Fighting Back in the Culture War

By David Hamilton

High Culture is attacked as upper-class entertainment or a way the ruling elites achieve hegemony over the masses. The elitist argument is ideological rather than factual because working-class people are not barred from attending concerts. Politeness and good manners are essential but if they pay the fee they are entitled to watch a concert.

The definitions is also inaccurate. What is wrongly described as popular culture is manufactured culture crteated by Corporations to make money from the masses. It is also a means of social control- bread and circuses. It is not really culture but fashion and dissociates young people from their general culture and communities while guiding them to manufactured identities.

Even talented musicians are controlled by record companies by contracts. They are
legally obliged to perform in publicity videos chosen by the Corporation to market them to a particular section of the public. Hollywood action films are aimed at adolescents.

The distinction between traditional and real popular culture is not stark. Schubert and Beethoven used folk songs as motifs and popular culture has used classical influences for melodies and structure. Vaughan Williams is a fine example of the use of traditional folk music in classical works. Contemporary composer Peter Maxwell Davies has written pieces which incorporate or are inspired by folksong or folk melody such as An Orkney Wedding.

Traditional culture has depth: you can penetrate as far as you have the personal depth to do so. It also has a long continuity; Manufactured culture is exemplified by boy and girl bands who are created and marketed to appeal to young people as a commercial arrangement. These fads are engendered by the new Establishment.

When Bill Haley and his Comets first toured Britain in 1957 they were sponsored by the Daily Mirror; David Bowie's first tour in 1973 was also sponsored by a national newspaper.

The Hippy Fashion developed amongst bohemian sects in Haight Ashbury, California, and after a major hit record: “If your Going to San Francisco” by Scott MacKenzie national Chain stores across the west began selling kaftan coats and beads to young people. The phenomenon of “weekend Hippies” or “Ravers” grew up as professional people ceased shaving on a Thursday so they could look like Hippies for the weekend.

The Punk boom which was engineered by Malcolm MacLaren and Vivienne Westwood, from their clothing shop Sex. McLaren promoted a rock band of sneering youths-the Sex Pistols. Elvis Presley had an outstanding singing voice and natural presence but was controlled by his manager Tom Parker.

There is a proliferation of David Beckham clones wondering around in the sort of gear he advertises. I saw a young man in a Rock Bar recently with a Mohican haircut a 1970s fad but Beckham recently had one. These are sometimes described as “sub-cultures” by academics but are deculturation by Corporations and replaced when another money-spinning style appears.

National identity is being broken down into ethnic and sexual identities: not whether one is English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh but whether you are ethnic or gay.

Popular culture is distinct from the manufactured culture which is now called “popular culture”.

The ballads of Robin Hood or Medieval Mystery and Miracle plays with their pageants are examples. These grew out of the churches Corpus Christi Day ceremonies. These were very much produced by the guilds of tradesmen but were communal and not completely top down affairs like manufactured culture. The Music Hall was a popular entertainment but well to do people also attended. The performers were very talented and in complete control of their songs and the audiences.

There is little of Marie Lloyd left but there is of Libby Morris and Wilson, Keppel and Betty are one of the most original acts I have seen. They were not manufactured by Corporations. (1)

The great works of Europe grew from spiritual aspiration which is part of religious observance. Bach and my personal favourites Byrd and Tallis were church organists and imbued Christian spirituality and transformed it into profoundly uplifting music.

Throughout the 60s there were dishonest clergy who took their pay from the Church but tried to undermine it from within. Believing in “The Death of God” and promoting Marxism from the pulpit. John Robinson, The Bishop of Woolwich, dismissed the traditional idea of a “God up there” or “out there” and said God is love. What is love in the abstract?

The Closing of the Church to the public

Those responsible for traditional culture in the churches have retreated into little worlds when they should be welcoming a wider public, not capitulating to our deculturation. Churches and cathedrals' are constantly appealing for money from the public but seem not to encourage people to attend.

Sunday evening services in the Church of England are communion services which deter new worshippers as they cater for communicants. Take the popular service at St. Lawrences Ludlow, which use The Book of Common Prayer. They attract about 70 but held at 8 a.m; the less popular modern service with its average attendance of 17, is at the more social 9a.m. (2)

The clergy, the Synod are not interested in the views of people outside the Church and do little to attract them. They have closed their minds and see everything through the dogma of progressive services. I once remarked to a vicar that I gave up church when they destroyed the service by dropping the King James Bible. He was amazed! They are ideologically convinced that holding services in a vulgar, modern English means people can understand the services. You can not understand communication with God in a simple rational way but achieve a spiritual awareness through sublime language.

I tried to get information on concerts of The Linnaeus Ensemble who were playing at two churches but neither church replied to me despite leaving several messages. I mentioned this to one of the musicians and she explained: “Churches are like that!” Do these people enjoy hosting concerts for empty rooms? My helpers and I have had this difficulty with cathedrals too so we wrote to several and other venues to make a comparison.

Traditional culture is in retreat while manufactured culture is assiduously promoted. We never received a reply from Great St. Mary, Cambridge, Norwich Cathedral, or Gloucester Cathedral.

I attended a concert at Birmingham Conservatoire and was probably the only one in the audience not connected to the College or friend of the performers. Young musicians would gain experience and confidence by playing to a wider selection of the public. I wrote to the head of the Conservatoire but never received a reply. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert which was conducted by Margaret Faultless as a wider audience would have.

Zoe Poyser of Birmingham Conservatoire explained : “ We have a varied output of both public and educational activities that range from those involving students of the Conservatoire as well as external hirers such as Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Birmingham Music Service, Central England Ensemble, Schubert Ensemble, and Birmingham University Symphony Orchestra and so on. Our priority as an educational institution is to provide performance spaces and opportunities for our students, but this sits alongside and in harmony with our existence as a performance facility for hire.”

