Marxism and Aesthetics: A Critique of the Contribution of George Plekhanov Author(s): Lee Baxandall Source: The Journal of Aesthetics

and Art Criticism, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Spring, 1967), pp. 267-279 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/429015 Accessed: 18/09/2010 19:42
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Marxism
A

and

Aesthetics: Contribution of

Critique

of
George

the

Plekhanov

WHETHER

AND IN what

way Marxian

analysis relates to aesthetic questions has long been in dispute. While some have argued for a Marxian solution to every problem of art, others deny the possibility of any Marxian contribution. Many find the whole question confusing and, presumably, not worth the trouble. This paper will evaluate the Marxian approach to three central problems of aesthetics, the questions of creativity, public reception or taste, and the analysis and judgment of aesthetic structure, presenting the views of George Plekhanov as the point of departure. While Marxism has had much to say about a sociology of the arts, I will not deal with this question here, except as a sociological approach becomes relevant to aesthetics proper. George Plekhanov (1856-1918) is an obvious choice for orienting our discussion. Among Marxists he was the first to discuss art and literature systematically. He dealt with entire periods of national cultures as often as he wrote on single works, figures, and problems. His knowledge and sensibility were capacious. His findings were arrived
LEE BAXANDALL an editor of Studies on the Left is and teaches at the Free University of New York. He has written plays and articles on contemporary arts. With Stefan Morawski he is editing Marxists on Art and Literature: Major Documents, 18421944.

at in conscious reference to the German idealist and romantic aestheticians, among them Kant, Hegel, and Schiller-whom, as Marx said of his revisions of Hegel, Plekhanov sought to "stand on their feet." At the same time Plekhanov was productive in philosophy and political theory; he promulgated and headed the Russian revolutionary movement for many years, and was Lenin's valued preceptor, although their views came to differ in many respects. No pre-1917 Marxist was so articulate as he on the elements of aesthetic judgment. Marx and Engels to be sure provided the initial and essential impetus; but Marx never wrote the book he planned on Balzac, nor did he complete his encyclopedia article on aesthetics. He and Engels, in addition to a philosophical context, left only opinions on questions of art in letters, in paragraphs in works on other topics, and in tangential references.1a Contemporaries of Plekhanov, such as Franz Mehring, Paul Lafargue, Clara Zetkin, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, and Anatoli Lunacharsky, wrote also on problems of art but without his amplitude and seldom with his rigor. Following 1917, a Communist Party (or anti-Party) outlook and political urgencies engaged most Marxians to the extent that for the most part the questions integral to aesthetics have received less than their due. As George Lukacs lately re-

268 marked, the development of Marxist theory has stagnated for fifty years. The early Marxian thinkers could achieve a Promethean temper, an audacity, and a unifying outlook, rare since. One should not discount the numerous and in many cases important Marxian studies of the arts which have since been published,lb but the reasons for returning to the first outstanding theorist are solid. We can learn from Plekhanov, and check ourselves against him. His most important work in English translation is Art and Social Life, an analysis of conflict between art-for-art's-sakeand utilitarian attitudes toward literature in France during the nineteenth century. Plekhanov states that the critic is not to condemn or praise either view but to understand both in their class-situated relationships, even when utilitarians prove to have socialist views. Published in 1912, the essay was translated several times during the 1930's and perhaps was the single most influential model for American Marxian critics of that time.lc Less well known during the 1930's were the Letters Without Address (1900), and the French Dramatic Literature and French Eighteenth Century Painting from the Sociological Standpoint (1905).2 Letters Without Address explores the relationship of art and society among primitive tribes. Ibsen, Petty Bourgeois Revolutionist (1908)3 finds Ibsen's rebellion against all Scandinavian society and politics (including the ineffectual Socialists) to have been his artistic strength, but his limitation too, since it deprived the playwright of positive social symbols. The concrete analysis has aesthetic as well as sociological value. Plekhanov gave increasing precedence to sociological over aesthetic inquiry, and at times he let revolutionary preoccupations confuse his scientific detachment. We must distinguish the passages biased by political thought and hopes. This is not a procedure reserved only for analysis of Marxist theorists. Marxians are, like all men, enmeshed in historical process, making judgments which later prove qualified by their role in history. The revolutionary theorist is not more prone to error than is the politically uninvolved scholar, whose detachment from

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social life carries a different limitation on consciousness, surely no less damaging. With this in mind it is possible to reconstruct a Marxist aesthetic from the writings of Plekhanov.
INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE GENIUS

The arguments are well known against a Marxian contribution to understanding the creative act, particularly as manifested in works of genius such as Shakespeare's plays. The "social approach," this argument runs, may tell us much concerning second- and third-rate works of an era. It can tell us why the proliferation of sentimental bourgeois novels in early nineteenth century Germany, France, and England was a response to the democratized education of the expanding middle class. It can relate the formulas of these novels to the manners of the class for which they were written. But, continues the argument, does the "social approach" tell how a writer like Goethe could find his way through this convention to achieve The Sorrows of Young Werther, which exploited the mediocre fashions of the time (as its popularity among young wives testified), and transcended them? The "social approach," these arguments maintain, can discuss aspects of the creative act which are repeated, expected, and common; which have become formulas of the hack writers; which, in short, are no longer creative but the reenactment of what exists. This view relegates the "social approach" to reports on subjects and moods demanded of hack writers, and declares sacrosanct the originality of Goethe, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Balzac, and Faulkner. It denies Marxians the right to use their technique for qualitative as well as quantitative analysis, and ignores the fact that Marxism may be used conjuncturally with other approaches to obtain results. The Marxian aesthetician is not much interested in the "average" artistic effort, as a rule. He studies rather the architecture of that high, complex, and lonely edifice where genius has its practice. He begins obliquely, asserting the edifice is built on foundations of the concrete social relations within which

