Arts and Events Exam Preparation - Assignment Example

202548 Arts and events exam preparation Q1. With reference to examples discuss the importance of spectacle in the staging of events. Spectacle canbe regarded as being important for the successful staging of artistic events for the various reasons, discussed below. Spectacle is primarily used to increase the level of entertainment offered by art exhibitions and artistic events. After all the objective of art and artistic events is to provide people with pleasurable and thought provoking experiences. Art is meant to be savoured by an audience whether it is just the single person that commissioned an individual painting or an artistic event intended to be seen by as much of the general public as possible. When pieces of art or entire artistic events are commissioned by patrons the amount and style of spectacle used could strongly influenced by the artistic tastes and the wishes of that patron. When the pieces of art as well as the artistic events are independent of outside influences then artists and production companies tend to have a much wider scope to add as much or as little speculate as they would like.1 Generally for artists and production companies if adding spectacle to their artistic events makes those events more entertaining then it is more likely that each event is popular as well as profitable. Musicals and operas are a good example of artistic events in which the levels of spectacle are high in order to maximise both audience size and revenues. Operas have in fact entertained audiences for more than two centuries.2 Films are another example of spectacle levels being as high as possible to boost profits. Cinemas became very popular in the early of the twentieth century, with audiences loving the extra spectacle that even the silent pictures offered.3 The development of videos and more recently DVDs has further increased the incentives to include spectacle so that the most entertaining artistic events can be watched in peoples’ own homes without them having to go to the cinema or the theatre. The Internet has further increased the potential audiences for artistic events, increasing still further the incentives to use spectacle in artistic events.4 As well as been used to increase the entertainment levels of artistic events, spectacle is also used to promote the image or the reputation of such events. The way in which artists and production companies use spectacle to promote artistic events can determine how the media, the general public, and national governments perceive and relate to those events. The majority of artists and production companies will generally not use spectacle to make contentious moral, religious, social, or political comments and points to avoid censorship or having their works banned.5 Art and artistic events has also used spectacle to convey political propaganda, sometimes in the support of governments both authoritarian and democratic in nature, as well as in protest against such regimes. The Fascist regime in Italy, the Nazi regime in Germany as well as the Communist regime in the Soviet Union used art, music, literature, and cinema to promote their ideological goals through spectacle and entertainment.6 Q2. Eric Hobsbawm in his book "The invention of Tradition" argued that many of the events and practices that we think of as traditions are in fact invented. Using examples discuss how and why traditions are invented. Is this process still at work? Hobsbawm certainly put forward some very convincing arguments that the great majority of the events and practices that are now thought of as being long standing traditions are in fact invented or manufactured. Hobsbawm starts with the astute contention that traditions are usually generated in two ways, officially and unofficially. The official fabrication of traditions he terms ‘political’, whilst the unofficial invention is deemed to be ‘social’. He also argues that traditions have been invented for thousands of years, yet increased significantly in the four or five decades before the First World War began.7 Hobsbawm believes the explanation for the increase in the invention of traditions at the nineteenth century was related to the rise of nationalism and the emergence of new states in Europe, Germany after 1871 being the most obvious example. The Imperial German government was particularly keen in promoting officially invented traditions to boost nationalist pride.8 Another country whose government set about the official whole sale invention of traditions was Italy, mainly to overcome the divisions between the largely urban North and the agrarian South. The Roman Catholic Church played a prominent role in reinforcing Italian nationalism by preaching unofficial traditions about Italian greatness and loyalty to the royal family.9 Hobsbawm argues that the increase in the official invention of traditions was an effort to protect the ruling classes and monarchies from the emergence of mass democracy, political liberalism, and the fear of socialism. Once again Germany is the prime example, its government promoted nationalism and the monarchy, whilst its voters favoured the Social Democrats.10 The French government also attempted to increase officially invented traditions to restore political stability as well as increase public support for vengeance against Germany in the wake of defeat in the Franco-Prussian war.11 France took the lead in establishing public ceremonies to promote previously non-existent national traditions, most notably the celebration of Bastille Day after 1880. The Third Republic did this to gain political legitimacy, as former monarchists, and socialists alike disliked it.12 Imperial Germany had less success in inventing public traditions, yet national unity and progress only became threatened towards the end of the First World War.13 Although Germany did not have an equivalent of Bastille Day, a great deal of statues was erected to honour the Kaiser and Bismarck for achieving unification.14 The German government was more successful in promoting traditions of Prussian and German military prowess, symbolised by a hatred of France and schoolboy military cadets.15 The USA had to officially invent national traditions, as there was very little common identities between the millions of immigrants who had settled there. A sense of Americanism was established by building up traditions such as the July 4th celebrations.16 The apparent success of inventing traditions in France, Germany, and the USA tempted the Russian and Austro-Hungarian governments to try similar events. Inadvertently the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne would set off the First World War, which destroyed the old European order.17 The First World War would help to generate even more invented traditions as well as leading to the Russian revolution. The communist regime in the Soviet Union took the use of propaganda and invented traditions to an extra level, and their strategies were copied and developed further in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.18 Even these totalitarian regimes could not totally control their own societies, the Soviet Union rotted away whilst Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were destroyed by defeat in the Second World War.19 Bibliography Hobsbawm E, (1987) the Age of Empire 1875-1914, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London Hobsbawm E, (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London Hobsbawm E, The invention of Tradition Judt T, (2007) Postwar – A History of Europe since 1945, Penguin, London Roberts J.M, (1996) A History of Europe, Penguin, London Read More