What Is High Art?
What Is High Art?
Definitely not this diagram I drew.
I’m trying to figure out how I feel about quality in art. Is there an inherent tradeoff between popularity and depth? Or is that a Berkson’s Paradox fallacy? How much is about cultural context?
I made this graph over the weekend trying to clarify the categories as they exist in my head. It’s two-dimensional because I don’t know a good layout for higher dimensions. That means conflating some separate concepts. “Original,” here, means “original as of the present day.” A novel created by find/replacing all the proper nouns is unoriginal, but so is a new performance of a play by Shakespeare, even if you stage it so that everybody has cellphones and guns but somehow the plot is unaffected.
Well-crafted is really many different dimensions. To me, it’s about both breadth and depth of appeal. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to craft something broadly popular clearly has never tried. I don’t think many people claim that that’s all there is to good art, though. “Depth of appeal” is basically meant as a catch-all for everything else.
But because I’m defining quality in terms of appeal, works necessarily degrade with age. Shakespeare has language and tropes that are challenging or incomprehensible to a non-Elizabethan audience. It didn’t require special training to understand his plays, once. So they used to be better.
Originality is not quality, exactly. It’s valuable, but there are reasons to prefer classics, tropes, and genres, too. And originality, too, decreases with age, or more precisely with a work’s level of direct influence on culture. So another missing dimension from this chart is time.
Also, it’s all subjective, so the boundaries are very fuzzy. I’ve given an example for each category below (except one), in footnotes. I don’t expect you to agree with me about all of these. I don’t even expect to agree with myself, when I go back and reread this in a year.
Legend
Classics: It’s old, but we keep coming back to it because it’s some combination of influential and still good. Note that influential work is automatically less “original” in how it’s experienced, since you tend to encounter some derivative work first. 1
B-List: Stuff we keep around because it’s pretty good. 2
Artifacts: Stuff nobody likes anymore, but apparently somebody liked well enough to preserve it at some point.3
Pop: That sweet spot where it’s both creative enough to feel fresh and familiar enough to be widely accessible.4
Hip: Tomorrow’s pop.5
High Art: Would be pop or hip, but isn’t quite accessible enough for some reason. So at least in that one respect, it’s less well-crafted.6
Instant Classics: The art that everybody’s going to be imitating tomorrow. May or may not be a bit niche due to being pitched to critics. If it is, yes, I’ll ding it a little for quality.7
Retreads: Recent failures. Didn’t quite manage to be either original or good. No examples for this one. I’m confident bad art exists, but I’m never confident any individual piece of art is bad versus I just don’t get it.
Niche: Popular among a narrow audience whose tastes are too specific for them to be too picky, so it’s maybe not objectively great, but it doesn’t have to be.8
Experimental: Highly original work that nobody knows how to craft well yet. Probably essential to the evolution of art, even when nobody likes it. I appreciate your sacrifice, experimental artists.9
Exploratory: Experimental art, but it kind of works? Either because the artist was only experimental in some aspects, and the more conventional parts help make the weirder ones accessible, or the artist was able to hit on a new, good technique.10
Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count’s eyes gleamed, and he said:—
“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!” Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:—
“Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.”
—Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
NAN FLANAGAN
We pay our taxes. We deserve basic civil rights like everyone else.ANDERSON COOPER
But doesn’t your race have a sordid history of exploiting and feeding off innocent people? For centuries?NAN FLANAGAN
Three points. Number one: Show me documentation. It does not exist. Number two: Doesn’t your race have a sordid history of exploitation? We never owned slaves, Anderson, or detonated nuclear weapons. And most importantly, point number three: Since the Japanese perfected synthetic blood, which satisfies all our nutritional requirements, there is no reason for anyone to fear us. That’s why we decided to make our existence known. We simply want to be a part of mainstream society.ANDERSON COOPER
Yes, but... aren’t you technically dead?NAN FLANAGAN
(laughs) I’m here, aren’t I?—True Blood pilot episode by Alan Ball, based on the “Southern Vampire Novels” by Charlaine Harris.
So sudden and so utterly unexpected a cry of alarm from Flora, at such a time might well have the effect of astounding the nerves of any one, and no wonder that Charles was for a few seconds absolutely petrified and almost unable to think.
Mechanically, then, he turned his eyes towards the door of the summer-house, and there he saw a tall, thin man, rather elegantly dressed, whose countenance certainly, in its wonderful resemblance to the portrait on the panel, might well appal any one.
The stranger stood in the irresolute attitude on the threshold of the summer-house of one who did not wish to intrude, but who found it as awkward, if not more so now, to retreat than to advance.