Marxism and Aesthetics the genius functions and learned to function. The Marxian emphasizes that humanity historically set out with the wearisome, wholly economic activities of staying alive, as the most primitive tribes still practice them. He demonstrates that on a subsistence level what we call artistic manifestations of primitives are indeed economic activities. Drawings are made in caves to charm beasts into letting themselves be killed; dances are performed to propitiate spirits who control the harvest. Excellent Marxian discussions of primitive artistic-economic phenomena exist, Plekhanov's among the earliest. The Marxian notes that an emergence from purely economic activity is repeated through history in each human life. The child lies in its natal crib preoccupied with the economy of its body's nourishment and growth. As the child develops it takes up activity not strictly concerned with survival: it smiles, plays, turns down its food, emulates grown-ups in their manifold activities. But this is only an apparent liberation from a primary determination by "economic necessities." The society, which for the child is focused in parents, may have a thousand concerns, and only a modicum of these, particularly in an era of automation and shortening work-weeks, may seem governed by men's economic activity. The considerations which shape actions may be multiple-but, the Marxian says, when we know the architecture of cultural life we see that the primary conditioners of our choice, however complex and seemingly distant from economic rigors, may be traced back ultimately to the economy and social structure. In America of the 1960's, the television programs absorbed by children (and adults) for dozens of hours each week, in their irresponsible quest for more viewers resulting in multiplied sex and sadism and the display of an adventurist code of conduct, stem chiefly from fierce capitalist competition between television corporations. What these children, some of them future artists, are told by their teachers, their parents, and mass media is in large degree shaped by the capitalist economy's struggle for its own growth and against
socialism.

269 demonstrate the ultimately determining role of the political economy, even in cultural activity. It is in this respect that artistic originality is a "superstructure," as Marx's phrase has it. Plekhanov offers a subtle discussion of the epiphenomenal, devious relation of culture to society and economy:
The adherents of dialectical materialism, which has replaced the dialectical Idealism of Hegel and his adherents, are customarily charged with the notion that the development of all sides of a people's consciousness occurs under the exclusive influence of the "economic factor." One could not present their views more falsely: they say something entirely different. They say that in literature, art, philosophy, etc., the spiritual essence of a society is expressed, and the character of the spiritual essence of a society is determined by the qualities of those interrelationships between people which comprise the given society. These relationships depend in the final analysis upon the stage of development of the society's productive forces. Each important step in the development of these forces results in a change in the social relationships of people and thus also in the spiritual essence of the society. The changes which have occurred in the social consciousness must also be reflected with more or less clarity in literature, in art, in philosophy, etc. But the changes in social relationships receive their impetus from the greatest variety of "factors," and which factor works more strongly at a given moment upon literature, art, etc., depends upon a number of second and third-range causes which relate to the general social economy in no direct relationship whatsoever. A direct effect of economy upon art and other ideologies is, generally, the rarest thing to observe. Mostly it is other "factors" which are effective: politics, And it is impossible to philosophy, etc.... enumerate these manifold interlacings of different "factors" in the different countries and in the different epochs of social development. The dialectical materialists know this very well. But they do not remain on the surfaces of appearances and they do not content themselves with pointing out the interaction of the different "factors." '

The Marxian does not find it difficult to

Thus in complex fashion, an artwork expresses the "spiritual essence of a society." But what of the elements injected by the individual who creates this "spiritual essence of a society"? Will Plekhanov not credit the artist with originality, with imagination? The answer must be obvious: only individuals gifted with originality can change the expression of "the spiritual essence of a society." The imitative and mediocre may popularize and debase the ex-

270 pressed distinctiveness of a society, while the more original and unique an individual is, the more he can contribute to making and reflecting an essence that is coming into being. This has been groundwork, necessary in view of prevalent misunderstandings of culture's architecture. The task of this section is to explore, as aestheticians rather than social theorists, from within the artistic act, the relevance of Marxian perspectives to an understanding of artistic creativity. In this area too, it is necessary to certify some basic facts which Marxians are sometimes presumed not to know. These include the truism that the artist at work is generally oblivious to his social function. As Plekhanov rightly declares, "the work of an artist... is for him an end in itself." 5 The guides he will use are his experience and imagination and these, in turn, are instinctual at the moment of creation. Instinct, Plekhanov has it, "is the necessary precondition for the success of artistic creation." 6 On the other hand, a creator is not an involuntary tool of social process-a beautiful artwork will express "the lyrical perceptions of a great soul." 7 How is the creator's lyrical expression enabled or hindered by his social situation? The originality of the artist and the linkage of his situation to his achievement are summed up in this phrase of Plekhanov's: "A great poet is great because he represents a great step in social development." 8 Talent and originality are not enough. The artist must exercise them to advantage within the opportunities of his social situation. The artist will need to observe not only the surface particularities of existence, and not only his own life; he will need to observe the significant social processes around him. It will (in part) be his ability to express these which will make him a great creator; hence he must exercise his freedom to make these events accessible to his observation and intuition. Plekhanov writes, "a man of genius who lives in public life foresees more exactly and better than others those changes which must occur in social relationships."8 The artist's funda-

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mental relationships-the family from which he develops, whom he marries, his class and status associations, whether he is a worker or insurance executive, a farmer or city dweller, college-educated or selfeducated, sedentary or well-traveled-these and many more contribute to the psychological probability of the artist's comprehending with genius the significant social processes of his time. In the analysis of these relations lies Marxism's relevance to the study of creativity in theory and practice.

