Neumann, David L.

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 2 | Issue 3 Article 7
1932
The Commercialization of the Arts
David L. Neumann
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Neumann, David L.. "The Commercialization of the Arts." New Mexico Quarterly 2, 3 (1932). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/
nmq/vol2/iss3/7
The Commercialization of t e Arts
By DAVID L. NEUMANN
GENIUS is able to produce 'itS best Ihtm -",orking formoney. W.([)rking for money is a Jrivilege implying
that the purchaser values the work suffiCliently to be willing
to give for it pra.ises more solid than theJ. most enthusiasti..C
critic. Some of the greatest artistic wotks were ,produced
in periods of very highly developed com1nercialization. At -
these times the greatest artists were atp~ce business men
and the heads of organized functioning places of business.
Orders for work they accepted as any n accepts a piece
of business. Their genius, instead of bing adversely af-
fected by their business circumstances, as triumphantly,
demonstrably, stimulated by the exact ons of their cus-
tomers. All the world today acknowledges t~eir creatiolils
as those of genilus. Then, as now, lesslr men prostituted
their art to please their patrons. GOOd artists' works, in-
stead Qf suffering from limitations impos .d by the ,contrfl,cts
they fulfilled were strengthefted thereby.I .A man might be
at once conscious of executing a <Vorl< ijlat met a need of
his customer and yet expressed the best that he had within
him artistically.. ' Today one hears onlyl disparagement of
the artist who commercializes his work. lrt is currently held
that the best creative artistic product re~lts.onlY from un-
trammeled' effort out of relation to comm cial demand.
It is our view that the professio~al. always exceptilllg
the occasional gifted a~ateur, has ~lwayf3, and ~iIl always,
produce the best work In -any field. The profeSSIonal knows
the demands of his business as a mattet of course and of
necessity. He understan~sit as only one who lives by it can
understand it. To him it is noindulgen e or avocation, no
plaything or intellectual ~ivertisement, b t a necessary day
by day pursuit, and while his view of is art may suffer
from a lack of perspective, it gains by tlis very lack. The
zealot and devotee in any field may thro\ sophistfcation alild
[ 224 ] --
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COM MER C I A LIZ A T I ~N O.F THE 1 ART S 225, I;
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urbanity aside :and openly ack ~wledge his ingenious I rus- < I
ticity. It is not given to the so . isticate to be possess d of t
creative genius: In genius therelis always naiv.ete.W cast· I
·out then the dilettante and the dtbbler, no ma~r how eat i
his talent may be, and. confine oJrselves to the professi naI. l
·Arbitrarily and for the sake OJ simplicity we aiso co~ fine J.~l'
ourselves. to the business of ;oiljpainting, letting the s tua- ~
tion of the painter stand for th't of any of the worke s in .r
, ~a
the ~rts, 'although we grant tha 'j it is not strictly anal o11s '
in each case, particularly in the~eof architecture. A chi~ I.
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tecture today in America is in any wars in far ha ier I
circumstances tha~ painting, b .', use it ha's been stIrn ~ ted ' I
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by a large and active demand f ,building., Painting is ur- ~ ·
, rently trammelled by the reIat' f~ly modern doctrin~ 0 the' ~ ~
. artist as a free spirit, free fr rf outside dictation an too ,
often free of commissions as w l~l. ' J
Today the architect is a busf ess man. More than 1 ely ~
his office is one' inwfllch many :Ierks and strict1y bus ess J
employees are kept busy. He < ~ as much concerned itb, '"
the details of contract law and 1e~ financing of the b ild- f
ings he designs as with the de)gn itself.. He has i his II
, office experts on many matters, lfrom specification w ers 1<
who investigate and purchase th i various materials th go L
into the building and make it t .eir work to keep in t uch !
with manufacturers of buildin j materials and to b I in- j.,
formed on what the market oire s, to engineers, frequ tly i"l.
second in imporlance in the fir I to the architect hi Ielf: g
who are concerned 'with struct :al prob~ems. .In 'the, ec- I
tion of a mode1"J1 building, the p '~jectrequires the co-o ra- I
tion of a large nllmber of specrl ~ontractors and a < ige j
range of expert knowledge whia,p begins in the office f a ~
· bank and progresses through tle plants of the man I
turers of building materials, thlUgh the various ()rga f
tions of the numerous special co lractors, and is only e de<! 1
, r: < • ':
when the completed design has t:e approval of the 'arch ct i
in all of its ~spects, and when pi ments have been mad .~
his approval to the parties .and 'rms which have com ·f
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226 ] T keN E W M E X leo QUA R'T E R L Y
gether to erect it. This complex- busin ss and technical or-
ganization does not limit the artistic f ~dom of the archi~
tect himself. On the contrary, it relie es h,im of' an enor-,
mous, an overwhelming mass of minuti ,e, and releases him
so t,hat he is the bett:er able to consider ~.s artistic prOble,ms
as such. Yet nothIng so clearly mar' s the problem the
architect faces as the fact that in all d ils his own inten-
tions and artistic conceptions. are ri dly limited by th~
nature of the project. By its purpose, he shape of the lot,
the financial limits of the owner, the uilding code of the
locality, and most pointedlj by the taste of the owner in all
details, from the ornamentation· to th selection of mate-
rials" the artist's concept is framed.' f course, today in
the building of large buildings the own r, having employed
an architect in whom he has confidenc , is not .apt to dic...
