Marxism and the History of Art: From William Morris to the New Left (Marxism and Culture)

286 Pages·2006·4.38 MB·English

by  Andrew Hemingway

MARXISM AND THE
HISTORY OF ART
From William Morris
to the New Left
Edited by
Andrew Hemingway
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
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First published 2006 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Andrew Hemingway 2006

The right of the individual contributors to be identifi ed as the authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2330 8 hardback
ISBN 0 7453 2329 4 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Illustrations vii
Series Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Andrew Hemingway
1. William Morris: Decoration and Materialism 9
Caroline Arscott
2. Mikhail Lifshits: A Marxist Conservative 28
Stanley Mitchell
3. Frederick Antal 45
Paul Stirton
4. Art as Social Consciousness: Francis Klingender and
British Art 67
David Bindman
5. Max Raphael: Aesthetics and Politics 89
Stanley Mitchell
6. Walter Benjamin’s Essay on Eduard Fuchs:
An Art-Historical Perspective 106
Frederic J. Schwartz
7. Meyer Schapiro: Marxism, Science and Art 123
Andrew Hemingway
8. Henri Lefebvre and the Moment of the Aesthetic 143
Marc James Léger
9. Arnold Hauser, Adorno, Lukács and the Ideal Spectator 161
John Roberts
10. New Left Art History’s International 175
Andrew Hemingway
11. New Left Art History and Fascism in Germany 196
Jutta Held
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vi MARXISM AND THE HISTORY OF ART
12. The Turn from Marx to Warburg in West German Art
History, 1968–90 213
Otto Karl Werckmeister
Notes on Contributors 221
Notes 223
Index 268
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Illustrations
1. William Morris, Pimpernel, wallpaper, 1876.
V & A Images/Victoria & Albert Museum. 16
2. ‘Carved Heads of Maori Chief’s Staves’, from Henry Balfour,
The Evolution of Decorative Art, 1893, fi g. 23.
Courtauld Institute of Art: Photographic and Imaging. 20
3. Illustration of tattooed heads, fi gs 31 and 32 from Alois Riegl,
Stilfragen, 1893. Courtauld Institute of Art: Photographic and
Imaging. 24
4. ‘Tawhiao, The Maori King’, from Illustrated London News,
14 June 1844, p. 576. Special Collections, Senate House Library,
University of London. 26
5. Giotto, The Confi rmation of the Rule of the Franciscan
Order, fresco, Bardi Chapel, S. Croce, Florence, c. 1320.
Photo Alinari. 54
6. Nardo di Cione, The Damned (detail of Last Judgment),
fresco, Strozzi Chapel, S. Maria Novella, Florence, 1354–57.
Photo Alinari. 55
7. Andrea Orcagna, Strozzi Altarpiece, tempera on wood, Strozzi
Chapel, S. Maria Novella, Florence, 1357. Photo Alinari. 56
8. Théodore Gericault, Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf, crayon
lithograph, 1821. Private Collection, London. 60
9. Richard Newton, A Will O Th’ Wisp, coloured etching.
Private collection. Photograph: Warren Carter. 76
10. C.J. Grant, Reviewing the Blue Devils, Alias the Raw
Lobsters, Alias the Bludgeon Men, wood engraving, c. 1833.
Private collection. Photograph: Warren Carter. 78
11. J.C. Bourne, ‘Working Shaft, Kilsby Tunnel, July 8th 1857’
and ‘Great Ventilating Shaft, Kilsby Tunnel’, lithograph.
Photograph: Warren Carter. 84
12. James Sharples, The Forge, steel engraving, 1849–59. Private
collection. Photograph: Warren Carter. 86
13. Pablo Picasso, Guernica, oil on canvas, 349 × 776 cm, 1937.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Photograph: Archivo Fotográfi co Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. © Succession Picasso/DACS 2006. 100
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viii MARXISM AND THE HISTORY OF ART
14. The Punishment of Dirkos by Zethos and Amphion
(the Farnese Bull), fi g. 43 in Emanuel Loewy, The Rendering
of Nature in Early Greek Art, 1907. Photograph: Warren Carter. 126
15. Apollo from Tenea, fi g. 27 in Emanuel Loewy, The Rendering of
Nature in Early Greek Art, 1907. Photograph: Warren Carter. 127
16. Henri Matisse, Nasturtiums with the Painting ‘Dance’, oil on
canvas, 191.8 × 115.3 cm, 1912. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Bequest of Scofi eld Thayer, 1982 (1984.433.16).
© Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2006. 135
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Series Preface
Esther Leslie and Mike Wayne
There have been quite a number of books with the title ‘Marxism and …’,
and many of these have investigated the crossing points of Marxism and
cultural forms, from Fredric Jameson’s Marxism and Form to Terry
Eagleton’s Marxism and Literary Criticism, Raymond Williams’ Marxism
and Literature, John Frow’s Marxism and Literary History and Cary Nelson
and Lawrence Grossberg’s Marxism and The Interpretation of Culture. These
titles are now all quite old. Many of them were published in the 1970s and
1980s, years when the embers of 1968 and its events continued to glow, if
weakly. Through the 1990s Marxism got bashed; it was especially easily
mocked once its ‘actually existing’ socialist version was toppled with the