As an example, before Balzac launched upon his Human Comedy he had a stormy and varied career. His life began in the provinces and was pursued chiefly in the world capital, Paris; he experienced separation from parents, boarding school, law studies, hack writing, owning and bossing a print shop, bankruptcy. Now, only a brilliant talent could have written these novels; the experience alone was not enough, as we observe daily from the lives of many who suffer much while learning nothing. Yet could the brilliant Balzac have created these masterpieces, had he not been savagely introduced to the nature of his society? Or Arthur Miller? His outstanding drama at this writing is still Death of a Salesman. Miller never was a salesman, but his father was a clothing manufacturer, and it is not difficult to see that his privileged place as his mind developed, close to his father, enabled Miller to perceive the salesman's symbolic and central role in a society where, for the first time in history, the critical economic problem became not the production of goods but getting rid of them by every means of persuasion and planned obsolescence. No denial of individuality is involved when we assert the creative act's relation to changing social relationships. As Plekhanov wrote of the artist:
"When he represents this step he does not cease to be an individual. In his character and in his life there are certainly very many traits and circumstances, which have not the least connection to his historic activity and which exert not the least influence upon it. But there are also certainly such traits which impart an individual stamp to this activity, without in the least altering its general historical character.8

Marxism and Aesthetics As a practical matter, the artist's exercise of freedom to make the social meaning of his time accessible to his observation and intuition requires of him a continuing round of difficult decisions. He alone must choose where to live, whom to know, what to do, how to keep alive; this freedom is beyond the insight and energy of most men, which explains the number of failed talents. Flaubert did better than most. Born a bourgeois, he, by a combination of circumstances together with his talent, was able to escape the enervating traits of his class and epoch. As Plekhanov wrote, he gained a larger objectivity because "he cared too little for the interests of the bourgeoisie." 9 On the other hand, Plekhanov saw definite limits to the possibilities of genius which derive from the artist's situation. The artist with the best will in the world cannot transcend objective limitations upon individual comprehension and creative expression in a period. Conditions must exist in a society that will permit society to produce individuals who understand and express it. Nothing else will explain creative achievement as in Periclean Athens, Medician Florence, Elizabethan London, when even mediocre craftsmen surpassed in quality the work of leading artists of less fortunate times and situations. We may compare the drama and painting in Italy and England during the Renaissance. Italy's painting was glorious; its drama was divided between ambitious but sterile apings of the classical stage and the unambitious but popular commedia del'arte. England had almost no painting but her dramatists continue to excite world audiences. We cannot evasively declare that no one talented in drama happened to be born in Italy, while no innately talented painters were born in England. The explanation would be located in the conjunction of Renaissance release of energies from hierarchic restraint, and the character of life in the two countries. Italians are dramatic in hanging a curtain or eating a sausage; there can have been little incentive to further dramatize their lives. The restrained English pour their sense of drama into formalized channels. The situation limits even the most conscious artist. In his monograph on Ibsen, Plekhanov

271 discussed the suprapersonal limitations on talent in relation to nineteenth century symbolism:
It is an involuntary protest by the artist against the lack of ideas. But it is a protest which has arisen on the soil of a lack of ideas, which has no determinate content, and hence loses itself in For our era's protest foggy abstraction.... against the lack of ideas in art, which has led to abstraction and chaos, to achieve a determinate content, the presence of such social conditions is necessary as currently are totally absent and which cannot be summoned upon command.10

In discussing class, status, friends, city, etc., as determinants of creative accomplishment, Plekhanov frequently displays acute insight.1l

Except for deviations which will be noted, Plekhanov did not believe that conscious didacticism or propaganda improved an artwork. Indeed he thought they often led to artistic failure. In a passage from a draft of Art and Social Life, which I assume he deleted from the final version as an accommodation to his friends' active propaganda activity, he went so far as to state:
The historical epochs in which artists incline to art-for-art's-sake bring forth a much smaller number of tendentious works, whereby the total of truly artistic creations is undoubtedly increased. The artist who is not distracted from his object by political passions is psychologically in a position to treat his object with the same concentrated attention as the scholar brings to the object of his scientific investigation. That is naturally a very great advantage for his work.2

Like Marx, who studied while at Bonn with the German romantic theorist, A. W. Schlegel, Plekhanov had great respect for image and metaphor, the particular artistic resources of the writer. His favorite among German aestheticians was Kant, whose distinction between image and metaphor, on the one hand, and the propagandist's logic and persuasion, on the other, he freely borrowed and applied in an attack on the young Maxim Gorky:
Mr. Gorky believes himself already a Marxian; he has indeed in his novel The Mother emerged as a proclaimer of Marx's views. But the same novel has also shown that Mr. Gorky is absolutely unsuited for the role of proclaimer of these views, for he understands the views of Marx not at all. ... If Mr. Gorky wants to preach Marxism then he might first take the trouble to understand

