiated between the romantic writers who idealised the pre-bourgeois social system: they valued those whose works concealed democratic and critical elements under a veneer of reactionary utopias and naive petty-bourgeois ideals, and criticised the reactionary romantics, whose sympathies for the past amounted to a defence of the interests of the nobility. Marx and Engels were especially fond of the ‘Works of such revolutionary romantics as Byron and Shelley.

Marx’s and Engels’ evaluation of the works of 19th-century realist writers has already been mentioned. Marx and Engels considered realist traditions to be the culmination of the whole of the previous literary process. Engels traced their development and enrichment in the works of Guy de Maupassant, of the creators of the Russian realist novel of the second half of the 19th century, and of Norway’s contemporary dramatists. Marx and Engels had a lively interest in Russia and attached great importance to the Russian revolutionary movement. To be better able to follow the development of the economic and social life of Russia, they both learnt Russian. They were well acquainted not only with socio-economic and journalistic writings in Russia, but also with the country’s fiction. They both read the works of Pushkin, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov in Russian, while Marx also read Gogol, Nekrasov, and Lermontov in the original. Engels was also acquainted with English translations of the works of Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Khemnitser, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, and Krylov. Marx and Engels thought Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin to be an amazingly accurate depiction of Russian life in the first half of the 19th century. Both were especially fond of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. Engels considered these revolutionary writers “two socialist Lessings” (p. 414) and Marx called Chernyshevsky a “great Russian scholar and critic” (p. 415), while comparing Dobrolyubov “as a writer to Lessing and Diderot” (p. 415).

Characteristic of Marx and Engels was their profoundly internationalist approach to literature and art. They paid equal attention to the art of all nations, European and non, European, large and small, believing that every people makes its own unique contribution to the treasure-house of world art and literature. Their interests included the development of art and literature in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia as well as the artistic and cultural treasures of the East or of such small countries as Ireland, Iceland, and Norway. judging by their notes, the ancient cultures of the indigenous inhabitants of the New World also came within their field of vision.

Marx and Engels had a special attitude towards the democratic and revolutionary poets and writers who were close to the proletariat. Throughout their lives, they strove to draw the best progressive writers of their time to the side of the socialist movement and to educate and temper them, while helping them to overcome the weaker aspects of their work. Marx and Engels actively contributed to the formation of a proletarian revolutionary trend in literature.

Marx’s influence on the work of the great German revolutionary poet Heinrich Heine was immense. They met in Paris in 1843. The prime of Heine’s political lyrics and satire comes in 1843-44, when he was in close and friendly contact with Marx. Marx’s influence on Heine is clear in such remarkable works as his poems The Silesian Loom Workers and Germany. A Winter Tale. All his life Marx admired Heine, who was one of the favourite poets in Marx’s family. Engels was in complete agreement with his friend’s sympathies and considered Heine to be “the most eminent of all living German poets” (p. 375). In their struggle against German reaction, Marx and Engels often quoted from Heine’s bitingly satirical poems. Marx’s and Engels’ ideological influence played an exceptional role in Heine’s development as an artist and helped him to realise that the communist revolution would inevitably be victorious.

Marx and Engels were close friends of the German poets Georg Weerth and Ferdinand Freiligrath, with whom they worked side by side on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung during the revolution of 1848-1849, Engels called Weerth “the German proletariat’s first and most important poet” (p. 402). After Weerth’s death, Marx and Engels carefully collected his literary works. In the 1880s Engels vigorously promoted these in the German Social-Democratic press.

It was only thanks to ‘Marx’s and Engels’ influence that Freiligrath became, in 1848-49, one of the classics of German revolutionary poetry. His poems written at that time are closely linked to Marx’s and Engels’ ideas and are his best. The care and attention Marx and Engels showed for Freiligrath is a good example of their attitude towards revolutionary poets and of how they tried to help them in their noble cause. When Marx recommended Freiligrath to his comrade Joseph Weydemeyer, in 1852, for work on the journal Revolution, he specially asked Weydemeyer to write a friendly, praising letter to the poet to encourage him. It is no coincidence that Freiligrath’s importance as a poet began to decline as soon as he moved away from Marx and Engels in the 1850s.

Marx and Engels had close links with many French and English revolutionary writers, in particular with the Chartist leader Ernest Jones. His best poems, written in the latter 1840s, show the influence of Marx’s and Engels’ ideas.

After Marx’s death, Engels continued in the 1880s and 1890s to keep careful track of the revolutionary writings of those English authors who were ideologically close to the English socialist movement. This can be seen from Engels’ letter to the writer Margaret Harkness (pp. 89-92) who had sent him her short story “A Poor Girl,” his numerous comments about the plays of the English socialist Edward Aveling, and his notes on the ideological development of a number of other writers.

Important statements by Engels on the subject of proletarian art can also be found in his letters written toward the end of his life to German Social-Democratic leaders.

In this way, Marx and Engels strove to foster a new type of writer and artist who, assimilating the finest traditions of classical literature, would take an active, creative part in the proletariat’s struggle for emancipation, proceeding from a broad understanding of the experiences and the tasks of the revolutionary struggle.

