Marxist aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics
based on, or derived from, the theories of
Karl Marx.
It involves a dialectical and materialist,
or dialectical materialist, approach to the
application of Marxism to the cultural sphere,
specifically areas related to taste such as
art, beauty, etc.
Marxists believe that economic and social
conditions, and especially the class relations
that derive from them, affect every aspect
of an individual's life, from religious beliefs
to legal systems to cultural frameworks.
From one classic Marxist point of view, the
role of art is not only to represent such
conditions truthfully, but also to seek to
improve them (social/socialist realism); however,
this is a contentious interpretation of the
limited but significant writing by Marx and
Engels on art and especially on aesthetics.
For instance, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, who greatly
influenced the art of the early Soviet Union,
followed the secular humanism of Ludwig Feuerbach
more than he followed Marx.
Marxist aesthetics overlaps with the Marxist
theory of art.
It is particularly concerned with art practice,
with the prescribing of artistic standards
that are deemed socially beneficial.
This materialist and socialist orientation
may be seen to invoke (however problematically)
the traditional aims of scientific inquiry
and the scientific method.
Some notable Marxist aestheticians include
Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Lifshitz, William
Morris, Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht,
Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Antonio
Gramsci, Georg Lukács, Terry Eagleton, Fredric
Jameson, Louis Althusser, Jacques Rancière,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Raymond Williams.
Roland Barthes must also be mentioned here.
Not all of these figures are solely concerned
with aesthetics: in many cases, Marxist aesthetics
forms only an important branch of their work,
depending on how one defines the term.
For example, a Marxist aesthetic may be latent
in Brecht's work, but he formulated his own
distinct theory of art and its social purpose.
One of the chief concerns of Marxist aesthetics
is to unite Marx and Engels’ social and
economic theory, or theory of the social base,
to the domain of art and culture, the superstructure.
These two terms, base and superstructure,
became an important dichotomy in The German
Ideology (1846), which however was not published
during their lifetimes.
Likewise Marx's early Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844, which, though widely
regarded as important for treating the themes
of sensuousness and alienation, first appeared
only in 1932 (the slated 1846 publication
was canceled) and in English only in 1959.
The manuscripts were therefore unknown to
art theorists during, for instance, the often
antagonistic debates on art in the early Soviet
Union between the constructivist avant garde
and the proponents of socialist realism.
The controversy over the unusual design of
the original documents adds another twist.Many
theorists touch upon important themes of Marxist
aesthetics without strictly being Marxist
aestheticians, Joel Kovel, for instance, has
extended the concepts of Marxian ecology which
deeply implicates aesthetics.
He is also a part of the struggle to bridge
the space between Marx and Freud, which has
Marxist aesthetics as a central concern.
Current themes within the field include research
on the effect of mass-produced industrial
materials on the sensed environment, such
as paints and colors.
A strong current within the field involves
linguistics and semiotics, and arguments over
structuralism and post-structuralism, modernism
and post-modernism, as well as feminist theory.
Visual artists, as diverse as Isaak Brodsky
or Diego Rivera and Kasimir Malevich or Lyubov
Popova, for example, for whom written theory
is secondary, nevertheless may be said to
be connected to Marxist aesthetics through
their production of art, without necessarily
declaring themselves aestheticians or Marxists
in writing.
Likewise, in this spirit Oscar Wilde, Dziga
Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc
Godard, Pablo Picasso, Richard Paul Lohse,
for example.
Such a view could apply to many visual and
other artists in many fields, even those who
have no apparent and/or voiced connection
to Marxist politics or even those ostensibly
opposed; in this respect consider Anton Webern.
Probably it would be fair to say that two
of the most influential writings in Marxist
aesthetics in recent times, and apart from
Marx himself and Lukacs, have been Walter
Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age
of Mechanical Reproduction, and Herbert Marcuse's
One-Dimensional Man.
Louis Althusser has also contributed some
small but significant essays on art and his
theory of ideology also impacts in this area
("Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses").
The field remains polemical, with camps of
modernists, post modernists, anti modernists,
the avant garde, constructivists, social realists
and socialist realists all referencing back
to an ostensible Marxist aesthetic theory
that would underpin their art practices by
grounding an art theory.
== See also ==
Marxist literary criticism
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
Text Etc: Literary Theory: Marxist Views (formerly
Poetry Magic)
Understanding Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Verso
Books, 2003, ISBN 978-1859844182.
Aesthetics and Politics: Debates Between Bloch,
Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin, Adorno.
1980.
Trans.
ed.
Ronald Taylor.
London: Verso.
ISBN 0-86091-722-3.
Adorno, Theodor W. 2004.
Aesthetic Theory.
London: Continuum.
ISBN 0-8264-7691-0.
Brecht, Bertolt.
1964.
Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic.
Ed. and trans.
John Willett.
British edition.
London: Methuen.
ISBN 0-413-38800-X. USA edition.
New York: Hill and Wang.
ISBN 0-8090-3100-0.
---. 2000a.
Brecht on Film and Radio.
Ed. and trans.
Marc Silberman.
British edition.
London: Methuen.
ISBN 0-413-72500-6.
---. 2003a.
Brecht on Art and Politics.
Ed. and trans.
Thomas Kuhn and Steve Giles.
British edition.
London: Methuen.
ISBN 0-413-75890-7.
Daly, Macdonald.
A Primer in Marxist Aesthetics.
London: Zoilus Press, 1999.
ISBN 978-0-9522028-1-3
Eagleton, Terry.
1990.
The Ideology of the Aesthetic.
Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
ISBN 0-631-16302-6.
Marcuse, Herbert.
1978.
The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique
of Marxist Aesthetics.
Trans.
Herbert Marcuse and Erica Sherover.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on Literature
and Art.
Nottingham: CCC Press, 2006.
ISBN 1-905510-02-0
Singh, Iona.
2012 "Color, Facture, Art and Design", Zero
Books.
ISBN 978-1-78099-629-5.
Tedman, Gary.
2012.
Aesthetics & Alienation, Zero Books.
ISBN 978-1780993010.
Rose, Margaret A. 1988.
Marx's Lost Aesthetic: Karl Marx and the Visual
Arts.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-0521369794.