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Marxism.And Mr. Gorky will then bring to his failed response the Marxian will be parunderstandingthe not-so-terrifyingadvantage of ticularly acute in noting and analyzing. seeing clearly how little the role of proclaimer When he does so, his analysis will be (one who prefers the language of logic) is suited sociological but, for the most part, it will to the artist (one who prefers the language of
images).'3

One suspects the lack of sympathy stems more from a falling-out among revolutionaries than from the inadequacies of Gorky's novel, which is among the author's most successful works. Nevertheless the passage is important, for it explicitly identifies the Kantian aesthetic distinction with Marxian aesthetics. The consistency with which Plekhanov assimilates elements of Kant contributes to the primary importance of his views in any study of Marxian aesthetics.l3a

In summary, the Marxian finds no difficulty in acknowledging the uniqueness and originality of the artistic process. His contribution is rather to insist on the objective social conditions which feed the artist's imagination and ultimately (together with his talent) limit his achievement. We view the Marxian contribution as but one of several perspectives on artistic creation. Like the study of psychology, myth, artistic traditions, or language structure, Marxism illuminates important areas of the creative act. Critics and scholars may ignore Marxism at the cost of impoverishing their achievement.
THE AESTHETIC RESPONSE

We now concern ourselves with the capacity and nature of response to an artwork's distinctly aesthetic qualities. It takes no Marxian to tell us that appreciators and audiences may fail to respond because they are unable to cope with new or unfamiliar formal means employed by an artist. Much art now regarded as
classic-the symphonies of Brahms and Beethoven, the ballets of Stravinsky-was rejected scornfully at first. The audience had to gain experience of the new idiom be-

fore it was ready to accept innovations. In a class society, there are also numerous failed responses owing to disparate class educations where time and even exposure to a work is of little relevance. This kind of

also be aesthetic. The Marxian task is twofold. It must describe barriers to familiarity founded on disparate class educations. It must also locate the class barriers to response as posed in the aesthetic structure of a particular work. To the degree an artwork derives its aesthetic structure from the class-oriented consciousness of human beings involved in historical process, in however oblique or limited fashion, the responses to the artwork will be illuminated by Marxian aesthetic analysis of the social content of the work. The Marxian knows the arts may not be dealt with as though the idiom of sculpture were the same as that of music, poetry, dance, etc. Generalizations about style, period, genre within an art may as easily overlook the distinctiveness of each artistic creation. The formulation of Marxism's relevance to response or taste can only be applied with great care in each specific case. The sociological analysis of audience familiarity will always be appropriate; aesthetic analysis of class orientation in a work's content may not be appropriate. The class-oriented consciousness in the aesthetic structure of music, for instance, does exist13b but is seldom worth investigation in each particular work. On the other hand, the tonal combinations of Pergolesi, Mozart, Berlioz, Schoenberg, Sessions, and Charlie Parker, when compared and set in their historical situations, are most revealing of class consciousness in transition. These tonal combinations can be related to the music's reception among various audiences. In the most lyric and subjective poem the same is true of the objective correlatives of mood and atmosphere. Mood and atmosphere also have their class determinations, and may pose a barrier to taste and receptivity. The Marxian's definition of classoriented consciousness in aesthetic structure is not dependent on depiction in the artwork of man in history. The analysis is flexible and adjusted to the particular idiom of the work.

Marxism and Aesthetics Why does the class content of an aesthetic structure sometimes become a barrier to an audience? The answer relates to psychological empathy. The audience must be able to let its consciousness move and assimilate and expand inside an aesthetic structure. When empathy fails, taste cannot function; the response has been blocked. Blockage may be caused by distaste for a presumed idea of the work; or the audience may indeed try to extend its empathy, only to find the artwork does not yield to the audience's historically formed ideas, emotion, and imagination. Plekhanov has remarked, echoing Taine: "In order to follow successfully in Michelangelo's footsteps, one must be able to think and perceive as the great Florentine thought

