Art and the British Empire - Essay Example

Art and the British Empire Visual arts refer to forms created in a way that they can be viewed. They include drawings, portraits, sculptures, printmaking, designs, photographs, films, videos, e\architecture and others (Barringer, Quilley & Fordham 2007). Today, visual arts include fine arts, decorative arts and crafts. In Britain, art and crafts movement started in 20th century and before this movement, the term artist was designated to a person working as a fine artist such as painters, sculptors and film makers (Loring & Jennie 2011). With the introduction of art schools, there was a need to render art a dynamic phenomenon and, therefore, art has been defined in an amorphous way because it has always been in a state of becoming. This has been emphasised by the emergence of new form of art in the new media era with digital technology replacing the traditional art forms. In Britain, art is a combination of visual art that forms part of western history, and it is usually strong in portraiture and landscape. The prosperity of the British in the early 18th century, led to the British art recapturing the place it had taken in the middle ages because of a surge in the production of decorative art and fine arts. In fact, the decorative art became an export commodity in the early 18th century. The romantic period was famous with artists such as William Blake, J. M Tuner, John Constable and Samuel Palmer displaying their remarkable talents in their artworks (Barringer, Quilley & Fordham 2007). There came the Victorian period when art was diversified and a larger quantity was produced compared to former times. At this time, there was preference of Victorian art with interest on Pre-Raphaelites and the innovative movements that arose towards the end of 18th century. The end of 18th century brought about intensified training of artists with the initiatives of the government and in the early 19th century, and there were museums opened to display works of art to the public. The display of religious art in the 19th century became popular and this led to the emergence of academic art. The contribution of British to the art in this time was minimal, but it gained impetus after the Second World War when artists emerged with contemporary art. They produced figurative art works and from then, Britain is a key hub of an increasingly globalised art. This has increased the global audience for the British art, but some visual art remain low profiled and Britain has been attempting to raise their profile. This paper critically looks at the reasoning and provides an insight as to whether arts high profile necessarily means that its audience has expanded. It will also evaluate the question as to whether arts high profile has any significant reconfiguration of the interface between high and low taken places within British contemporary Art. High profiled art is the art that draws a considerable number of audiences over a long time. These art works are classical and address social, economic, political and life issues across generations. An art which lacks large audience over a long time is low profiled and does not spark controversy because it deals with normal daily themes in a way everyone can imagine. In the British art, low profile and high profiled art is determined by its sensationalism as it is seen in the most controversial art works by the contemporary young British artists. The audience of low profiled art can be more at the start but they will not live for long while high profile art attracts audience across all dimensions and for a long time. In Britain, post-modern contemporary art, especially from the Young British Artists is characterised by a significant recourse to material culture and sensationalism (Shanken 2011). The art is associated with post-imperial cultural anxiety in Britain. This has inspired the establishment of annual Turner Prize by Tate that has become popular in showcasing contemporary British art. From this practice of promoting contemporary art, there have been several beneficiaries especially members of the Young British Artists including Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, and Rachel Whiteread among others (Shanken 2011). Tate has a gallery that has transformed to the Royal Art Academy that has exposed contemporary art to wider audience than the former art. There has been sensational art display from the Saatchi collection, which has caused controversy in the United Kingdom and United States. Through these exhibitions, it is clear that art practice in Britain has been different from other practices in the rest of the world, especially paintings from the Young British Artists. For example, there has been a controversy over the artist’s way of depicting authenticity in a way that does not conform to the traditional culture. A good example of such controversial art works are Marcus Harvey’s painting of Myra Hindley, who was a murderer and Chris Ofili’s painting named The Holy Virgin Mary. These artworks never provoked controversy in Britain, but they did so in other parts of the world especially in the United States, during the sensation exhibition of 1997-2000 in New York. The Holy Virgin Marry was referred to as “sick” by Rudolph Giuliani the then mayor of New York. The current art practice in Britain has seen art works that do not conform with traditional art expectations and to extreme freedom of expression (Graham & Cook 2010). This is seen in the painting