. tate the details, as these are too many a d not in his imme-
diate experience, nor for that matter i the immediate ex-
perience of anyone individual. Out of his complex and in
many yespects rigid system, have cOIlle ~me of the wodd's
masterpieces of 'architecture, and at lea t one fundamental -
and revolutionary building principle- he steel cage con-
struction. One hears no complaint that artistically, archi"'T
tects are prostituting, themselves beca se they quild for
money and accept commercial transacti ns as the basis I of
their art. These comments would eva rate of their own
demonstrable invaIiditY~ The one and si pIe answer is t16t
good artists, working as architects~ are day,. in the milieu,
suggested above, producing firSt rate artistic creations.
How is it that the same atmosphere iss id to be so fatal ~
the painter? Is his genius so fragile hat he cannot do
business and retain his respect as a cr tive worker, or is,
'there some fundamental difference\betwe n oil painting and:
the art of building? There are many si ificant differences,:
but no fundamental one..Failure t9 re ognize this allows:
the paradoxical reconciliation of the wo attitudes, one'!
tacitly acknowledged, that is, that arch tects can do the,ir
best'artistically when engaged in a: com' ercial transacti(])n,:
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COMMERCIALIZATl~'~ OF THEARTS[ 12'1 ./
and the other, ~lf~rOUS1Y'inSiSte~'~pon, that pai:"'ters, 'I n- I
not. ~ilP~rs today are overw: elmed because they ~ st ~I'
the materIals, finanCIer, office gIr,' ,and all 01' the count· ss i
other functionaries whose skin t yabhor and whose f ~ I·
'tions they assume in an effort ~ get away from com r-i
cialization. They succeed, in doint.just the reverse and. reOj
swamped by all of the little insi~ifica.nces that th.e ar .~-J.:
tect, on a strictly cOlIUUercial b8f,3is, has taken' care of l~! I
others·b~cause.they do not rightl~have a~ything to ~do I th I
his art. By being a business maIl he. releases himself f m l
business. The oil p~i~ter, in ~s m~s.takena~ho:en~e.of b . s~-i
ness, has swamped hImself WIth ,11 of, the InSIgnIficant e-I
tails from which business organi~rtion, frank and syste a-ol
tized, would release him. Had h~ ~once more, as he ha I in I
rennaissance' Italy, his elaborate pusiness organization, 'sI
helpers, his color, grinders, his 'rowners" with their· fi:!.
. n', j
nitely shaped requirements, he w~ld, ~s pe seems to fee, hel
would not, be released from the eonditions which make oilI
paintingct~day ~~erything that it ~hould not be. His ge '~sl
as a ~reat1ve artIst ~ould be rele~ed, ~n~ he would fi~d IS~
happIness where Anstotle long aJo. pOInted Rut tha-t It y,l.
in "proper functioning." IJ . '. 1
It would confuse our :earch ~I we began by uphol nJ·
the brief that, to flourish, art m'ust be functional. In 'r~
preting "functi~al" in the broafest and most liberal os~
sible sense we---- u~t let our sea~~ ~egjn with tl?s pre s.ei
And at once we dIscover the keYlto the great differenc 1~
.the present sitqation of tJ1e oil 'fainter and th~ archi ct
Unfortunately lor painting, there, is no market today 0
a fraction of tpe paintings that ate being made. Oil pa tJ·
ers have come to regard' it as a s~red thing that 'they ri'"
with no regard for the ,future u~e to which their prct .
shall be put, making their gre~~. defect their great b 1~. _
cry. "Disinterested" painters~ind one of the school- 0t
~roblem of t~e toot~ache diSSOCiated from thetootp. " ist
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New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 2 [1932], Iss. 3, Art. 7
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228 ] The NEW M E X I <::: 0 Q'u ARE R L Y
interested:' painters indeed! What we, ha e need of is inter-.
_ested painters, painters who have some w sh to relate what
they do to the artistic needs of the time, a d if there is room
for only a small part of the painters' work when it is related
to our artistic needs, let the 'rest stop iPa:in ing and the bene-
fit will be general. - .
The whole 4uestion is inextricably tie up with tpe per-
verted but very. real concept of "Bohe ianism." Where
once it was true that artists were tempe tuous fellows be-
cause their' natures were tempestuous, it s now apparently
. ,
assumed that one has but to lead a te, .estuous life, act
eccentrically, openly h:l.ment the current conventionalities,
a:dopt a bizarre credo no matter what, and one is, ipso facto, I '
an artist r This tendency to the bizarre'i conduct seems to
,~ -'"
have become inculcated further into canva. If one is a con-
ve~tional work.~r o~ is someti~~sl~sstha* if. one is bizarr.e.