Art Galleries make great effort to welcome the wider public and offer many opportunities for education. The fabulous National Gallery in Trafalgar square has greeters who will answer any questions put to them by the public and many interesting books on sale as do Galleries of Contemporary Art such as The Tate in London and the The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Sarah Wilkinson of the Baltic was very informative: I often recommend that visitors spend some time talking to the Crew (gallery assistants), who have a thorough knowledge of the works on display. They are there to clearly provide an insight into the views and ideas of the artists themselves as well as listen to and discuss the ideas and thoughts of our visitors as well as their own. Many of them are artists themselves which lends an extra dimension to discussions on artistic practice and we know from our comments and audience research that visitors who have used this resource have a richer experience as a result.

The insularity of Church officials

The Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral said he would look at my email when he had some spare time: I heard no more. This is a great shame because Gloucester is a magnificent Cathedral with most beautiful cloisters and would also benefit from donations from the public. I asked for some information on the continuity of the choir: “I know its on the net but personal views are always more interesting and more engaging. I would quote you and mention the choir.” This was my intention throughout.

Those responsible for publicity do respond to explain how they try to attract audiences as Helen Simms at Gloucester Cathedral did. It is the clergy and directors of music who are insular.

Traditional Culture grows from religion. It is part of our continuity and is inherited from our ancestors, not specially created for our entertainment as a commercial operation. It is an historic continuity and though there are different periods and reactions one against another they occur within a continuous tradition.

Norwich Cathedral choir has impressive continuity. It was founded in 1096 and continues the tradition of choral worship today. It makes broadcasts and recordings and their repertoire is masterpieces of the Renaissance to contemporary by such as John Tavener and James Macmillan.

Yet when we contacted the Cathedral for information on their choir and its history we were ignored despite twice being told the Vice Dean would contact us.

The Reverend of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge replied to my assistant: "I am in no position to generalise about the issues you raise because I have not done any research or studied any academic surveys on the subject. I can only say that most people who come to Caius Chapel find it an intimate, warm and friendly place where people are given support if they look for it, and left in peace to say their prayers if that is what they prefer." That was not my assistant's experience which is a pity because it has a fine chapel and should have a wider audience.

A good example

The Dean of Kings College, Cambridge, was very polite and courteous and explained that he had introduced a welcoming system whereby he and the Chaplain stand at the door to welcome people as they arrive for the service, and to wish them well as they leave. “This didn't happen until relatively recently, and so I'd like to think we'd actually made progress in being warmer. Certainly quite a lot of people have said as much. On the other hand, it also has to be said that the very large congregations we generally get at King's, composed as they are mostly of one-off visitors, do mean that the actual personal contact is pretty limited. It's perhaps also important to remember that the Chapel is a private chapel which serves the community of King's College first and foremost, and so much of the personal contact for which we are primarily responsible happens outside the Chapel itself, in other parts of the College.”

The difference in secular venues

The Three Choirs Festival is not a Cathedral-led event, but organised by a separate independent charitable trust, the Three Choirs Festival Association. It is international rather than English music. Debbie Liggins was very helpful: “We hire the space (along with up to 15 other venues in each City) but with the benefit of 300 years of tradition i.e. the Cathedrals have us in their calendar in perpetuity, though we have to negotiate the terms every year.

The Three Choirs Festival takes place for a 10 day period only and rotates annually between the 3 cities of Hereford, Gloucester & Worcester. Yes, our main concert venue is the Cathedral in each city, but we are more interested in promoting the excellence of the festival with its international reputation than the various venues utilised. Thus we focus on our international soloists, resident symphony orchestra (the Philharmonia Orchestra) and the quality of the artistic programme. We advertise and place editorial in niche choral and classical publications and online event listing sites.” They use promotional material, e-newsletters, press releases.

They cherish the different character that each city gives to the festival, and thus undertake extensive publicity within each city every 3 years while putting on 'fringe' events for the local community.  (3)

Ludlow's excellent, world famous festival makes every effort to reach a wide public. They send-out 40, 000 brochures, have 13, 000 friends on their list and use a professional firm to to distribute them and they have many visitors from abroad.

They stage a Shakespeare play which is very atmospheric as it is put on in Ludlow Castle and, as the sky is darkening, Bats take to the wing and create a eerie atmosphere. This year it is much Ado About Nothing which, regrettably, has been set in WW2 Britain on VE Day.  Changing periods always ruins the play because it changes the associations of the time period.

In response to my The Neglect of English Classical Music Raymond Walker, Chairman Victorian Opera NW wrote: (4)

“May I say how strongly we at Victorian Opera endorse what you are saying. I agree with all you say about the composers mentioned. How could it be that the Cheltenham Festival did not give the premiere of Holst's Cotswold Symphony and that a Danish CD label Classico provided the first hearing of this symphony. And how dare a director Michael Berkeley promote his own work when he should be acting as an impartial director of the Festival. 2008 saw Balfe's bi-centenary yet nothing was given by R3. When last September RTE broadcasted a rare performance of Balfe's Falstaff 1838 the BBC wouldn't relay it even though it would have cost them nothing in royalties. We have just recorded W V Wallace's 'Lurline' 1860, a superb work, in readiness for his bi-centenary in 2012. Will Wexford or Buxton pick up a Wallace opera to perform? I doubt it without a deliberate shake up. I am disheartened by the fact that licence payers cannot get R3 to promote a wider coverage of classical music instead of pushing atonal and serial music that very few enjoy listening to.”

It is important to save English Music that is stuck in attics and garages and record it. The Daily Telegraph of 26 April 2004 had a feature on John Foulds when Birmingham Symphony Orchestra released their recording of "Dynamic Tryptich." Malcolm MacDonald, editor of music magazine Tempo: "There's no question he was a genius and one of the most significant English composers of the last century. MacDonald, found some scores in the British Library: "I got out a dozen pieces, and the first thing I opened was the Dynamic Triptych. I was blown away by it. This was music unlike any British composer of the time. I was amazed it was lying around, and no one was playing it.

