Is A Historical Context Optional Or Essential To An Understanding Of Contemporary Art?

Is a historical context optional or essential to an understanding of contemporary art?

The question invites us to examine various others by extension, regarding for example what can be deemed as 'contemporary art,' what the word 'understanding' might be taken to mean, as well as to what degree a thing can be understood at all. Additionally, it requires further examination of the idea of historical context, the scope of influence that developments of the past have had and whether their effect can be reasonably considered as complete or ongoing. These aspects will be addressed, but first it is of indispensable value in the answering of the question to acknowledge the word 'an', as in 'an understanding,' which suggests a singular, non-specific and perhaps incomplete understanding; 'a, an adj the indefinite article meaning one' -1 as opposed to 'the understanding' ('the adj the definite article' -1) or 'understanding' alone - each of which would imply a more explicitly correct, whole and encompassing comprehension of contemporary art. The use of the word 'an' consequently allows the question to be addressed in terms of extent and individual perception. If the posed question had expected the answer to expound the necessity (or lack thereof) of a historical context for entire understanding of contemporary art, then the essay would likely attribute historical context to be one of many crucial proponents of this comprehensive understanding. As it is however, observance of this semantic connotation determines the essay as inviting assessment only of whether a historical context is optional or essential for any personal, limited, flawed, fragmentary or even false understanding of contemporary art. This condition lends a significant bias to the argument that a historical context is optional; that a partial, incomplete, erroneous or unintended understanding might conceivably be gleaned without contemporary art being placed within or against a historical context. The bearing of the argument is as such predisposed to tilt more favourably towards acceptance of the premise that context is optional rather than essential, under the terms of the question. About her own work, 'Op-Art' painter Bridget Riley writes, '.painting. is absolutely self -evident. If someone is interested enough to look at the painting he will find out all there is to know.' -7. While this may not be true for all artists, it presents the stance that something could be understood without historical context. Furthermore, the question refers to 'a historical context,' leaving room for interpretation of how viable and inclusive this singular, partial and indefinite context would be. Also raising the question of whether differing accounts of history provide alternative and conflicting contexts, each of which when juxtaposed against 'contemporary art' result in variance in its possible interpretations. Andre Malraux writes that 'for the last hundred years, art history has been the history of that which can be photographed' -6; proposing that the advent of photographic reproduction brought with it a distortion that altered perceptions of art history, and that '.reproduction. created."fictitious" arts, by systematically falsifying the scale of objects.' -6. He argues that the historical development of photographic imagery has misrepresented artefacts, noting that 'as a result, the imperfect finish of the smaller work, due to its limited dimensions, produces in enlargement the effect of a bold style in the modern idiom.' -6. That having been said, it stands to reason that contemporary innovations such as the internet will have altered perceptions of art in recent times, and that a multiplicity of other historical influences will have had the effect of refashioning artworks and transforming perceptions. Malraux notes that art museums, which had 'existed for barely two hundred years' -6 at the time of writing, 'are so much part of our lives to day that we forget that they have imposed on the spectator a wholly new attitude towards the work of art.' -6. He adumbrates; '[a] Romanesque crucifix was not regarded by its contemporaries as a work of sculpture; nor Cimabue's Madonna as a picture. Pheidias' Pallas Athene was not primarily, a statue. So vital is the part played by the art museum in our approach to works of art to-day' -6. This argument lends itself not only to the view that art, contemporary or otherwise, can be affected and distorted by the lens through which it is viewed and the context it is placed in, but also that our current attitudes towards the art of our time may no longer be held in the future. Writing two hundred and forty two years after the death of the Spanish painter Diego Velasquez, R.A.M. Stevenson attests that '.one must remember that his influence on art is still young.' -11 An alternative argument is offered by Bridget Riley, who writes, 'I am absolutely certain that optical painting. has added something to the language of formal art. which cannot be. eradicated. Having been assimilated, [it can] not subsequently be discounted.' - 7. This outlook implies that changes have interminable and irrevocable influence that is continuous into the present and beyond. The two standpoints, though seemingly contradictory, and certainly somewhat paradoxical, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Though difficult to comprehend, there is some credibility in the suggestion that an influence could be continuous but changing; at once both permanent and transitory. Neither argument however, justifies any conclusion pertaining to the idea that historical context is incontrovertibly essential for an understanding. As well as evidence that alterations may be caused by context, a historical context, like an understanding, may be regarded in terms of extent; 'a historical context' could be construed as meaning the context of history as a whole, or of the history of art or specific art movements, or of humankind, or innumerable derivative categories such as the history of psychology or sociology or war. Each would likely bring their own prejudices. Rothko, for example, was reported to have said, ".after the Holocaust and the Atom Bomb you couldn't paint figures without mutilating them." -5. We might therefore suppose that his work would be better understood, in the manner he had intended, if looked at in the knowledge of the historical context of atrocities that he placed it within. This however may provoke scepticism, and demand investigation into to the capacity of artists, critics, or other prominent and influential figures to determine or manipulate the widely held opinions and attitudes of art and artworks. At the commencement of his eleventh discourse on Art in 1784, Sir Joshua Reynolds began by saying, 'I have. endeavoured to impress you with a fixed opinion, that a comprehensive and critical knowledge of the works of nature is the only source of beauty and grandeur,' -8 but, Umberto Eco reporting on a period of Decedantism in 1897 in his book 'On Beauty', reports a view held at the time, that 'there was no beauty that was not the work of artifice; only that which was artificial could be beautiful.' -9 He quotes Whistler saying 'Nature is usually wrong,' -9 and Wilde declaring, 'The more we study art, the less we care for nature.' -9. Eco further elaborates that this belief had lead to craftsmen arriving at 'the realisation that the more an experience is artificial the more valuable it is. the idea that every violation of nature, preferably as bizarre and morbid as possible, is art.' -9. Either one of the contexts that these resources provide may shed some light over the motives of art makers of their time, but as they represent conflicting attitudes, acceptance of both in equal measure as a historical backdrop causes convolution and conflation. If two historical positions with opposite opinions are regarded as respectively viable components of a singular history, they cannot lend themselves to irrefutable explanation or justification of the contemporary circumstance that they precede. In effect, they cancel each other out. The '. art of the modern era, in terms of Leonardo's criterion, would be called a decline, while its apologists claim an evolution.' -10. This kind of contradictory model of art history cannot be reconciled without disregard or preference for one or other authority. As R.A.M. Stevenson puts it, 'Great painters of all schools from Leonardo to Whistler have so often acknowledged nature as the mistress that the admission becomes a truism were it not capable of being understood in so many different ways.' -11 Contexts that provide difference of opinion appear to lead to a less unanimous understanding, or perhaps a greater assortment of distinctly individual understandings. There is an argument though, that this may happen anyway, without contextual influence - Bridget Riley indicates that when ' .looking at a painting. without any prompting [people] try to relate to it. -they unconsciously choose their own relationship to the painting.' -7. This makes it hard to ascertain the extent to which context causes variation, as opposed to human individuality. Riley also expresses the opinion that subtle variation within a context can result in distinct differences; she writes, 'one of the problems. is that. paintings come across in startlingly different ways in any given light.' -7. As well as fluctuations in the behaviour of natural light, modern electrical light sources and filters provide alternatives to what was available historically. 'Stained glass is not indifferent to the changes of the light which, when our churches were thronged with worshipers at successive hours, endowed it with a vitality unknown to any other form of art.' -6. This kind of information may hint at the idea that that the birth, advancement and demise of art movements is in some part a consequence of the conditions of their time, but even in so far as this inference may be true, it still does not necessitate itself for an understanding to be had. The issue of misuse (or different uses) of nomenclature fosters similar problems; In 'Velasquez' by Stevenson, the author refers to the artist as 'the great Spanish impressionist' -11, a term that first emerged into popular usage from the title of Monet's painting 'Impression, Soleil Levant' - 1872, and coined by critique Louis Leroy in 'Le Charivari' to describe a sketchy painterly quality, saying, 'Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.' -12. But Velasquez predated Impressionism by over two hundred years, and it was the same R.A.M. Stevenson that acknowledged, in the same book that 'by the admission of all the artists in Rome, [Velasquez] alone painted reality, the others, some decorative convention'. -11. If terminologies have arrays of possible meaning and use, then they can be expected to stimulate at least an equivalent range of interpretations and understandings. At this point still unresolved is the matter of whether understanding can be done correctly; whether understanding something means understanding what its creator intended it to mean, or what it is widely held to mean, or if there is any barometer at all for correct understanding. This is an issue cannot be conclusively unravelled as it is entwined with the similarly inexorable question of truth. But, with regards to intent, Picasso is famed as having asked, 'if you know exactly what you're going to do, what's the point in doing it?' It can then be inferred that his work (when relevant to this statement) was made in a spirit of exploratory investigation, without a deliberate meaning or message; allowing for innumerable possible understandings. Similarly, Riley says of her work, 'Though I can foresee certain things happening. things will always happen that you don't anticipate.' -7. She, Picasso, and others did not necessarily intend for their art to be understood, but rather felt or experienced. Speaking of her painting entitled Static, she said, 'I want the spectator to experience the power of these elements. in the sense of a field of static electricity. It is visual prickles'. Moreover, she writes of how the 'mechanics of the painting' differ from 'the actual experience'. This raises the question of whether it is possible to understand something that was not meant or designed to be understood, and ultimately, the question of what understanding is. 'Understanding' is a word etymologically formed from the contraction and fusing together of the words 'under,' 'under prep, below, beneath, included in, less than; subjected to.' -1, and 'stand' 'stand v. have, take, set in upright position; be situated; remain firm or stationary; endure' -1. Most simply defined as 'to grasp the meaning of', -4 the word implies a subordinate position, assumed and maintained to uphold an idea. In this regard, it can be established that understanding of something does not mean recognition of physical, objective qualities, but rather conceptual associations that may be evoked in the mind; that physical things themselves do not have inherent meaning (to be understood,) but that they can have codes embedded within and upon them that stimulate thoughts and associations in a viewer's apprehension. 'There are in all considerable objects great characteristick distinctions, which press strongly on the senses, and therefore fix the imagination' - 8. The word 'understanding' in this context (with 'an' functioning as a preposition before it) is a gerund (a noun formed from a verb). Its gerundial ending, ''-ing' is related to modern German '-ung' and modern Dutch '-ing' and denotes a noun of completed action' -2. Had the word 'an' been replaced with 'to' and the '-ing' suffix removed; '-to understand' would have been an infinitive verb, simply 'used to express purpose'-3, but in its gerund form it implies that a historical context would (if it were essential) allow understanding (of contemporary art) to be finished in its duration. It is unapparent in the question when it refers to 'understanding of contemporary art' whether it means the divisible body of contemporary artworks, or contemporary art as a phenomenon - as a whole. This distinction is prone to split one's inclination somewhat, with historical contexts likely being more essential if one is to understand contemporary art as a phenomenon, but perhaps only sporadically necessary in certain instances to comprehend the meaning(s) of individual contemporary artworks. If we take 'contemporary art' to be an ongoing phenomenon, we cannot have an understanding of it, as it is unfeasible to attain finished understanding of something that is still developing and in progress. Until such a time as it can be said irrefutably that art has moved into a post-contemporary phase, an understanding of it cannot be finished, and therefore cannot be claimed to be correct or complete. Therefore, rather than addressing the question in relation to contemporary art as a whole, instead we must look to completed examples of contemporary art, even the most archetypal or renowned of which only throw partial light over the question in terms of contemporary art as a phenomenon. Contemporary times are indefinable and in flux, and there are so many art works that could arguably be deemed contemporary that they could not possibly all be investigated thoroughly. All that can be done is to select few that are widely accepted, and take them as imperfect exemplars, rendering the exercise inevitably flawed and all answers inadequate as a result of their omission of countless exceptions to the examples given.

