[PREV - ON_THE_SCHOLES_OF_PARADOXY]    [TOP]

ARTS_AND_KRAFT

                                                      April 11, 2014

Robert Scholes, in "Paradoxy
of Modernism" touches on some            ON_THE_SCHOLES_OF_PARADOXY
of the oft referenced works by
Walter Benjamin:

He complains about Greenberg's "insistence
that kitsch is 'mechanical and operates by
formulas.'", and comments:

   "We can clarify this problem by rethinking
   Walter Benjamin's distinction--"

   "The actual oral storyteller, whether epic
   or more humble, worked with formulas at every
   level--"

   "Formulas belong to crafts; mechanical
   reproduction belongs to industry.  They are
   very different things, and the tendency of
   the Modernist critics to equate them is a
   major [source of their confusion]."              In the original quote,
                                                    Scholes' employs his
                                                    own invented jargon:
                                                    "-- is a major aspect of
                                                     Modernist paradoxy."
Later Scholes talks
about art vs. craft:

   " ...  the level of craft, as
   opposed to art, perhaps, or the
   level of entertainment--"

Can we speak about "craft"
in opposition to "art"?

   I think craft refers to *how* and
   *who* produced an art-- it's only
   loosely connected to the effect
   of the art.

   Crafts can produce an art in a popular mode
   (e.g. "kitsch" or "entertainment") or it can
   produce a more elite form with a appeal to a
   smaller niche.

   Note that industrially manufactured or
   electronically transmitted art might actually
   be the work of a few lone creators.

   I think there's a confusion here born of the long
   era where mass media such as movies and television
   were *expensive*, and hence the product of armies
   of creators working in elaborate management
   hierarchies.


            The actual trouble with "mechanical
            reproduction" (really, with mass media)          SIN_OF_FORM
            is that it makes many creators embarrassed
            about re-trying an idea until they get it
            right.

            The doctrines of novelty, of pure creative
            genius, are the enemy of evolution...


--------
[NEXT - SIN_OF_FORM]