"Foulds's daughter " took me to the garage, where there were two coffin-sized boxes full of sketches and manuscripts she's been left by her mother." Unfortunately, many of the manuscripts were damaged by rats and ants. In his book "Music Today" Foulds's, explained how, by strict diet and meditation, he had developed his clairvoyant and clairaudiant abilities. Much of his music, he claimed, was dictated to him by spirits."

Some of the greatest modern English music has been popular. Elgar, Tippett and Britten were very well received.

One who is keen to promote traditional music is Em Marshall founder of The English Music Festival and EM Records. I asked her why so many guardians of classical music looked inwards rather than outwards to a wider audience: She told me: “I suppose that maybe they feel it is "safer" keeping their concerts amongst a dedicated audience whom they know approve of the music, rather than opening it up to the general public, where they might experience more criticism? I don't really know - that's only a possible thought! Clearly if traditional music is going to survive it HAS to be opened up to as many people as possible - and it is unfair and narrow-minded to keep it from anyone who might want to listen. We are now publishing scores to make this music accessible to artists as well as making our own DVDs.” (5)

The common trait is that religious venues have become insular and cater only for themselves yet they are as a spine running through our national history and vital to the nation as a whole. When I was researching in St. Lawrence's, Ludlow, an orchestra was practicing for a concert. There was a stall for refreshments but “Brian” refused me a cup of tea! Perhaps I was not one of the club!

We have churches and cathedrals from those of accepted beauty and majesty to the eccentric as in Chesterfields twisted spire and these are repositories of our history as well as culture and should again be the centre of our communities.

It is my view that they should open up to the general public by advertising and putting on refreshments to perpetuate our culture not allow the forces of decadence to go unchallenged. Colleges of Education have a responsibility to do so because they are funded by taxpayers money. This could be done without cheapening the music by lowering standards, people must lift themselves up. Religion is the fount of culture and the clergy and directors of music have a duty to perpetuate that. Churches and cathedrals are spines of continuity through our national existence.

(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq7DGvfnr3U&feature=related

(2) http://www.rvwsociety.com/biography.html

(3) Peter Hitchins.The Abolition of Britain.1999. PP 105-135

(4) www.3choirs.org

(5) http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/44183/sec_id/44183

(6) The next English Music festival is (1-5 June 2012) http://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/

The Definition of Art

By David Hamilton

There is confusion about what art is. The qualities that make something art are intrinsic, not external. It is the artifice, the organising of elements, perspective, choice of colour etc, that make it art. The result is obtained by transforming reality and thus nature through human imagination and emotion and is realised by skill and technique.

The word Beauty (or beautiful) is descriptive if used as an adjective to express the response of the beholder to an object, or if used within a clear context; if used as an abstract noun it is universal, and therefore meaningless.

A significant difference between contemporary art and traditional art is the split between form and meaning. This Cartesian duality is the split between mind and body, subject and form. The split is in all the various forms and styles and substance and meaning, of the respective art forms. In architecture contemporary buildings look like objects they are not which is why they are given comic nicknames - The Gerkhin, The Cheese Grater, or Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral, The Mersey Funnel. The form is not related to function - the interior of a modern cathedral could be anywhere.

Traditional art develops within traditional forms and it develops the forms. In his Christian paintings of the fifties Dali adapted forms to his individual vision but they are recognisably traditional forms. Dali was a genius - contemporary artists are not. They need to shock to get recognition. Real Art grows out of tradition and provides sustenance, spiritual or worldly, for people rather than negative emotions like shock or offence that are harmful.

To Marcel Duchamp it was enough for an artist to deem something "art" and put it in an art venue. But it does not matter where you stick a urinal it is always a urinal with a specific non-artistic purpose. To say something becomes art because you put it in a gallery is very muddled thinking. I had an experience in the Ikon gallery in Birmingham where the only objects with artistic qualities are the water closets and washroom taps which had pleasing curves and smooth surfaces. But they are not art: they are objects for specific non artistic purposes.

It is not the context of underpasses that makes or unmakes street artist Banksy's work art or otherwise: it does not have artistic subject matter and is just technique. Artistic subject matter is realised through qualities of artifice and held together by purpose which concentrates the artifice and technique to the goal of producing art.

George Dickie and Arthur Danto held that works of art are objects connected to various social practices. This depends on beauty as some objects like the taps or a motor car can be beautiful but because they have non-artistic functions are not art whereas a painting is. To Dickie art is about being self-assigned but you can put a car anywhere, it is always a car and its function is different from a work of art even if it is beautifully designed. When Artists begin to create they have a purpose and an artistic end in mind and to bring this into being they use appropriate technique. They do not take into account aerodynamics, say, or how fast water pours out or precisely where its trajectory will take it as these are not part of the artistic purpose. They are to engineers and designers of those objects.

This is the institutional theory of art which is a theory about the nature of art that holds that an object can only be art in the context of "the artworld". Whatever an artworld is.
Danto wrote in:The Artworld: "To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an art world." That has nothing to do with the work itself but where it is. Art is practice not theory.

Nothing can make Duchamps "readymades" art because they were made for a specific non-artistic purpose. Theory does not change a pile of Brillo cartons in a supermarket into art, yet Danto thought if it was put in a gallery a substantive transformation took place. Andy Warhol's pretentious Brillo Boxes (a pile of Brillo carton, replicas actually, so they are doubly pretentious) are a pile of Brillo boxes wherever they are put.

Dickie's institutional theory can be assessed from the definition in Aesthetics: An Introduction: "A work of art in the classificatory sense is 1) an artifact 2) upon which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation." On the contrary, what makes something art is the intention of producing art through artifice and technique successfully realised.