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talized and debased by the conditions of their life and the art purveyed to them by the class in power. Folk art often is lost to them too, while the bitter irony and pessimism of a Brecht does not stylistically complement the worker's urgent hope of social advancement. The reaction of many Communist officials to problems of worker response consists of furthering only art which most directly and simply speaks for and channels the urgent hopes of social advancement. These officials show little understanding or respect for more difficult works like Brecht's, which require some aesthetic education of the working class before they become accessible to the broadest spectrum of working-class empathy. On a level of scienand perceived." 14 tific Marxism their attitude reflects a failPlekhanov offers the example of Push- ure to analyze the difficult works' aesthetic kin's Eugene Onegin and its reception structures from the standpoint of response. among the Russian working class. Onegin's On the practical Marxian plane, the capacactions and consciousness reflect the ener- ity and need of the working class to mature vated will and the ennui of the aristocracy. its taste is slighted. Overlooked too is the Proletarians in Czarist Russia, acquainted diversity of present capacities within the from a distance with this demeanor, could working class for an adequate response. not empathize with it even in a supreme A Marxian sociological analysis of these work of poetry. Their own condition was officials' backgrounds would find many of marked by exploitation and lack of leisure them limited, in their capacities to respond, which gave their imagination no basis for by their deprived origins in the working empathy with lassitude, its tensions and class and their long association with politivalue system. Not their ignorance but dif- cal types too busy for art. ferences of class background excluded the When Plekhanov accepted Taine's hisworkers from this masterpiece. toricized analysis of aesthetic response, he Said Plekhanov: "Poetic works which in qualified it with a Marxian analysis of one class or social level find great approval, lapses in empathy due to class and other for another class often lose almost all mean- social factors. To explain the experience of ing." 15 The same analysis may be applied art when an empathy lapse has not octo difficulties experienced by Marxist au- curred, he turned to Kant. Plekhanov too thors who, intending their writing to rejected apparent usefulness in an artawaken a response among workers, chiefly work as necessary to aesthetic pleasure. found their audience within the bourgeois "The beautiful appeals to people indeclass of their origin. The case of Bertolt pendently of any utilitarian considerations Brecht is pertinent. Brecht sought to whatsoever." 16 In some epochs consideraachieve a clear plot line, and uncompli- tions of utility might outweigh true aescated and lively language, and to incorpo- thetic pleasure, he added,l7 yet these use rate proletarian characters and a working- values were only a surrogate for aesthetic class attitude. Yet middle-class radicals and attributes. A psychological aberration liberals have afforded Brecht's most en- makes us think the pleasure we receive thusiastic audience. Workers do not nor- from such works is aesthetic, whereas it mally have leisure and encouragement to actually arises from thoughts provoked by develop appreciation of new and complex the images rather than from images. The art, while their tastes are often sentimen- true artist employs aesthetic rather than

274 logical ideas; "a work of art executed in images or sounds acts upon our contemplative faculty and not upon our logical faculty." If the beautiful arouses empathy apart from our conscious thought of personal or social good, he continued, this does not mean the artwork has no usefulness. "The individual can quite disinterestedly enjoy something which is very useful to his kind (to society)." This qualification does not contradict Kant. Utility has been postulated only as a possibility that in any case would not be functional in one's consciousness. Plekhanov goes further. The possibility of utility is transformed into necessity with this formulation: "The enjoyment of a work of art is enjoyment of the depiction (of an object, phenomenon or state of mind) advantageous to the kind, independently of any conscious consideration whatsoever of such advantage." 18 He added: "Naturally, not every useful object appears beautiful to social man. But undoubtedly only that which is useful-that is to say, of importance in his struggle for existence, with nature or with other social men-can seem beautiful to him." "In the vast majority of cases," he explained, "this utility can only be discovered by scientific analysis." 19 Kant's theory of response as Plekhanov adopted it to this point still does not go to pieces.loa Plekhanov offers an emendation rather than a contradiction. He also defined the basis for a socially directive art and criticism which would complement, rather than violate, the scientific spirit of his aesthetics of response as well as his sociological principle that "each one is right in his own way." If it was true that art did communicate something advantageous for the kind, the Marxian could help propagate aesthetic communications which would prove more advantageous than those from other viewpoints. He says,
It is our duty to declare the kind of criticism to which we rally, philosophical criticism or the criticism of combat. But to our misfortune, we are unable to do so, for we think that the truly philosophical criticism is at the same time a truly militant criticism.... Scientific criticism gives no prescriptions to art. It does not say: you must keep

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to such and such rules and procedures which are dominant in different historical epochs... it does not take up a position in favor of such or such school of art; and if... it takes a position, it does not justify itself, or at least its position, by invoking the eternal laws of art. In a word, it is as objective as physics, and that precisely for the reason that it is a stranger to all metaphysics. This very same objective criticism, as we have said, is a combative criticism in the precise measure to which it is truly scientific.20

Plekhanov offers a sketch of the way literature and criticism functioned combatively for all progressive historical classes on their way to power. The combative role of literature and criticism did not stand in the way of but rather provided aesthetic and critical advances in these periods.
Certain necessary prolegomanias of social science have already been established. From the moment a scientific criticism is possible, a combative criticism that is a thing separate and independent becomes a ridiculous archaism.... We have supposed that men occupied with scientific criticism should and can remain cold as marble in their writings, impassible as the ancient monks in their monasteries, but in sum such a supposition is superfluous. If scientific criticism considers the history of art as the result of social development, it is itself a product of this development. If history and the contemporary situation of a given social class necessarily breed in it certain aesthetic tastes and certain artistic standpoints, and not others, then scientific criticisms can as well have their determined tastes and their standpoints, for these criticisms do not fall from heaven and they, too, are the spawn of history.

Since our present achievement in the scientific approach is the result of long struggle, which is not over, and our opinions, even the most scientific, must emerge in the developing context of history, our context remains historical: we can only define our methods and tastes by adopting "combative" standpoints, each right in its own way. We strive toward a scientific outlook but this very striving makes science and art combative. Objectivity does not preclude commitment; indeed it is enhanced by the choice of a combativeness which will further science and human well-being. The judgments of Plekhanov suffered at some points from a failure of empathy due to political involvement. While correctly arguing that a scientific aesthetics might be combative, he was not always rigorous in