PaInters seem to strIve for strIkIng effect., They elaborate
on aesthetics, they arrogate to themselv s the function of
c:citicism and within themseives feel that 0 one but a prac-
ticing painter should yenture to· criticiz their paintings.
They beCome rational and will not ackn ledge that their
work proceeds from other than systemati principles, which
principles they erect into a philosophy of art and these
philosophies are as various~as the painte' s themselves. So
today painters as a body have come to be hought of as dull
fellows, wordy and indignantly vociferou and all but inar-
ticulate in the face of it; and haunting them everywhere
stalks the ghost of a Bohemianism that h s been left behind
by the very shop clerk. All that they h'a e left is the form
and the see~ng, and bewilderedly they si at their Dome or
La Rotunde with their silly beards and th ir pathetic deter-
mination to be devils. Those who becom apostates to this
view of life, who make compromises w' h fact, and who
adopt the -manners of society ~nd the co mercial bas~s, of
their art, may often be bad artists, but tho e who nurse their
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OFT H EAR T S J29 ~.
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Bohemianism do so bJuse they! ve nothing else to n~l:~
Among good .oil painteJ:s tOday 'o! e should'look long io ihe
baggy velvet pants and the seedYtbeards and berets at r sh
angles that serve to replace' tal~nt among t~~ crowd ,I !ho
h~te all tha~ is bourgeois an~ a'dqpt that hatredas a pr s-
SlOn and a lIf--e work. i'
But our problem is really his orical. When, in Fr - , e,
court painting overreached its d ~y, when Watteau was I ~ ly
a great painter of a day gone by,:and th~ things that he ·1ad ,
painted were so far out ofkeepi ,:,.' with the life of the, ~E.e
that they seemed more archaic, :s they do today, so f. . as
subject matter goes, than wolfrom many an earl~er ,I, n-
tury, when the Barbizon school lad really made a cant . u-
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tion to painting, when outline a": "drawing" were see, - to
be only conventions tacked onto; ainting by the psych pg- ,~
. ical habit of associating "isu. with tactile sensat '.s:
when the new ability to see nat; e was still ~ discove it
seemed as i~ the old ways of pa"nting were at an end fIt --
seemed that drawing with chartml from plaster casts, the.
ancient first step in thetraIning : :students, 'was a mis ~e ; - .
it seemed as if the business of ~ainting from a tech ·pal
standpoint was to be ~ntirel.y relde. ,Then the wo~d "I~a­
demic" came to be held in the' d~sfavour that adheres " '; it
today., Then all youngsters in ~e intellectual swim . ere"
intolerant of schools where dralii~ing was still taught nd
where the old masters were stilliheid masters and men prs
too. Then the technical discove ,.es seemed the only t mg
in all of painting:. Then painte~ forgot, an4 have not l er , ...
begun·> to remember that painting was once related .a ,
, larger life outside itself. They forgot that paint~rs s ~ eo: ~
times illustrated books or painted! portraits both on com :s-
sion and for pay; they ;forgot ~at painters h~d oncetiw-
cepted commissions for "decoratite or mural work/ suhl ret. -
matter predetermined.~Theyfd~got that ·great pa'intgsh~d come out of the DutCh schOO~r and tho.ugh they may ~d­
mIre and defer to some.. of the fine portraIt groups' don by
the Dutch mas~rs for various luilds, they appear no ~to
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230 ] The NEW M E X leo Q u ~ R E R L Y
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know tliat the 'very arrangement and posit' n of the numer-
ous individual portraits constituting thes canvases were
fixed by the importance in the guild Df th indivIduals por-
trayed. They forgot everything in their c 'ld-like enthusi-
asm for new discoveries: More than a ce tury has nursed
this mistaken devotion to painting for its~ sake, a devo-
tion to the endless painting of canvases thft had only their
difference from understandableness to rec(J)mmend them to
the spectator. Quick fame to the painter-!Who --devised the
most striking, the most outlandish, the m01t ,absurd.concoc-
tion. Certain intellectuals, devoted only t the admiration
of what they could not understand, have gi Em this painting
a faise faith in itself by virtue of critical approval. And
so we have the many ~nd confused theorie of what is good
painting today. We have Cubism, and we ~ve Modernism,
and we have Vorticism and, most pretentioI1jSlY and foolishly
named of all, we have Futurism. But--nl as always 'we
have o:ply two kinds of painting, good and d.
In this absurd battle of isms there e erges an unfor-
tunately mistaken attitude, foisted upon thp painter by the
wholesale rejection o~ nonsense by the pafon. This atti-
tude compels the artist, out of defense for his essentially
mistaken divorce from 'his job, to beli~ve t~at he who takes
a "job" lets himself down out of 'the high land rare atmo-
sphere of "disinterestedness" and descendsIto the vitiating
bourgeoisie earth eff practic~l affairs. If o~ly these' fellows
would understand that necessity is' th.e gra.ndmother of
beauty.
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