Tracey Emin and Damian Hirst have declared works to be art because they say so. They were promoted and financed by Saatchi who first declared their works art but he is not an artist. It is critics and elite art buyers who decide what is art and usually because of its commercial value but that is external to the work, not intrinsic. They are right about the commercial value of objects but not about its classification as art because designating something as art because it has commercial value is to apply external or non intrinsic criteria as the standard of judgement. Some people are supposed to think they are Napoleon or royalty but does that make them so?

This takes us back to Duchamps folly. This argument is that because he placed it in a gallery it became art. To say something like Damian Hirst's pickled shark is important is pretentious. It is supposed to make us think but by taking the shark out of context (the sea) it is rendered meaningless because it is deprived of its being which is its life, and its function to swim and hunt. It habitat and how it lives in are essential not extraneous. A graffito by Banksy is not it is added to the environment not part of it.

Picasso: "Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs." Well, he has dismissed proportion but that is only one part of the whole.

Splodgeness Abounds

Commercial galleries need to appeal to a buying public and be more popular than avante garde painters yet they follow the fad of impressionistic landscapes that lose their meaning by technique over imaginative vision: the scene is obscured by splodges of paint! This obtrudes between the scene depicted and the viewer and causes a disjuncture in the meaning. This is technique over intuition; skill over the knack. By contrast the camera can elevate the knack over technique as one makes an artistic judgement on what to photograph. It gives a clear reproduction of the scene not splodgy brush strokes that could be anything from a cloud or wave or a sunbeam to just a slip of the brush. These smears festoon every commercial art gallery in the country. This effect is demonstrated by comparing these with photographs of the same scenes.

Public Art

Fills our ordinary lives with meaning and provides different feelings as they have different purposes.

Trying to shock people is petty and there are many more responses. To shock is a means to the end of making themselves rich because the elites reward these attacks on our Art. It is as though they have a brief to undermine our artistic traditions. They have minor imaginations which cause only one response whereas a work by a major artist like Dali prompts several emotional responses.

A Liverpool pub, The Jacaranda, has a mural in the downstairs bar which John Lennon had a hand in painting when he was an art student, and this creates fascination and joy at the thought of someone so famous being part of it. The painting is well executed but not devoted to a high purpose, but conveys feelings because we know who was involved.

The Peter Kavanagh, also in Liverpool, has a delightful mural based on Dickens characters in the snug-bar. The story is that an artist who was a regular customer in the 1930s could not afford to pay for drinks on account, so he painted the mural. It produces delight and merriment, adds to the pubs character and raises it above the ordinary. ]

Statues are stylised and used to convey various human qualities. Military heroes say, were shown in proud and honourable poses that suggested authority, fortitude, steadfastness such as Lord Nelson's famous column in Trafalgar Square. They were cast in forms that conveyed meaning but contemporary public art fails in that elementary intention as the meaning is disjunctured.

I spent a few days in Shrewsbury recently. It has honoured its famous local Charles Darwin by "public art". But does it succeed in its purpose? One known as Quantum Leap is dissociated meaning as the form is not directly linked to the subject so there is no representation. The title Quantum Leap actually refers to something in physics not evolutionary biology which was Darwin's study. It is probably the contemporary informal term for making a major leap forward but applied to something celebrating Darwin confuses rather than elucidates. These contemporary artefacts arouse no curiosity and one does not feel inclined to enquire about them. They cannot be taken seriously as there is no spirit of genius behind them; rather, a commercial motive which are part of contemporary popular fashion and do not gain gravity from tradition. Quantum Leap looks like an armadillo crossed with a pack of cards and seems to be influenced by popular film Jurrasic Park rather than Darwin.

The Darwin Gate is three separate structures which unite to create an apparently solid structure. What does it mean? How does the form convey the meaning? The sculpture apparently combines the form of a Saxon helmet with a Norman window inspired by features of St Mary's Church which Darwin attended as a boy. They claim that as darkness descends defused light shines through the columns suggesting stained glass windows with the tops of the posts resemble ecclesiastical arches. When it unites it resembles the shape of a church window. However, there is no connection with Darwin and the transmission of meaning to the public is split. It is called The Eggbeater.

 

Even ordinary works can, if in surprising places, prompt a myriad of responses. The Nags Head in Shrewsbury, has an unusual and painting with an obscure origin. It has an unusual context in being on the inside door of a cupboard in a room above the pub. There is a strange atmosphere up there, where the temperature can plummet in seconds. Some think the painting depicts Neptune, others, the Devil. It is thought to be by a prisoner of war during World War II but staff at the local Rowley's House Museum purvey only a mystic tale but no accurate record. One told me it is of a woman who committed suicide by jumping from an upstairs window. In this legend it is said that the female figure will return if painted over. The painting is not of a woman but there is an ambiguity as the figure has feminine legs which are disproportionately long and thick, and a short body. This painting prompts wonder, amusement, mystification, delight.

Rowley's House museum holds the excellent Morning View of Coalbrookdale by William Williamse. (3) An important function of both painting and photography is to reflection a way of life or, as in this case, a defining historical era. There is too little representation of ways of life in contemporary art and fiction and people need this affirmation of themselves. These engaging paintings convey a powerful impression of the impact of early industrialisation on a still natural landscape. There are many forms of art which convey something important to people and prompt a variety of responses. Shock is just one: it is negative and it is unimportant.

Saint Alkmunds church in Shrewsbury, has a beautiful and moving stained glass in the east window. This is The Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Francis Egington. In this the Virgin Mary at the end of her journey through life and about to ascend to heaven. She is standing on the firm ground of the cross; with the Bible as the word of god for guidance and the sacraments represented by the chalice. The struggles of life are symbolised by thistles on the path. She is looking up in faith at the symbolic crown with her arms outstretched and open to heavenly influence as if she were asking and waiting to be uplifted back to her home in heaven. These were developments by Egington the artist who based the work on The Assumption of Saint Mary by Guido Remi of 1638 which is a more conventional Assumption painting and has Mary being lifted by Cherubim.