fall of the Berlin Wall. Postmodernism made Marxism a dirty word and
class struggle a dirty thought and an even dirtier deed. But those days that
consigned Marxism to history themselves seem historical now. Signs of a
regeneration of Marx and Marxism crop up periodically – how could it be
otherwise as analysts seek explanatory modes in a world that, through 15
years of perma-war and the New World Disorder, is deeply riven by strife
and struggle? Anti-capitalism and anti-globalisation conceive the world
as a totality that needs to be explained and criticised. Marxism, however
critically its inheritance is viewed, cannot be overlooked by those who make
efforts to provide an analysis and a consequent practice.
Our series ‘Marxism and Culture’ optimistically faces a pessimistic world
scenario, confi dent that the resources of Marxism have much yet to yield, and
not least in the cultural fi eld. Our titles investigate Marxism as a method for
understanding culture, a mode of probing and explaining. Equally our titles
self-refl exively consider Marxism as a historical formation, with differing
modulations and resonances across time, that is to say, as something itself
to be probed and explained.
The fi rst two books in the series address popular or mass culture. Mike
Wayne’s Marxism and Media Studies outlines the resources of Marxist
theory for understanding the contemporary mediascape, while also
proposing how the academic discipline of Media Studies might be submitted
to Marxist analysis. John Roberts’s Philosophizing the Everyday uncovers
the revolutionary origins of the philosophical concept of the everyday,
recapturing it from a synonymity with banality and ordinariness propounded
by theorists in Cultural Studies.
The present volume shifts the attention to ‘high culture’. Taking
into its broad scope the insights of a number of key fi gures in Marxist
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x MARXISM AND THE HISTORY OF ART
aesthetics, the volume draws a balance sheet. Marxism’s directedness
towards transformation might make it sit uneasily in a discipline which has
characteristically been about the analysis of objects that are property, objects
that are in many ways related to conservation, tradition, preservation and
value in its monetary guise. However, this volume reveals the pertinence of
Marxist theory to manifold aspects of the art world: the materiality of art;
the art market and the vagaries of value; the art object as locus of ideology;
artists, art historians and art critics as classed beings; art and economy; art as
commodity; the analogism of form and historical developments. The book’s
fi nal chapters weight the analysis towards the moment just prior to ours,
with the ascendance of the New Left in Visual Culture Studies. We hope that
the research here stimulates further study of the contemporary relevance of
Marxism in the fi eld of culture, addressing further themes such as the role of
funding and the role of the gallery, questions of recuperation, the demands
of technology. We await proposals on these and other themes!
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Acknowledgments
The project for this collection arose out of my experiences of teaching art-
historical methodologies over the last 25 years and the frustration I have
often felt that the interpretative and political tradition that is the foundation
of my own thinking is so poorly represented in current literature about the
discipline. The fact that so many friends have encouraged me to pursue it or
offered to contribute confi rmed that a publication along these lines is needed.
Two events in particular served as further encouragement, namely the session
‘Towards a History of Marxist Art History’ that I co-organised with Alan
Wallach for the College Art Association annual conference in Philadelphia
in 2002, and the international conference on ‘Marxism and the Visual
Arts Now’, held at University College London later in the same year and
organised by Matthew Beaumont, Esther Leslie, John Roberts and myself.
Both of these were well attended and prompted vigorous debate. Some of
the conversations they started have since been continued in the ‘Marxism and
Interpretation of Culture’ seminars at the University of London’s Institute
of Historical Research. I must also mention the important work that has
been done by Paul Jaskot and Barbara McCloskey in initiating and running
the Radical Art Caucus of the College Art Association. Its sessions, too,
have continued to prompt fresh thinking. In addition to those mentioned
above and the contributors to this volume, I want particularly to thank the
following individuals for the stimulus I’ve received from their conversations
with regard to questions of Marxism and art history in recent years: Warren
Carter, Gail Day, Steve Edwards, Stephen Eisenman, Al Fried, Tom Gretton,
Paul Jaskot, Janet Koenig, David Margolies, Stewart Martin, Fred Orton,
Adrian Rifkin, Greg Sholette, Peter Smith, Frances Stracey, Ben Watson,
and Jim van Dyke. As always, Carol Duncan’s companionship and support
have been vital.
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