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The role of the public in the success of artistic styles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Liah Greenfeld
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Extract

The interrelation between creative artists and their public, and active participation on the part of the public in the ‘social production of art’ seems to be a point of consensus in recent sociological literature on art (Becker 1982; Peterson 1976; Wolff 1981). The theoretical consensus is based upon empirical studies which, while focusing on the public, attack a variety of questions. Some of them deal with the socioeconomic characteristics of groups which appreciate different kinds of art and with socioeconomic bases for different kinds and degrees of art appreciation (Bourdieu and Darbel 1969; DiMaggio and Useem 1978a, b). Others try to explain the emergence and/or success of certain styles by the demands and interests of the public. To the extent that ‘public’ refers to the immediate social networks of the artists, such as colleagues, friends, critics, patrons or art dealers, details of influences can be frequently traced in artistic subjects and techniques, and the existence of influences can be verified by investigations of correspondence, memoirs and other documentary material (Haskell 1963; White and White 1965; Zolberg 1982). But these are of little help when it comes to the large impersonal public whose members are unknown to the artist or, as a rule, to the historian and the sociologist as well. For earlier periods, until about the middle of the nineteenth century, it is possible to make plausible inferences. Publics interested in and supporting art and artists were as a rule aristocratic, clerical or upper bourgeois groups, whose tastes and views have been recorded (Baxandall 1972; Watt 1957).

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 83 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1984

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