This collection also contains valuable statements by Marx and Engels on the flowering of art in the future communist society. The founders of Marxism saw the contradictions in the development of art under capitalism as a manifestation of the antagonistic nature of bourgeois society as a whole and considered the solution of these problems to be possible only after the proletarian revolution and the social reorganisation of society.

Marx and Engels showed brilliant foresight in anticipating the basic traits of the new, communist society. Communism is above all true freedom for the all-round and harmonious development of the individual. “The realm of freedom,” said Marx, ‘actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases...” (p. 183).

Labour freed from exploitation becomes, under socialism, the source of all spiritual (and aesthetic) creativity. Marx and Engels point out that only given true economic, political, and spiritual freedom can man’s creative powers develop to the full and that only proletarian revolution offers unbounded opportunities of endless progress in the development of literature. The great historical mission of the proletariat consists in the communist rebuilding of the world. It was in the proletariat that Marx and Engels saw the social force which could change the world and provide for further progress not only in economics and politics, but also in culture, the force which would bring about the conditions required for the full realisation of mankind’s higher moral and aesthetic values.

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Art21 defines contemporary art as the work of artists who are living in the twenty-first century. Contemporary art mirrors contemporary culture and society, offering teachers, students, and general audiences a rich resource through which to consider current ideas and rethink the familiar. The work of contemporary artists is a dynamic ...
Why is Contemporary Art Important? CAI
The importance of contemporary art is often contested by public opinion. However, in this article, we argue art remains as relevant as it always has been.
What's the Difference Between Modern and Contemporary Art?
One answer is simple: time. Modern art came before contemporary art. Most art historians and critics put the beginning of modern art in the West at around the 1860s, continuing up to the 1960s. Whereas, contemporary art means art made in the present day. But it can be hard to define what the 'present day' really means.
Essay about contemporary arts
Essay about contemporary arts. Answer:Contemporary Art: Dealing with Post-Modernity− "Art worlds consist of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps others as well, define as art.By observing how an art world makes those distinctions rather than trying to make ...
These 10 Artworks Tell the Story of Contemporary Art
Matthew Israel. Mar 24, 2017 8:36AM. In "The Big Picture: Contemporary Art in 10 Works by 10 Artists," Matthew Israel, Artsy's Curator at Large, examines 10 artworks that trace the development of contemporary art. Below are a series of excerpts from his book, out March 28th from Prestel.
What's the Difference Between Modern and Contemporary Art?
Modern art encompasses numerous movements: Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism, to name just a few. Contemporary art means art of the moment, but defining it beyond that and its open-ended date range is challenging, as the very notion of defining art became a personal quest in the hands of each artist, which resulted ...
Looking Back at the Best of the Moscow Biennale (Photo Essay)
As more than a month full of exhibitions draws to a close, The Moscow Times looks back at some of the most interesting parts of the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.
a. What is contemporary art in your own words?
report flag outlined. Contemporary art is created by artists. In my opinion, it captures the numerous problems that influence our multicultural, international, and dynamically changing world. Many modern artists aim to redefine art itself through their work, while others investigate their own or other people's cultural identities, criticize ...
Write a 500-word definition essay of contemporary art
Explanation: The contemporary art is the art of the today during the 20th centuries or 21 centuries. In 1910 roger fry founded contemporary art society.The art of these time period refer to the contemporary art society.All over the world the contemporary art is the changing the world.This art is style is very difficult to such the variety ,this ...
In Moscow, 50-year-old Modern Art Is a 4-month Wonder
IN MOSCOW, 50-YEAR-OLD MODERN ART IS A 4-MONTH WONDER. Share full article. By Serge Schmemann, Special To the New York Times. Oct. 19, 1981; Credit... The New York Times Archives.
What is contemporary arts?
Contemporary art is often characterized by its diversity, experimentation, and the use of new and unconventional materials. One defining aspect of contemporary art is its focus on reflecting the issues and concerns of the contemporary world. Artists often explore current social, political, cultural, and environmental issues through their work.
Boris Groys
Boris Groys (b.1947) is a philosopher, essayist, art critic, media theorist and an internationally renowned expert on Soviet-era art and literature, specifically, the Russian avant-garde. He is a Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Staatliche Hochschule für ...
what is contemporary art?make a 3 paragraph essay using ...
The art of the Philippines can refer to the visual arts,performing arts, textile art traditions, literature,dance, pottery, and other art forms in the country. Philippine Contemporary Art was an offshoot of social realism brought about by Martial. Contemporary art is the term used for art of the present day.
Marx and Engels On Literature and Art Preface.
Marx and Engels revealed the social nature of art and its development in the course of history and showed that in a society with class antagonisms it was influenced by class 'contradictions and by the politics and ideologies of particular classes. Marx and Engels gave a materialist explanation of the origin of the aesthetic sense itself.
Write a 500-word definition essay of contemporary art.
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries ...