The Marxist Theory Of Art: An Introductory Survey 9781000303230, 1000303233

Citation preview

The Marxist Theory of Art   Dave Laing

ISBN 978-0-367-29377-2

www.routledge.com  an informa business

The Marxist Theory of Art An Introductory Survey

Dave Laing

The Marxist Theory of Art

The Marxist Theory of Art An Introductory Survey Dave Laing

I~ ~?io~;~~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 1978 by Westview Press Published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1978 by Dave Laing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Laing,~

The Marxist theory of an.-(Marxist theory and contemporary

capitalism).

1. Arts 2. Communism and an I. Tide Il. Series 700 HX521 ISBN (U.K.) 0-85527-445-X

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Laing,~.

The Marxist theory of an. 1. Socialism and the ans. I. Tide. HX521.L32 1986 700'.1'03 86-19101 ISBN 13: 978-0-367-29377-2 (hbk)

Contents Introduction vii 1. ORIGINS OF AN AESTHETIC I 1. Marx and Engels on Art 3 2. Clarifying the Aesthetic: Engels and Plekhanov 12 2. SOCIALIST REALISM AND THE SOCIAL 20 COMMAND 1. Culture and Art in Lenin 20 2. Proletcult, Formalism and Trotsky 25 3. The Leftists and the Social Command 30 4. Party Policies and the Emergence of Socialist 34 Realism 5. The Evolution of Socialist Realism 43 3. THE GERMAN DEBATES 46 1. Lukacs' Realism 46 2. Brecht against Lukacs 55 3. Benjamin, Adorno and Critical Realism 60 4. SOCIALIST REALISM IN CHINA 69 1. Lu Hsun and the Garrets of Shanghai 69 2. Mao and the Revolutionary bases 73 3. Cultural Struggle within Socialism 76 5. POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS 81 1. Writing and Commitment 81 2. Goldmann's Genetic Structuralism 83 3. Althusser and Gramsci: the importance of ideology 88 94 4. Barthes, Myth and Signifier 5. Tel Que/ and the 'Unreadable' 98 v

6.

MARXISM AND POPULA,R CULTURE 1. The Culture Industry 2. Television and Film 3. Popular Music 7. BRITISH AND AMERICAN DEVELOPMENTS 1. Romanticism and Marxism 2. Caudwell and the Thirties 3. Some American Themes 4. New Directions in British Marxism Footnotes Bibliography Index

vi

105 105 111 116 122 122 · 125 129 131 142 147 158

Introduction THE last two decades have seen a greater intensity of activity in the Marxist theory and practice of the arts than at any time since the 1920s in the Soviet Union. That activity has, in turn, been part of a wider emphasis among Marxists, particularly in the capitalist West, on the problems associated with what classical Marxist theory designated the 'ideological superstructure' of the social formation. In particular, the widespread dissemination of the ideas of Antonio Gramsci concerned with questions of revolutionary strategy in countries where ruling-class power is maintained primarily through the electoral consent of the working class, has enabled a new valuation to be made of institutions and practices previously regarded as peripheral to revolutionary struggle. As a result, Marxist aesthetics today appears, at first sight, to be a luxuriant confusion of ideas and theories. There are Marxist positions which regard classic realism as the only basis for revolutionary art, condemning all modernism and a'V