As you enter the church you are transfixed and walk towards it in awe looking up. It immediately begins to form an emotional response and the feeling of awe grows as you advance. This is not an intellectual proposition but a deep feeling of transcendent emotions.

 

This acts like great art, on a deep, unconscious level like an archetype. It opens the imagination transmitting holy or noble feelings in contrast to the degenerate contemporary art which spreads negative and evil thoughts. Old works have a quiet authority and the viewer pauses to contemplate it with respect, as when looking at old gravestones, to recreate the departed. It is a development of traditional form and links us with our roots.

The contemporary age is one of excess of technique. Jeff Robb, who has a permanent exhibition at the Victoria and Albert, uses a method of lenticular sheets which are only sold by one firm which is in Switzerland. This is very clever and often fascinating but the subject matter is ordinary - nudes. His art is the cleverness of what he does with the subject but he does not transform the actual subject. Jeff needs specific equipment and ink cartridges to produce his results. Technique is important but should be guided by the vision not for its own sake or it is empty form.

The qualities that qualify a work as art are intrinsic to art in general but Art with a capital "A" has an elevated, sublime, purpose and is only realised by a high quality of conception and execution. A visual object or experience created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art covers various media: painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation. The various visual arts exist within a continuum that ranges from prompting deep feeling or transcendent emotion and great skill to reproducing figures or landscape which have a mood and also prompt thought or feelings.

Kimbolton School has murals by Pellegrini. They give a sense of grandeur and seriousness and create a suitable frame of mind for study.

 

 The modern understanding of art derived from Abbe Batteux in the 1740s who regarded the essence as an "imitation of nature" and, principally, that it caused pleasure. They cause various mental states in the beholder. He defined these mental states as pleasure and the experience of beauty. Prior to this, individual modes of art were attached to various sciences like Music to Mathmatics but this is the skill not the purpose. Kant promoted a universal criteria to decide if something was Art. He used a geometric idea of patterns of shapes and lines. In The Critique of Judgement he developed the notion of beauty as the cause of the the mental state. The problem is beauty is so abstract as to mean something different to everyone, though it is a word that describes the individual appreciation of something very pleasing.

English philosopher Michael Oakeshott described two sorts of knowledge:

"The first sort of knowledge I will call technical knowledge or knowledge of technique. In every art and science, and in every practical activity, a technique is involved. In many activities this practical knowledge is formulated into rules which are, or may be, deliberately learned, remembered, and, as we say, put into practice; but whether or not it is, or has been, precisely formulated, its chief characteristic is that it is susceptible of precise formulation, although special skill and insight.

The second sort of knowledge I will call practical, because it exists only in use, is not reflective and (unlike technique) can not be formulated in rules... "
In art, this equates to the distinction between natural talent or genius and the skill and technique which realises the vision and meaning. Soccer players show a high degree of skill and to great players it is natural but developed by coaching and practice, but there is no high purpose involved.

Technique or genius; skill or a knack

There is a phenomenon in English art: a seven year-old Kieron Williamson. He has an indefinable knack that is called genius. This is artistic judgement in the practice of painting when one knows instinctively what to put and where. He has natural qualities: perspective, choice of colours. He has them automatically but perspective is a technique for realising the vision and choice of colours is part of the expression of the vision.

This knack is the artistic judgement. It is a non rational process - it is intuition or instinct and it is this that technique realises. In Kieron's case it was triggered by the Devon and Cornwall landscape and "sprung full-born into life" like Athena from Zeus's head. It was instantly realised, not slowly educed. (2)

To clarify the working of the two functions of form and content, technique and vision we have a fine example from music. Music was suffering the same culture war as painting and was dominated by atonal styles and was saved from an unexpected quarter. It was a paradox:

What we know as the culture wars and political correctness could not have made progress if it had not been adopted by the popular musicians of the 1960s. The words to The Beatles hit Get Back were developed from a spoof of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech. Paul McCartney later turned into a more conventional rock song.

McCartney and John Lennon wrote melodies and through harmony revived tonal music. Atonalists were destroying traditional classical music as composers Schoenburg and Stockhausen did with water gurgling down a drain noises. The Beatles natural musical genius was realised through the technique of producer George Martin: The Beatles were raw talent, Martin supplied the form.

McCartney and Lennon upported the New Left and McCartney had a single banned by the BBC for apparently supporting the IRA ; Lennon was figurehead of the New Left-Politically Correct movement and his records like the album "Sometime in New York City" promoted it. He donated to The Black Panthers and The IRA.

Atonal composers disdained their audiences as Bourgoise but Lennon and McCartney brought them together. Martin's skill at realising their meaning added to the whole and triumphed over the split between form and meaning in contemporary music.

Martin wrote the orchestral arrangements and instrumentation in collaboration with them. It was Martin's idea to put a string quartet on "Yesterday". To demonstrate his point he played it in the style of Bach to show what "voicings" could be used. To realise "Penny Lane" McCartney hummed the melody, and Martin wrote it in music notation and David Mason, the classically trained trumpeter played it in a piccolo trumpet solo. Eleanor Rigby was heightened by Martin's strings-only accompaniment inspired by Bernard Hermann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho.

For "Strawberry Fields Forever", Martin combined two different takes into one. For I Am the Walrus he provided an original arrangement for brass, violins, cellos, and vocal ensemble. He worked closely with McCartney to develop the orchestral 'climax' in A Day In the Life.