Marxism and Aesthetics applying to himself the response analysis he evolved, and his lapses into a failure of empathy mark a damaging failure to analyze "the origins of the different rules and procedures which are dominant" in a cultural movement. His theory may be used to define his mistakes, which have also been errors of some later Marxians. Plekhanov visited a sculptural exposition and noted how working men were depicted in gestures of dejection. Even artists whom he considered socially aware made this mistake:21 "In them there is no place for the world-embracing, for the greatest-possible, for whatever inspires the social man to heroic deeds and causes him to sacrifice himself for the common good. For everything which suggests self-sacrifice seems, to this declining class, to be artificial, 'theatrical'; this class requires 'simplicity.' But the 'simple' in their current language signifies: alien to the Ideal element." 21a He might have thought this depiction, too, told a portion of truth about the working class, and that it might have a polemic usefulness toward a liberal bourgeois public. Instead he found an authority in John Ruskin. He approved the English Romantic's avowal that "the value of a work of art is determined by the loftiness of the mood it expresses." 22 Plekhanov similarly divided contemporary subjects into the noble or false category. A false or barren subject would be a miser singing of his lost money, and most of the themes employed by naturalist writers. He could not stand the theme of syphilis. A noble subject would be a maiden singing of her lost lover, or even a war song, which, although imbued with hatred for the enemy, would express "the selflessness of the warrior, ready to die for his country, his state, and so forth. Just in so far as it expresses such readiness, it does bring men
closer
together."22a

275 sphere of sensations remains unmoved either by feelings or thoughts. He may paint a good landscape." 23 He did not permit himself to see that non-representational art was developing on an aesthetic basis not necessarily in conflict with humanism. Cubism he called "rubbish cubed." 24 Elsewhere he said social change necessitates a change in artistic resources. But here he forgot: "The search for novelty is often a source of progress. But not everyone who looks for something new succeeds in finding it. We need to know where to look. He who is blind to the lessons of social life, who knows no reality other than his own 'ego,' will not find anything new, search as he may, except new rubbish. It is not good for man to be alone." 25 In discussing Symbolism, Plekhanov defined what is lost when an art movement turns away from a detailed rendering of social reality: "Man's mind can transcend the boundaries of reality in two ways: by means of symbolswhich lead into the realm of abstraction; or by way of the road which reality itself travels, by which it transcends its limitations, develops meaning through its own power and strength, and creates the foundation for the reality of the future.... The artist resorts to symbols when he cannot solve difficult, sometimes insoluble problems." 26 Plekhanov opposed naturalism for much the same reasons, as he saw it falsifying reality through a failure to depict the tendencies of history. He wanted art works with aesthetic structures which would embody what Engels called a "bias," which "should flow by itself from the situation and action, without particular indications." One can argue a case against the abstractionist art in this century; sick with intellectualism, it offers little emotional sustenance. But Plekhanov does not do its accomplishments justice. He failed also to see the symbolic nature of all communication, including the relatively abstract forms we label Realism. In an age when artists no longer approach difficult, "sometimes insoluble problems" with the old aesthetic idioms, they employ resources shaped by their society. "The beginning of all wisdom," Plekhanov once allowed himself to write, "must be the distrust of modernism in art." 27 There would

Plekhanov

was

not

wrong because he wanted an art promotive of community and optimism. That was his combative prerogative. Much great art was created with the purpose in mind. His failure was in despising without analysis contemporary works which had other, but in their way, valid functions. Impressionism in painting he thought a technical fad. "The artist who limits himself to the

276 be no early relief from abstractionism. "The new art will take shape only after the socialist revolution... it will bring Greek art back to life in all its fullness." 28 We may regret this lapse from a scientific approach. But it is well to recall the proportion of lapses was small. We may recall the absurd reviews of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago from nearly all philosophical fronts; socialist critics generally attacked Pasternak while Western critics praised him, "on artistic grounds," both sides said. Which reviewers sought to take their bias into account? Few have yet understood the social determinants of their taste. We are liberated from a blind subservience to social conditioning to the degree that we are conscious of it.

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sign of a genuine work of art." 30 In 1912 he approvingly quoted Flaubert: "I believe in form and content, two things which can never exist the one without the other." 31 3. The highest beauty depends on truth and simplicity. Plekhanov recognized that although Marxist analysis must employ the foregoing principles and integrate with them, it added nothing substantive in this respect. Marxism had to explore another dimension of aesthetic judgment or remain irrelevant to the discussion of aesthetic structure. He located Marxism's relevance in a law stating: "Truth is the subject of poetry." He explained: "The highest beauty is to be found precisely in truth and simplicity; authenticity and naturalness comprise the necessary condition for truly artistic creation." 31a Kant held that truth outside a man's subTHE AESTHETIC JUDGMENT jectivity did not exist. The source of pheWith problems of an artist's creativity and nomena was declared forever unknowable, our response now examined, we want still and Kant forcefully asserted the artist's "arto know how Marxism may analyze aes- bitrary freedom to create according to his thetic structures. This is the most problem- intentions," with the artwork a universe atic and necessary task of a Marxian aes- unto itself. This Plekhanov, like Belinsky, thetics. Plekhanov's writings provide the could not accept. Belinsky's truth lay in essential framework, without pursuing the Hegel's Absolute Idea. Belinsky's aesthetics, problem to a critically applicable conclu- Plekhanov noted, "were constructed somesion. We shall attempt to do that. what a priori by him (and his teacher), Plekhanov's central essay in this respect without sufficient concern for the course of is The Literary Opinions of W. G. Belinsky historical development of art." 32 Plekhanov (1897). The science of beauty may be stated substituted a historically relative truth:32a in the following laws, as taken over and "Everything in the world is relative."33 transformed by Plekhanov from Belinsky:29 Truth in art would be created and defined 1. Art does not prove, but shows. A re- in the context of historical relationships. formulation of Kant's distinction between Plekhanov proceeded to defend historical Aesthetic Ideas and Logical Ideas. Plekha- truth as a criterion of beauty from the nov accepted the view: "The poet has to standpoint of a psychology of creativeness, show and not prove.... Whenever this law to which we made reference. "Authenticity is not kept, we find no poetry, but only a and naturalness comprise the necessary condition for truly artistic creation," he stated; symbolizing and allegory." 2. The unity of thought must correspond as a consequence, not every idea "can be to the unity of form. This law too was taken expressed in a work of art." 33a Pure conover from German Idealism. "The form of cepts and mathematical ideas he thought an artwork corresponds to its idea and the obviously unsuitable. Other ideas might apidea to the form," Plekhanov wrote, and pear appropriate, but when elaborated into meant a concrete phenomenal description: an artwork would fail, for "when a work of "The unity of thought must correspond to art is founded upon a false idea, this prothe unity of form... all parts of the art- duces so many internal inconsistencies that work must form an harmonic whole." its aesthetic value inevitably suffers."34 About 1900 he said: "Full accordance of How did he define a false idea? Someform with content is the first and principal times, when his revolutionary career con-

