COP 1 Lecture 6 - Print Culture & Distribution - Part 1

Today our lecture was based around print culture and how it came about.

We covered four topics:
 - Mass image culture
- Culture vs popular culture
- Aura and politics of print
- Contemporary print culture

We started by talking about Somerset House, the first art school in the country, established around 1780. The topics of study were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. These were fine/high arts and only men were allowed at art schools. Something that evidences this is the fact that paintings around this period tended to be portraits of famous men, glamorising them.
In between 1780 and 1832, there were very prominent fixed class indentities, and the industrial revolution took placed in 1760 - 1840. During this time, new technologies were developed and so began mass production. The industry rapidly expanded and because of this, new forms of art were created.Culture was no longer set by the upper class, but created by the working class. There were political movements, one of which being the working class demanding the vote.

In 1820, emerging artist John Martin painted Belshazzar's Feast. He was not part of the upper class, so to 'get his name out there', he reproduced his paintings via etchings and sold them for money. This meant that the working class were able to make careers for themselves and there was no longer a need for the upper class. From this emerged reproducers and a secondary market - a culture where art was no longer kept in galleries and instead around us, everywhere.

This led to a huge backlash from writers such as Matthew Arnold in 1867 who wrote Culture and Anarchy. This book was based around the idea that culture is pure, eternal, perfect, it has no agenda. He was unnerved by the idea of the working class 'rising up'. This was similar to the view of F.R. Leavis, who had a repressed, common sense attitude to popular culture. There was a nostalgia for an era lost, and disdain at the addiction to popular culture.

Art schools suddenly started to become schools of design instead, and the spread to everywhere in the country. There was political divide between two different cultures - the culture of art, and the culture of design. Around 1936, Walter Benjamin shared his views on art - as if it's something other than what it is, something eternal, something mystical. He believed that the technological reproduction of art removed the aura of art - the creativity, genius, tradition, authority and authenticity.

People began re-contextualising art, such as recycling the Mona Lisa and printing the portrait on t-shirts, plates and other products. People believed that this threatened the auriatic state of the original art and almost 'removed the specialness'. When taken out of the gallery, art no longer had the same value.

The culture of design was an attack on traditional culture, it was the art of the people vs the art of the elite. In 1781, the Eidophusikon was created and became the first sense of a moving image. Traditional artists did not like this as new technological art was now doing something better than normal art. Similarly, in the 1840s photography was developed, and there was no longer a need for portrait painters anymore. Photography was cheaper and quicker and meant that the working class now had the option of having their own portrait done.

We also looked at the idea of 'Print Capitalism' and how artists outside of capitalism are creating art for reasons other than a paycheck. Print replaces art with a 'new form of art', which is something elitists hate as they believe it is mindless and cheap.

William Morris was the motivation for making screen-prints, and he was a romantic anti-capitalist. He was part of 'The Lesser Arts' in 1877. This was part of the mechanical vs intellectual culture, and Morris wanted to make craft design equal to fine art.

People began a radical revolution in which they were trying to raise the stakes, level culture and overthrow capitalism. This was very political and was born out of the struggle for equality.

We then briefly touched on the idea of contemporary print culture and how we are moving back away from digital design to more traditional, handcrafted techniques. We will be talking more about this in next week's lecture.