The Holy Virgin Mary, which raised a wind of controversy in the United States. The artwork depicted a black woman in a blue robe, on a yellow orange background; a traditional way of provoking the image of Virgin Mary. The artist used mixed media including oil paint, glitter, elephant dung and polyester resin and collaged pornography cutout images. In this controversial artwork, the central black Madonna is surrounded by various collaged images that are like butterflies at the first sight. However, when one comes closer, they are really cut out photographs of female genitalia, which are an ironic reference to the images that appear in traditional religious art (Loring & Jennie 2011). At the chest of the Madonna image is a bare breast which is formed by varnished elephant dung and the painting leans against a gallery wall. In Ofili’s art work, the mixture of the sacred Virgin Mary and the profane images of pornographic material and excrement was the cause of controversy. The mayor of New York brought a court case against the Brooklyn Museum and attempted to withdraw the annual $7 million grant, but Giuliani lost the case (Christiane 2008). It is significant to note that this painting never caused any controversy in Britain. This shows that art practice in Britain is that of a liberal artist who can examine with a mix of sacred and profane. However, there was a work that caused more controversy in Britain than in the United States at the same time; Marcus Harvey’s painting of Myra. The painting of Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey is a resemblance of a black and white photograph from an ordinary newspaper. It is a mosaic of black made from casts of an infant hand with grey and white handprints, which create a reproduction of the hard faced Myra Hindley. Hindley was an English serial killer who colluded with Ian Brady and murdered five young children, and was found guilty and jailed for life until she died in prison in 2002 (Loring & Jennie 2011). Marcus did the painting with bouffant peroxide blonde hair, drawing from her photograph taken by police after her arrest in 1965. The photograph was not new in Britain because it was published in almost all British newspapers after Hindley’s conviction. Harvey defended his controversial painting by stating that he was moved by the photograph because it had immersed an iconic power hence the media’s obsession and unprecedented reproduction. Critics said that the painting consciously compares the handprints of an innocent child and the world of adults on a canvas art (Barringer, Quilley & Fordham 2007). Harvey expressed his concern that the woman was innocent given that she was in a relationship that she was too much attached to avoid. Although the painting was described as the most serious painting deserving to be viewed, it provoked press and public criticism even before the exhibition, with the resentment of having this picture hung in a royal academy. The painting was vandalised twice, but it remained in the academy drawing large audience than it was expected (Barringer, Quilley & Fordham 2007). The way this painting was received was a depiction of the weight with which the art is taken in Britain. This means that the practice of art in Britain is more of a public affair and the audience plays a greater role in determining what they want to consume. However, the sensational part of it is that the audience will react differently and the more negative opinion an art piece attracts the more audience it would have. That was the case with Harvey’s painting, whose audience grew and its price escalated as the controversy and temperatures rose. Since mid 1990s, the new media has been used all over the world to create art works (Christiane 2008). Moreover, with the growth of market and popularity of art, there has been a drastic growth and the environment has nurtured unprecedented creativity and invention by artists, theorists, curators and other stakeholders operating in both traditional and new media domains (Shanken 2011). In the contemporary Britain, visual arts are not limited to traditional art media only; the artists have learned to use computers as a tool in creating visual arts since the 1960s. The new media include photographs and computers which are used to capture or create images and forms and then editing them for three dimensional printing. Computers are used to create art, and a visual art is said to be computer generated or assisted when an artist uses a computer in producing or displaying (Christiane 2008). The computers have been used to produce art inform of an image, animation, video, sound, video game, websites, algorithm, gallery installation among others. Due to the emergence of new media, there are various disciplines that have integrated digital technologies. This use of digital technologies has blurred the line that separates traditional artworks and the new artworks; created using computers and other digital technologies (Ascott 2003). For example, most artists have combined traditional painting with algorithmic art and some digital techniques. Unlike the traditional painting technique, it is difficult to define computer art by its end product. The computer generated art has appeared in museums, especially when bulking the original artworks which are then sold to lovers of visual art. The following are examples of new media art. However, the technologically generated art works have been viewed largely as a tool rather than a form in contemporary