Marxism and Aesthetics fused his scientific judgment, Plekhanov would mean Ruskin's notion. He could utter such silly pronouncements as "No modern artist can be inspired by true ideas if he is seeking to defend the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the proletariat" 35 and "Only those ideas which promote community among men can give true inspiration to the artist." 36 Plekhanov attempted in Art and Social Life to document these claims. He demolished some inferior contemporary works, like Knut Hamsun's At the King's Gates, ignoring the author's more successful works fed on the same "false ideas." 37 At other times, Plekhanov defined false ideas without partisan bias. The psychologically false idea thus defined disrupted the specificity, proportion, and coherence of a work, because these qualities would be flawed by the psychology of the social relationships buried in the aesthetic structure. They would not be authentic and natural. Concreteness, proportion, and unity do not derive from some abstract ideal of concreteness, proportion, and unity but from the artist's observation of these traits in the life and consciousness of men. The psychologically fruitful idea, founded on accurate awareness of social relationships and consciousness, Plekhanov called a determinate idea. Rooted in historical specificity, this "concrete idea" draws its measure and coherence from the dynamic proportions of reality so it "encompasses the entire subject and not only some favored side." For the same reason, should the artist "proceed into other areas, even if he thinks them related, then the unity of the artwork will be disturbed." This because "concrete thought must distinguish itself with its unity" for the artist to create unity in his work.38 For this "clear and coherent" 39 determinate idea to form in the artist's imagination, he must involve himself in the history of his time. Determinate ideas "must be part of his flesh and blood, they must not hinder and perplex him in his moments of creation; in short, these ideas must not have a disruptive influence on him." 40 In this way he will avoid the false idea which "brings a lie into the psychology of the characters." 41 We still have no practical basis for ex-

277 amining an aesthetic structure with the Marxian method. Plekhanov leaves a theory of the psychological needs of creativity, and his claim that aesthetic success depends on a determinate idea. If the criterion of truth is to be admitted to aesthetic judgment, we must define a correlative for the determinate idea which may be analytically located and verified in the aesthetic structure. Let us describe the genesis of an artist's initial idea, usually called the subject and perhaps summarized in a sentence, as he proceeds to the completed artwork. If this idea connects with the artist's experience and imagination, it will be in addition a determinate idea, capable of imaginative expansion and assimilation, and, shortly, the term subject matter will fail to encompass the concreteness and complexity of the articulated realization. What was subject matter will have vanished, although critics may try weakly to reduce the artwork to some phrase. Where has subject matter gone? The answer given by Schiller is correct: it was annihilated by the imagination's work. Yet the determinate idea will have turned up transformed,42 concretized, and deepened in the artwork; its correlative will be that "unity of thought" which corresponds to the "unity of form." One's deductions from an artwork cannot prove an alleged idea was not determinate enough to produce a better artwork. The question of the artist's individual talent gets in the way of an accurate result from this procedure. One often cannot know what that initial idea was, as Plekhanov's blunders with Hamsun suggest. But one can speak theoretically of the role of determinate ideas43 while specifically analyzing the thought unity of an aesthetic structure for its failure or success to render the consciousness and behavior of man in his social relations coherently, clearly, and concretely. The Marxian will refuse to speak exclusively of form while analyzing aesthetic structure. How can one describe only form, while not describing what is formed? An aesthetic structure is an indissoluble unity of form and content. However, the critic may and must isolate the form and content,

278 although artificially, in the analytic procedure. The artwork does not exist while form and content are isolated; yet, when they are not isolated, the aesthetic structure defies analysis. Form is content and content form in a single structure. Yet we describe, on one hand, the action, meanings, and character relationships and, on the other hand, the rhythms and proportions and balance. A mistake lies not in taking form and content apart arbitrarily, but in forgetting one has done so provisionally. Content is what the Marxian aesthetician approaches with his special skills. Its functioning is what he judges. To the degree content is informed by and expressive of social process, his analysis is relevant. The Marxian is trained to comprehend social process. He will be the most competent to analyze how social process formed the content. If qualified in all aspects of aesthetics, he should also prove an unusually capable judge of all elements and the unity of aesthetic structure. Social process does not inform equally or in the same way every aesthetic structure. My remarks earlier about music and lyric poetry apply here. A historical understanding has relatively less to do with the success or failure of lyric expression than it has to do with a novel or play. I am in a position to formulate my view on Marxism and aesthetic judgment: Plekhanov is correct in establishing truth as one of the laws of beauty, if we recognize that this truth is relative, historical, and important to the full, complex, clear, and coherent depiction of men's social relations and consciousness in art, and recognize too that each artwork will be dependent on truthfulness in a different way and degree. The Marxian contribution to aesthetic judgment, as to problems of creativity and response, is indispensable, used in conjunction with other valid aesthetic approaches.