The Artistic Subject

When he became a Christian, Salvador Dali found an artistic subject and the inherent spirtuality of the subject gave him a fuller, more elevated vision and he painted the masterpieces of the twentieth century. He was a skilled draftsman who developed his skills of realisation by studying Renaissance masters. Much criticism of Dali was because he supported General Franco rather than the Marxism of the orthodox Surrealists and art critics. They were ideologues and like all ideologues expected their members to conform to the manifesto or have their thinking corrected. Breton banned Dali from The Surrealist movement in 1941 and tried to ban his "Sistine Madonna" from the International Surrealism Exhibition in New York in 1960. It is said that Breton a Trotskyist, called Dalí in for questioning on his politics as his political allegiances had changed. After World War II, Dalí became close to General Franc's movement and issued statements of support. He congratulated Franco for his actions aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces" met him personally and painted a portrait of his granddaughter.

His fascination with the hypercube a four-dimensional cube and unfolding of a hypercube is featured in "Corpus Hypercubus" which changes the traditional form but it is still recognisable and we know what it represents. His "Last Supper" and "The Christ of St. John of the Cross" are the masterpieces of the twentieth century. This brings us to the essence of great Art: genius and inspiration.

Contemporary painters and makers of installations show contempt for the audience and do not work for the public good. They seek a response but it is a negative response. They are not geniuses and have to shock to get noticed. In fact they are not really artists - but purveyors of clever tricks without deep meaning. Art is communication but contemporary art fails to communicate because of a disjuncture between subject and beholder, form and purpose.

The indefinable knack is intuitive practice called genius. This is artistic judgement in the practice of painting when one just knows instinctively what to put or where. This knack is the artistic eye, artistic judgement and it is a non rational process - it is intuition or instinct and it is this that trained and developed technique realises."
John Dryden captures it :"But genius must be born, and never can be taught." It is the technique that is taught not the genius, which is inborn, as the qualities that make a work art are intrinsic to the work, not external nor contingent on where the work is put.

The difference between nature and art is this. When I point my camera at something that pleases me I first use artistic judgement but I record natural phenomena. If I take a sunset it is reproducing nature and is not art but nature. However, if I then use the zoom function, it has the effect of condensing the distance and thereby magnifying the gold or red which is moving from nature to art because it is introducing a technique to change the reproduction of the natural phenomena and make an artistic end. I recently took several photos of a sunrise in Penzance Bay in Cornwall and sunset at Brighton. There is little technique involved and as long as you point the camera at the right thing you are away. The camera is recording natural phenomena but a meaning is conveyed from photographer to viewer as the scene automatically conveys certain emotions to the viewer. In the above examples it is natural beauty. When you look at a photograph of a landscape a chain of thought is triggered which moves from the inherent emotional state conveyed to personal and often unconscious thoughts and feelings.

A similar process occurs in art as the idea or a scene is transformed through human imagination and emotion till it becomes a work of art: transformed reality.

(1) http://dilettantescholar.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/michael-oakeshott-rationalism-in.html

(2) http://www.kieronwilliamson.com/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203226/Pictured-Incredible-watercolour-paintings-boy-aged-just-SIX.html

http://www.magnoliabox.com/art/96482/Morning_view_of_Coalbrookdale_1777

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Culture not Colour?

By Tim Heydon

Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West

Is it about culture and not colour? This is the all-important question. Oswald Spengler thought it was. For him, culture was independent of race. The foundation of his theory that the West is in decline is that cultures are free-floating. They are as it were living things; organic , with a natural life –cycle of birth, growth, decay and death. The West has reached the period in its cultural life-cycle – ‘civilisation,’ when it is naturally in decline. Such a theory runs into difficulties immediately if it is associated with race, because race is not a temporary, changing aspect of human existence.

Spengler’s Theory accords with the Realities of Life

Spengler’s theory of our decline, which is of course a denial of the inexorable march of reason towards the sunlit uplands of utopia envisaged by ‘Progressives,’ does seem to fit into the realities of the world we live in while Progressivism does not. Everything we see about us; ourselves, the plants and animals, the mountains, plains and seas on the earth, the earth itself, the sun and other stars, the galaxy we live in and the very universe itself (according to some astronomers at least ) – they are all at some stage of the same kind of cycle. So the thought arises: why on earth is human culture supposed to be different? This thought is purely intuitive, of course. Nevertheless it shouldn’t be dismissed on that account. It fits into an overwhelming pattern of reality and because it does, the onus of proof is on those who believe in Progressivism. And there is little in modern human history to give comfort to the notion that in a secular world we are all getting morally better and better. Au contraire. The idea that human beings have somehow managed to escape the bonds of the natural doesn’t seem to be scientific; It is a form of faith: it’s religious – but religion without spirituality and therefore without the necessary motivation.

There is much which appears to support the Idea that Culture is unconnected to Race

If culture is unconnected to race, which is considered to be unimportant, it is easier to be thought of as English or Scots or Welsh or Irish or whatever regardless of one’s racial origin. In support of the idea of the exclusive importance of cultures is the fact that there have for example been several civilisations /cultures in the British Isles although the racial character of its people has remained remarkably unchanged throughout recent millennia, at least until very recently. This is despite the perversion of history visited on us by those eager to deny it. These cultures have ranged from that of the shamanistic hunter –gatherers of the Palaeolithic to the paganism of the Druids and the Germanic gods and then on through the Medieval Christian civilisation to Renaissance / Reformation Christianity and so to the debased secular ‘culture’ of ‘modernity’ which is built round belief in nothing – literally.

Agriculture came from the Near East

Furthermore, the major changes in culture which have occurred in Britain have not been the result of the kind of mass invasions which some people think are the sole reason for cultural / civilisational change. As noted above, until very recently there has been little alteration in the racial makeup of the inhabitants of these islands. This is true regardless of the relatively minor influxes of other peoples (such as Germanic / Norse settlers or the Huguenots) who were mostly in any case virtually identical racially and culturally. The arrival of farming which signalled the Neolithic era, a truly momentous cultural event which radically changed the lives of humanity forever, came with a few settlers from the Continent having spread from the Near East.

