08th may 2024, by Patrick DENNY, art advisor & art dealer
During a French TV show in 1986, when the presenter Bernard Pivot was singing praises of Serge Gainsbourg, the latter grumpily retorted that his songs were nothing but minor art…
This immediately got Guy Béart (singer-songwriter and father of actress Emmanuelle Béart), who was present on the set, all worked up: for him, songwriting was necessarily major art since it could outlive its author!
Black Whole Conference – Installation by Michel de Broin in 2005
🕰️ An Age-Old Debate...
The debate is very old. For centuries, people have been trying to define major vs. minor art.
Before the Renaissance, the arts of knowledge (major) were distinguished from the arts of materials (minor). In other words, intellectual activities were differentiated from those of craftsmanship (applied arts).
Or put another way: concept vs. craftsmanship…
And this differentiation persisted until the mid-20th century:
• The major arts were therefore considered to be: painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving
• The minor arts were: jewelry, crystal work, goldsmithing, ceramics
In fact, during the industrial revolution, the Frecnh Academy distinguished “les Beaux Art”* in english Fine Arts (with capital letters) from decorative arts (in lowercase).
*to refer to major arts
🏙️ ...which Gets Murkier Over Time!
The boundary blurred a bit with the emergence of new materials in major arts.
Also with the system of reproducing works. For example, Andy Warhol extensively used lithography to reproduce works in multiple copies even though, by definition, a major art piece should be unique! But one could argue that a numbered lithograph is closer to an artwork “in its conception” than to a manufacturing craft.
Some movements of the 20th century even attempted to merge the two arts, outright disregarding the idea of clearly delineating them.
This was the case with Russian Constructivism (1917), which merged with the Bauhaus of Weimar & Gropius (1919) and later with the Memphis movement in 1980. These three movements shared a common goal of conceptual and aesthetic research applied to everyday consumer products.
Russian Constructivism: advertisement for the Knigi publishing house, based on the portrait of Lili Brik, by Alexandre Rodtchenko, 1924
The Bauhaus school launched a powerful movement that was to change the course of art history, considerably influencing graphic design, architecture and interior and furniture design.
Memphis Movement: A collection of “anti-design” furniture from 1980
🎮 Today, Everything is Art!
There are currently 10 categories of art, from painting to comics, through photography or fashion, and even video games:
In November 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) decided to include 14 video games in its collection of artworks. Similarly, since 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States officially recognizes video games as an art…
The classification of art has become chaotic, in the sense that chaos is the expression of what is undifferentiated and without hierarchy. One could notice the paradox if one were interested in the etymological origin of the word “hierarchy”, which in Greek hieros means “sacred” and archie means “command”.
Indeed, the major arts have long dealt with religious subjects, therefore sacred, and the Church would not have appreciated if a Botticelli virgin was called minor art, so there was a certain sense in “hierarchizing”!
🔍 It is therefore up to each individual to specify their own definition
Emmanuel Radnitsky, known as Man Ray (American painter, photographer, and filmmaker naturalized French), once said:
“A bad painter is and will always remain minor whereas a brilliant photographer can become a major representative of a trend or an era.”
So let those who enjoy it, replay the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns forever…
…and to the extreme, for some artists, there is not even a debate: everything would be good for the trash!
Serge Gainsbourg, whom I mentioned in the introduction for example. Did you know that he tried his hand at painting for decades? With a certain talent, it seems. And yet, like some major artists, he was never satisfied with his works to the point of almost destroying them all during his lifetime. And even when asked about his songs, he replied with disarming sincerity that he would only save 2 or 3 from the lot!
🔚 The Last Word
This reminds me of Alberto Giacometti who confessed just before he died that he had tirelessly created the same structure of his walking man, because he hadn’t finished with it and hadn’t achieved what he wanted.
Perhaps we are touching here on a definition of major art: creative doubt, creative demand, the search for creative perfection of an idea, humility.
This definition certainly has nothing academic about it, but I like it.
It’s up to you to write your own, with the eyes of a poet, whose Greek root means… creator!