To conclude:

There is no resilient evidence to prove that discrepancy in interpretation should be ascribed principally to awareness or knowledge of historical context, however there do appear to be substantial indicators supporting the idea that exposure to subjective influence has the capacity to skew or prejudice comprehension. That aside, it is not impossible to argue that a historical context is both optional and essential at once; that understanding of a contemporary artwork may rely on a symbiosis of these incongruous and contradictory paradoxical modes. If deconstructed and unravelled from its own context, the question can be read as an inquiry into whether duration (historical context) is needed for experience (understanding) of something present (contemporary art), to which I would argue that it is possibly not. Experience could be in complete and eternal stasis. I hazard to speculate that this may be death.

1. Collins Gem, Dictionary & Thesaurus, HarperCollins, Glasgow, 2001, p1, p388 3. Allan Metcalf, How We Talk: American Regional English, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2000, p143 3. http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org.en.english.edu, Infinitives 4. Mirriam-Webster English Dictionary, 2001, P581, 5. Schama, S. (2006) Simon Schama's Power of Art, BBC Books, Great Britain. 6. Andre Malraux, The Voices of Silence, p12, p24, p30, p38 7. Bridget Riley, The Eye's Mind, p82, p86, p92, p108, p112, 8. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourse XI December 10, 1784, p192 9, Umberto Eco, On Beauty, P340 10. Charles H. Cecil. The visual image: Silence and Slow Time, 2009, p2 11. R.A.M. Stevenson, Velasquez, G Bell & Sons Ltd. 1912, p1, p112, p125 12. John Rewald, The History of Impressionism. New York, 1973, p323