‘The English have two books; Shakespeare and the Bible. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England’ - Victor Hugo

Much later, Christianity, earth-shakingly important culturally as well as religiously, arrived thanks to the efforts of a few missionaries from the Continent and Ireland, also having spread from the Near East.

Classical Learning strengthened by Scholars from Byzantium.

Classical learning, the civilisation of Greece and Rome was salvaged in Europe during the so-called Dark Ages by Monks and the teaching reforms of Alcuin in the Carolingian Renaissance. Islamic Scholars contributed something to the transmission of such works as those of Aristotle. But the most significant impact of the classics on the West arose through the arrival in Italy of Christian scholars fleeing the Islamic takeover of Constantinople. This arrival proved a decisive shot in the arm for Classical learning in the West.

The Importance of Protestantism

Protestantism, which did much to shape the native British, helping to give them their once - characteristic attributes of decency (good manners, respectability), modesty (‘British understatement’), emotional restraint ( reserve, undemonstrativeness, ‘stiff upper lip’), stoicism, hard work (the Protestant work ethic) and self reliance (through the ‘priesthood of all believers,’ ‘ we are captains of our souls’ ), though it had forerunners in Britain flowered on the Continent and came here from there. These gifts of Protestant Christianity also included assumptions of individual autonomy which, together with a sturdy lack of whole-hearted reverence for power inherited from their Saxon forebears, lay behind the growth of the democratic traditions of the British. And we have all come across members of other races who, at least when they interact with the native population, seem to be just like them culturally.

Political Correctness is Foreign

This country is now dominated by Political Correctness. This ideology is a function of Continental Philosophy which arrived in Britain principally via the USA.

So those who believe that it is Culture, not Race that matters – they have strong Case, don’t they?

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Culture not Colour? Part 2

Oswald Spengler: Cultures are the Products of Particular People. ‘Mankind’ has never discovered anything.

So is it culture rather than race that matters? From the foregoing, so it seems. But look a little deeper and a different picture emerges. To go back to Oswald Spengler; although he denied the role of race in the creation of cultures, he also denied the ‘Progressives’ view that the historical reality is that there is one ‘mankind’. For Spengler, ‘Mankind’ is a zoological concept. ‘Mankind’; he wrote, ‘has never discovered anything.’ History concerns only the particular; particular groups of men living at particular times in particular places. It is they who have history and produce a culture. Universal mankind does not differ and therefore does not have history. This view is in fact compatible with the proposition that race and culture are inextricably intertwined.

It’s ‘Culture’ that counts is a ‘Nurture’ Theory

The first thing to notice is that in the context of the nature / nurture debate, the idea that it is culture, not ‘skin colour’ ie race that counts is a nurture theory. Nature is more or less ignored. But why should it be? We know for example, that IQ is 83% - 8 4% heritable in European adults. The high heritability of IQ suggests that IQ is largely determined by genes. (Richard Lynn, ‘Race Differences in Intelligence’ p28 ). IQ accurately predicts socio-economic status and a swathe of behaviours such as drug addiction, crime, single parenthood and smoking. Nature is it seems highly important in determining intelligence and all that flows from it in what might be termed as personal culture in a broad sense. So why not the culture of a nation? And why not then in high culture as well as the culture of everyday living?

The Dismissal of a Red Herring: ‘Skin Colour’

But what about Races? How far are they different through genetic inheritance, and does this affect culture? First though, let’s dispose of the red herring of ‘skin colour.’ Taken at is own value, skin colour per se can’t simply be dismissed as some would like it to be. Our skin colour is a function of the latitudes we live in. It is a characteristic which marks us out as people of the North, and the North West in particular, helping to make us as much a part of the fauna and flora of these islands as any native plant or animal; a feeling which is a deep part of our culture. For here is where our ancestors had their time, here are our roots. This is where we belong and our skin colour helps to tell us that and binds us to those who share this inheritance. It is not only USA blacks coming back to Africa who need and are entitled to their roots.

Apart from this feeling which suffuses the sensibilities of the native British whether they know it or not, skin (and eye and hair colour and other aspects of our looks) is otherwise an intrinsic part of our culture. There are innumerable allusions to it in our language. In ordinary speech one can be a pink and white rose, or tall dark and handsome (meaning dark haired). One can be fair-skinned or have fair hair, but also, ‘that’s fair’ we say, meaning that it is just. In an old usage it means ‘beautiful’. ‘Fair’ in all these linked senses comes from Old English ‘faegar’ meaning ‘pleasing’ or ‘attractive’. Our skin colour too leads on to myriad other aspects of culture. For example, our paleness suits restrained colours in our clothing while the dark skins of other races are best set off by brighter colours.

Skin Colour is the Outward and Visible Sign of Interior Differences

John Baker FRS was an Oxford Biologist whose book ‘Race’ published in 1974 remains a standard work on the subject. It was praised by the Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar in the following terms; ‘No Book known to me tries to encompass everything relevant to the idea of race with such thoroughness, honesty, serious and decency.’ Prof. Arthur Jensen of UCLA said of it: ‘A most impressive display of profound scholarship and vast erudition. .. As a noted biologist, Baker provides the essential basis upon which any objective, rational and scientific discussion of racial differences must proceed.’ Recent DNA and gene expression studies have confirmed the reality of race beyond all reasonable doubt.

John Baker FRS on ‘Skin Colour’ and its Link with mental / temperamental Characteristics

Here is what Baker had to say: ‘The question arises why so many people say or imply that the races differ only in skin colour, when this is obviously untrue.(Emphasis added). Those who minimize racial differences, by speaking as though the only distinction between a European and (for instance) a Chinese or a Negro were of skin colour, appear unwittingly to admit that recognition of the more fundamental differences that actually exist might affect people’s views on the ethnic problem; for it might be regarded as unlikely that such differences could co-exist with exact similarity in the parts of the body concerned with thought and feeling.’