art (Ascott 2003). Moreover, the new media has enabled illustrators, photographers, photo editors, 3 dimension modelers and handicraft artists to come up with explicit artworks, which can be manipulated over different media. There is sophisticated editing software that has given developers a multi-skilled image (Graham & Cook 2010). Through the new media, photographers have been transformed to digital artists; illustrators have become animators and handcrafts have become proficient in computer- aided and generated images. The new media and digital technology has transformed the themes of the traditional visual arts in the contemporary context. For example Maurizio Bolognini came up with a programmed computer, precedence for various computers, which produced random images of art. The production of such images has seen themes in art change. In this case, several themes are addressed by new media art and they include collaboration, computer art, identity, appropriation, open sourcing, Telepresence, surveillance, corporate parody, intervention and Hacktivism (Ascott 2003). Therefore, it can be deduced that new media artists have one thing in common namely a self-referential relationship with the new digital technologies, which inspire them to find their place in an epoch of transformation from the technological development. However, it is significant to note that new media art is not a set of homogeneous practices, but is instead a field that converge around three elements. The elements include scientific and industrial research, the art system and the political-cultural media activism (Shanken 2011). Through these elements, new media has been able to change the theme of the traditional arts. The three elements have also split new media artists into three categories namely scientist-artists, activist-artists, and technological artists, which have difference in their description (Shanken 2011). The technological artists, unlike the other two, have different training and culture that is technologically oriented although they have different art productions. This characteristic must be taken into account when several themes in new media art are being addressed. Moreover, there is a theme of non-linearity in new media art. The theme involves exploring and approaching art forms from digital projects. This theme is a break from the traditional art where people were used to viewing art and every phenomenon in a linear and clear cut fashion. The new media art has created a forum where new artists explore their own experiences with art pieces, and thus giving them more freedom to express their artistic proficiency. It is from these artistic expressions that an audience is able to point out another theme of interconnectivity and interactivity of internet (Ascott 2003). This theme has been inspired by the contest between corporate, government, and public interests that have generated the web as we know it today alongside other new media art. Alongside these themes, there are also explicit themes of politics and social consciousness that have allowed for social activism through the interactive form of the new media (Shanken 2011). A major contribution of new media in the visual art is the creation of visual databases with pioneers creating art whose database aesthetics holds two attractions to the new media artists. These are a variation on non-linear narratives and a political subversion of a form of art that may threaten to control authority in aesthetic world. The preservation and presentation of traditional art has been changed by the emergence of the new media technology. This is because the new art is created through technologies that deliver works in new media such as tapes, films, wed browsers, software and operating system (Shanken 2011). These new media have also posed a challenge when it comes to preservation of art works beyond the times of their contemporary art production. There are attempts in Britain to ensure that new media art preservation and documentation is concretized for future generations (Christiane 2008). Through research, there are many methods, which are in place, to preserve new media art including translation of the art into new media and the use of emulators to preserve works that are depended on obsolete software or operating system environment. In conclusion, in the British art, the audience of high profiled art expands because of various reasons including sensationalism. There is, however, the issue of digital technology, which has taken over the audience from the traditional art because of different orientations. There is a strong interface between the low and high places of art in Britain because the new media has come to incorporate their technology in the production, reproduction, storage, and preservation of the traditional art. References Ascott, R 2003, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, University of California Press, Berkeley. Barringer, TJ Quilley, G & Fordham, D 2007, Art and the British Empire, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Christiane, P 2008, New Media in the White Cube and Beyond; Curatorial Strategies for New Media, University of California Press, Berkeley. Graham, B & Cook, S 2010, Rethinking Curating, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London.   Loring, W & Jennie, H 2011, Contemporary Art and Classical Myth, Ashgate, Farnham. Shanken, EA 2011, Contemporary Art and New Media: Toward a Hybrid Discourse? Phaidon, London.   Read More