The term ‘late age of print’ comes from the media theorist
Marshall McLuhan which began around 1450.
Art schools during this time taught painting, sculpture,
architecture, music and poetry all as separate disciplines as there was a very
obvious divide between the ‘high’ arts and all of the other disciplines.
Between 1760 and 1840 there was the industrial revolution which
evolved a more divided class system and the working class was formed. The
working class expanded from the countryside and into the city so that they
could be closer to the factories that were providing their income. The majority
of products produced during this time now came from mechanised machines and
were produced in mass.
The working classes communed together and created new forms of popular
entertainment such music forms, new forms of art; of which the upper classes
looked down on it and considered it to be ‘low’ art.
John Martin (1820) was one of the first artists who decided not to
work for one paying client and instead put his work in a commercial exhibition
and charged a large number of people an entrance fee to see his work.
Mass image culture
The mechanised machines allowed for the
mass production of images, allowing a large number of people to have copies of
the artworks and not just the privileged few. This began to annoy the upper
classes as they believed that the importance of art had been lowered. Matthew Arnold (1867) said that
culture is the best that has been thought and said in the world. It is the
study of perfection and can be attained through disinterested reading, writing
thinking.
Culture vs popular culture
Leavisism says that culture has always been in minority keeping
and now the working class have begun to ruin the status of culture by mass
producing artwork. The art/prints/comics created have sparked an addiction and
created conversation, whereas art makes you think about your surroundings and
the current problem/events in the world. The working classes approach to art as
an entertainment is more appealing as it is a lot more positive and leads to
socialisation.
‘AURA’ + the politics of print
Walter Benjamin explores ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction’ (1936) and questions how art responds to the popular culture of
design and how it preserves itself? Fine art is thought to keep the creativity,
eternal value, tradition, authority, authenticity and mystery that
technological reproduction of art cannot provide, known as the aura. Writers
and philosophers make art seem more important than it is, telling you how to
feel about the art/artist, focusing on the sublime which is seen to be greater
than humanity
Contemporary print culture
Artwork outside of the gallery (cultic place where you worship the
talent) is adapted and almost made a mockery of as the increased use of new
technology is allowing us to attack the traditional culture.
Philip James de Loutherbourg introduced a new form of art based on
perspective as it is framed, but there are actors and moving objects in the gap
etc.
The panorama, made famous by Thomas Hornor (1829), is a
photographic mapping of the world as if you are a God. These became more
popular than pieces of art as they allowed for an immersive experience.
Photography meant that there was no need for portrait
painting now as it was much cheaper, quicker and accurate than hiring a
painter.
Print
capitalism
This is the idea that images are made for the purpose
of profit and the system evolved from the industrial revolution, with its own
rules which replace culture with popular culture. Popular culture is not
answering to an elite force, is responsive, new and original, dynamic and
exciting, and affordable.
William Morris (1877) said that decorative arts are
sick because of a division of labour. He noticed the mechanical vs.
intellectual approach to artwork and printmaking and highlighted that the craft
worker was reduced to a mere labourer.
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