And those physical differences and differences of thought and feeling certainly exist. ‘The idea that the existence of manifold physical differences between certain ethnic taxa makes it probable that there are also inborn differences of mental potentiality, is by no means confined to persons trained in biological science. As Professor H J Muller has written, ‘to the vast majority of geneticists it seems absurd to suppose that psychological characteristics are subject to entirely different laws of heredity or development than other biological characteristics….Psychological comparisons of fraternal and identical twins have provided one type of empirical evidence in support of this conclusion.’ (‘Race’ pp182, 183)

Baker and J Phillippe Rushton

Baker goes in to some detail on the subject of the physical and mental differences between the races, relating them to the civilisations they have respectively produced, or in the case of negrids, have not produced. So too does J Phillippe Rushton who is Professor of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. In the latter’s book ‘Race, Evolution and Behaviour,’ (P5) we find a table in which the physical characteristics of three main racial groups are linked to their respective mental and temperamental characteristics under the heading ‘More than Skin Deep’:-

Average differences Among Blacks, Whites and Orientals

Click to enlarge

Rushton’s Newtonian synthesis and the r-K Life History Theory

It has been Rushton’s achievement to bring together various lines of thought and the results of hundreds of studies pursued by many others as well as himself into a theory of racial development in what Richard Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster described as a ‘Newtonian synthesis’ worthy of a Nobel Prize. The differing data about the various races are explained by applying to them the r-K Life History Theory first promulgated by the Harvard University biologist E O Wilson. This is now ‘a basic principle of modern evolutionary biology’. Every species of plant or animal, including human beings can be placed on the r-K scale. The r-strategy (for ensuring gene survival) involves having more offspring (like frog spawn or turtles), maturing earlier, having smaller brains and providing less parental care. The K end of scale means having fewer offspring, maturing later, having larger brains and providing more parental care. Human beings are the most K species of all. Among humans, Orientals are the most K, Blacks the most r and Whites fall in between’.

Why did northern peoples develop their K strategy? As human beings spread out of Africa, ‘their bodies, brains and behaviour changed. To deal with the colder winters and scarcer food supply of Europe and North East Asia, the Oriental and White races moved away from an r-strategy towards the K- strategy. This means more parenting and social organisation which requires larger brain size and a higher IQ’ (‘Race, Evolution and Behaviour’ p 89). K –strategy has many implications for human beings. For example; larger –brained babies require wide hips to be born. So Whites cannot run as fast as Blacks with their narrower hips. Blacks have more testosterone than Whites, so they are more capable of explosive action than are Whites – hence their success in sprint running, boxing etec. And so on.

The Implications of Baker, Rushton et al for Civilisation / Culture

It should be obvious from the above that race differences will lead inexorably to differing kinds of society and levels of culture /civilisation based on the differing characteristics of the races. It comes as no surprise that Orientals – mainly the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans - have a reputation of being extremely conformist, hard –working and (compared to other races) docile and law abiding. Likewise it is no surprise that sub-Saharan Africans have never achieved any kind of higher culture. As for Whites, we are not on average as intelligent in some respects anyway as Orientals, but we can comfort ourselves with the thought that our greater individuality and dynamism combined with our still-high intelligence has led us to be the world’s great inventors, innovators and discoverers.

Conclusion: It’s not Skin Colour / Race or Culture

We have seen how this country has taken on board key cultural influences from abroad (a fact, incidentally, which negates the idea that we need to import millions of foreigners in order for our culture to be ‘enriched’). But we have also seen that white people in general (like the other races) have powerful innate characteristics. Our own race partakes of these and, it is reasonable to think, has bred its own variety in these islands. Without outside influences these characteristics would tend to produce a particular type of society and culture in the circumstances in which our race has found itself historically. So the conclusion we draw is that our present culture is the product of our own racial characteristics and cultural tendencies reacting in a unique way with cultural influences from abroad to produce a civilisation, something new, which is our own. This civilisation which we have created would not exist if we were not the people that we are. But neither would it exist without those imported cultural influences. Race has been a necessary cause although not a sufficient one in the production of our culture, just as it has been a necessary cause in the production of all civilisations.

What about the USA?

But some may point to the USA and say; ‘Here is a society which is founded, not on race, but on ideas only: it is a cultural country, a ‘credal’ nation’. Aping the supposed superiority of the USA was Gordon Brown’s idea when he tried to redefine Britain as being founded on ‘fairness’. (Hilariously, he was immediately jumped on by an Asian pressure group which accused him of ‘racism’ in suggesting that ‘fairness’ was a particularly British characteristic). It lies behind Cameron’s pushing his ‘core principles‘ of ‘Britishness’ such as freedom of speech, the rule of law and democracy. (His own version of these characteristics which excludes the BNP as far as possible, naturally.) He has not been jumped on – yet.

But no society can exist only on ‘ideas’. Gordon Brown may have a Doctorate in History (albeit on Scottish Trade Unionism) but he seems not to have realised that the USA was always far more than the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. It was from the first a North European, Christian and specifically Protestant country.

Now that it is in the process of reinventing itself away from these characteristics, it is also in the process of falling apart socially and perhaps, eventually, politically as well. The idea that it will be much the same as it always was when the White population becomes a minority in the not too distant future is a pipe dream, nothing more. The innate characteristics of its new population will determine its character in the future, not its written constitutional documents (which can be made to mean anything) or ‘culture’.

And the same is true of Britain. The USA will survive longer than this country, because it is vast and can accommodate difference better than we can. What is to become of this tiny, crowded country when the native British are a minority in it? One thing is certain. It will no longer be British in any meaningful sense. The outlook is grim. Is the best we can hope for to be another, larger Lebanon?