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la For the best survey of these views in English, see Mikhail Lifshitz, The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx (New York, 1938). See also Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Literature and Art (New York, 1947), or the complete compilation, Ueber Kunst und Literatur (Berlin, 1949).

lb See Lee Baxandall, comp., Marxism and Aesthetics; A Selective Annotated Bibliography, Books and Articles in the English Language. Forthcoming from The Humanities Press. 1c G. V. Plekhanov, Art and Social Life (London, 1953). Hereafter referred to as Art. a Both in Art. 8Angel Flores, ed., Ibsen (New York, 1937), pp. 35-92. 4Kunst und Literatur (Berlin, 1955), pp. 437-438. Hereafter referred to as Kunst. 'Art, p. 109. 'Kunst, p. 351. 7 Kunst, p. 216. Actually the words of Victor Rousseau, admiringly quoted by Plekhanov. 8 Kunst, p. 441. 9Kunst, p. 430. 10 Kunst, p. 201. Italics mine. 11 Art, p. 223. " Kunst, pp. 329-330. 13Kunst, p. 229. lSa Recently some Russian aestheticians have accepted the Kantian distinction between conceptual and artistic thought. See, for instance, Vadim Kozhinov, "Artistic Creation as 'Thinking in Images,'" Soviet Literature, ?3 (1960), pp. 145160; and Pyotr Palievsky, "Word and Image," ibid, ,t5 (1960), pp. 112-123. Cazden, "Musical Conso1b See, e.g., Norman nance and Dissonance, a Cultural Criterion," JAAC (Sept. 1945), pp. 3-11; and "Towards a Theory of Realism in Music," ibid, X (1951), 135-151. See also Max Weber, The Rational and Social Foundations of Music (Carbondale, Ill., 1958). 14Kunst, p. 216. 15 Kunst, p. 532. l"Art, p. 109. Plekhanov was again referring in 1903 to Kant on the subjectivity, relativity, and disinterestedness of taste; see Kunst, p. 357. 17Kunst, p. 149. "Art, p. 109. 19 Art, p. 164. 1a The leading Soviet theorist Bukharin called Kant's view "utter nonsense," and offered an amplified statement of the Plekhanov view just cited. "The objective, and also active, significance of the social function of poetry... is to assimilate and transmit experience and to educate character, to reproduce definite group psychologies...'contemplation' of the astronomical map may, subjectively, be void of any element of self-interest or practicality. But objectively, in the total social relations, i.e., when regarded as a social function, both science and art in general and poetry in particular play.. .a tremendously vital and at the same time a practical role." Nikolai Bukharin, speech to 1934 Soviet Writers Congress, in Eliseo Vivas and Murray Krieger, eds., The Problems of Aesthetics (New York, 1953), p. 505. 20Georges Plekhanov, L'Art et la vie sociale, ed. Jean Freville (Paris, 1949), pp. 217-222. Kunst, p. 216. 2laArt, p. 225. 22Art, p. 183. 225Art, p. 183.

Marxism and Aesthetics

23Art, p. 214. 4Art, p. 225. 26Art, p. 218. 28Flores, pp. 39-40. 2Kunst, p. 312. 28 Kunst, p. 351. 29Kunst, pp. 415-416. 0Art, p. 103. 31 Kunst, p. 378. 31a Kunst, pp. 415-416. 32 Kunst, pp. 445-446. 32a The advocates of Leninist aesthetics did not try to reconcile their guidance of Soviet literature (which they justified as an imperative of proletarian revolution) with Plekhanov's relativism; they simply downgraded Plekhanov as a critic. They might instead have drawn on his theory of scientific criticism which is combative; from its standpoint the guidance of Soviet literature might be justified, but the cultural establishment chose the expedient of calling Plekhanov's relativist theory deficient. For discussion of the conflict of Leninist aesthetic views with Plekhanov's in the Soviet Union after 1930, see Harold Swayze, Political Control of Literature in

279
the USSR (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), chap. I, "The Theoretical Foundations of Literary Controls." 33Art, p. 183.
33a Art, p. 183.

34Art, p. 196. 35Art, p. 205. 36Art, p. 195. '7Art, p. 198. 38 Kunst, pp. 415-416. 39Kunst, p. 201. 40Flores, p. 36. 41Art, p. 204. 42The author's idea of what he is doing may not correspond to the objective signification of the unity of thought in the artwork. Balzac thought he was writing criticism of the bourgeoisie to the advantage of the aristocracy; but as Marx pointed out, he drew a damning portrait of the aristocracy. Not the abstract tendency of an author's ideas, but their concrete truthfulness, is what concerns the Marxian critic. 43Close psychological research to define their functioning is needed.