Sociology of Art: A Reader PDF
Preview Sociology of Art: A Reader
The Sociology of Art A Reader The Sociology of Art: A Reader provides students with an introduction to the funda- mental theories and debates in the sociology of art, using extracts from the core foundational and most influential contemporary writers in the field. The book is divided into five parts exploring key themes in the sociology and social history of art: • classical sociological theory and the sociology of art • the social production of art • the sociology of the artist • museums and the social construction of high culture • sociology, aesthetic form and the specificity of art. With the addition of an introductory essay that not only contextualises the readings within the traditions of sociology and art history, but which also draws fascinating parallels between the origins and development of these two disciplines, this book opens up a productive interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology and art history as well as providing a comprehensive overview of the subject. This book is essential reading both for students of the sociology of art and for students of art history. Jeremy Tanner is Lecturer in Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology and co- ordinator of the graduate programme in Comparative Art and Archaeology at University College London. The Sociology of Art A Reader Edited by Jeremy Tanner First published 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2003 Jeremy Tanner for selection and editorial matter; the contributors and publishers for their chapters (as specified in the Acknowledgements) All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The sociology of art: a reader/edited by Jeremy Tanner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Art and society. 2. Art—Social aspects. I. Tanner, Jeremy, 1963– N72.S6S62 2003 306.4′7—dc21 2003001918 ISBN 0-203-63364-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-63698-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–30884–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–30883–6 (pbk) Contents Preface viii Acknowledgements x INTRODUCTION: SOCIOLOGY AND ART HISTORY 1 PART ONE Classical sociological theory and the sociology of art 27 1 Karl Marx Marxism and art history 39 a social being and social consciousness (1859) 39 b art and ideology (1845/6) 40 c historical development and cultural traditions (1857/8; 1852) 43 2 Max Weber Art and cultural rationalization 46 a magical religion, salvation religion and the evolution of art (1915) 46 b the tensions between art and ethical religion (1922) 48 c art and rationalization in the western world (1904) 51 3 Georg Simmel symmetry and social organization (1896) 55 vi contents 4 Emile Durkheim Social structure, material culture and symbolic communication 59 a symbolic meaning and objectification (1912) 59 b symbolic objects, communicative interaction and social creativity (1912) 63 PART TWO The social production of art 69 5 Raymond Williams Marxism and the social production of art 77 a productive forces (1977) 77 b from reflection to mediation (1977) 81 6 Howard S. Becker art as collective action (1974) 85 7 Pierre Bourdieu but who created the ‘creators’? (1993) 96 PART THREE The sociology of the artist 105 8 Arnold Hauser the social status of the renaissance artist (1951) 113 9 Natalie Heinich the van gogh effect (1996) 122 10 Norbert Elias craftsmen’s art and artists’ art (1993) 132 11 David Brain material agency and the art of artifacts (1994) 137 PART FOUR Museums and the social construction of high culture 147 12 Jürgen Habermas art criticism and the institutions of the public sphere (1962) 157 13 Pierre Bourdieu outline of a sociological theory of art perception (1968) 164 contents vii 14 Paul DiMaggio cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century boston: the creation of an organizational base for high culture in america (1982) 178 15 Vera L. Zolberg conflicting visions in american art museums (1981) 194 PART FIVE Sociology, aesthetic form and the specificity of art 207 16 Karl Mannheim the dynamics of spiritual realities (1982[1922]) 215 17 Robert Witkin van eyck through the looking glass (1995) 221 18 Talcott Parsons Art as expressive symbolism: action theory and the sociology of art 233 a expressive symbolism and social interaction (1951) 233 b the cultural elaboration of expressive meanings and the evolution of art (1961) 238 References 245 Index 260 Preface THIS READER IS DESIGNED to provide students with an introduction to the fundamental theoretical orientations which have characterised the sociology of art from its nineteenth-century origins, in Marxism, to contemporary contributions. Readings have been selected which are both representative of the major debates in the sociology of art and lend themselves most strongly to informing contemporary theoretical debates between art history and the sociology of art. The introduction explores the development of both art history and sociology as new discourses which developed during the course of the nineteenth century in response to the development of modern social structures and cultural institutions. Consequently, many of the classics of sociological and art-historical thought – for example Weber and Wölfflin – have commonalities both in their intellectual back- ground and in the kinds of intellectual problems in which they are interested: the relationship between collective structures and individual freedom, cultural evolution and the systematic character of processes of cultural change. In other cases, essays which are now recognised as classics in their own fields – Panofsky’s essay on the methodology of iconographic and iconological interpretation and Karl Mannheim’s introduction to the interpretation of Weltanschauungen (worldviews) – were originally written in response to each other, and are much better understood in relationship to each other than in the disciplinary isolation in which they are normally read today. My introduction goes on to explore some of the reasons why art history and sociology developed in separate directions during the course of the twentieth century, and some of the more recent attempts to cross the disciplinary divide, most notably in the sociology of art of Pierre Bourdieu and Michael Baxandall’s critical art history. The core of the Reader consists in five parts each exploring a key area in the sociology of art: the classic theoretical perspectives of Marx, Weber, Simmel and Durkheim; the social production of art; the sociology of the artist; sociological preface ix perspectives on high culture and museums; sociological approaches to style and aes- thetic form. Each of the parts begins with a short introductory commentary. These commentaries discuss the main issues and approaches characteristic of the sociology of art in each of these areas, and in particular seek to characterise the distinctiveness of sociological from mainstream art-historical approaches, as well as pointing out areas where each discipline could benefit from deeper insight into and collaboration with the other. The intellectual background and key concepts of each of the selected readings are also introduced and explained in these introductory commentaries. Any selection of readings in a particular academic discipline, whatever claims it may make to being representative of its field – and I hope this Reader is representative – is also programmatic. This volume is no different. It has two primary goals. First, intellectual excitement: it includes work by some of the finest sociological thinkers from the nineteenth century until today – Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Mannheim, Parsons, Elias, Habermas, Bourdieu – all addressing problems which are crucial to our understanding of art: the social functions of high culture, the nature of artistic creativ- ity, the relationship between social structure and aesthetic form. Second, interdisci- plinarity: the best art history is, implicitly at least, sociologically informed, and the best sociology of art places questions of artistic agency and aesthetic form at the core of its research. Consequently, a primary aim of this Reader is to make it easier for art history students to see the potential reward of exploring sociological perspectives on art in a more systematic way, and for sociologists to regain access to a critical trad- ition in art-historical and art-sociological thought which can allow them to address contemporary problems in the sometimes more nuanced, aesthetically informed man- ner characteristic of certain earlier strands of sociological thought. Full bibliographical details have been given with each reading, for students wishing to return to the original source. Many of the original texts have been cut, and original notes and references omitted, where it was thought inessential to the main argument of the reading. Conventions of spelling and capitalisation, as also the use of language which might now seem unacceptably gender-biased, have been left unchanged.
The list of books you might like