Before Charles Holland could summon any words to his aid, or think of freeing himself from the clinging grasp of Flora, which was wound around him, the stranger made a very low and courtly bow, after which he said, in winning accents,—
"I very much fear that I am an intruder here. Allow me to offer my warmest apologies, and to assure you, sir, and you, madam, that I had no idea any one was in the arbour. You perceive the rain is falling smartly, and I made towards here, seeing it was likely to shelter me from the shower."
These words were spoken in such a plausible and courtly tone of voice, that they might well have become any drawing-room in the kingdom.
Flora kept her eyes fixed upon him during the utterance of these words; and as she convulsively clutched the arm of Charles, she kept on whispering,—
"The vampyre! the vampyre!"
Varney the Vampire, the first modern vampire novel. Author uncertain.
About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
― Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer.
Does it bring you happiness? You wander through the night, feeding on rats like a pauper and then moon at Babette’s window, filled with care, yet helpless as the goddess who came by night to watch Endymion sleep and could not have him. And suppose you could hold her in your arms and she would look on you without horror or disgust, what then? A few short years to watch her suffer every prick of mortality and then die before your eyes? Does this give happiness? This is insanity, Louis. This is vain. And what truly lies before you is vampire nature, which is killing.
— Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice.
BEV
But for some reason, Riley Flynn, God has chosen you - you - to receive this blessing and we will not question His will and that’s all that’s important right now. You are being tested, as he was, as we all were, and we are here for you. We are here for you.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”(beat)
And we are here to bless you. And keep you. As is God’s will.
RILEY
(incredulous)
God’s will.Sturge begins ROLLING UP HIS SLEEVE.
BEV
Yes. Oh, yes, and don’t mock, Riley, do not mock. God’s will, and we know it from his own word, don’t we Sturge.STURGE
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”
—Midnight Mass, by Mike Flanagan.
EXT. CEMETERY - NIGHT
BUFFY kneels, elbows resting on a platform-style headstone, chin propped on her hands. GILES PACES and reads from a large book. It appears he is making with the vampire lore.GILES
". . . and on that tragic day, an era came to its inevitable end." That's all there is. Are you ready?BUFFY
Hit me.GILES
Which of the following best expresses the theme of the passage? A: "violence breeds violence." B: "all things must end."Buffy picks up a standardized test answer sheet from the headstone. Some filled-in bubbles. Some smudgy erasures.
GILES
C --BUFFY
I'm putting "B". There hasn't been a "B" in forever.GILES
This is the S.A.T.s, Buffy, not "connect-the-dots". Please pay attention. A low score could seriously harm your chances of getting into college.BUFFY
Oh, that takes the pressure right off.GILES
This isn't supposed to be easy, you know. It's a rite of passage.BUFFY
Is it too late to join a tribe where they just pierce something, or cut something off?GILES
Buffy, please. Concentrate.Buffy suddenly jumps up, and RUNS at Giles. He stares at her, confused.
BUFFY
Roll!Giles DROPS, ROLLS. Buffy GOES HIGH, sailing through the air where Giles had just been -- and where a VAMPIRE now menaces. She catches it with a KICK, and it staggers back. Buffy dives after it, and using her pencil, SHE STAKES. The vampire turns to DUST.
ANGLE: GILES He picks up his book, adjusts his glasses.
BUFFY
Broke my number two pencil. Sorry. We'll have to do this again some--Giles hands her a new pencil.
GILES
C: "all systems tend toward chaos".
—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Band Candy” teaser, by Jane Espenson.
Sunlight, harsh and bright, fell over her, and Buffy blinked her eyes, trying to make them hurry up and get used to it. With the light came a blast of bakingly hot, dry air. Buffy breathed deeply, glorying in it. While it wasn’t exactly right, it was a lot more like home than Twelve’s cold, miserable mountains had been. In her heart, the Slayer essence roiled, and the hairs at the back of her neck bristled. Wherever she was going, it was crawling with demons.
It figured.
But her Slayerliness was stronger than it had been since the Master had drowned her, splitting the Slayer line in two. She could handle a lot more demons. Given her current circumstances, that was probably the thing that was going to save her life.
She was going to be the first Slayer to go through an arena and come out the other end of it.
She was going to be a Victor.
And then she was going to burn Panem to the ground.
Impetus, Buffy/Hunger Games crossover fanfic by Crunchysunrises.
The frontispiece is her portrait and further on—the obituary sermon: she held the school upon her shoulders. Did she. Well—turn in here then:—we found money in the blood and some in the room and on the stairs. My God I never knew a man had so much blood in his head! —and thirteen empty whisky bottles. I am sorry but those who come this way meet strange company. This is you see death’s canticle.
A young woman who had excelled at intellectual pursuits, a person of great power in her sphere, died on the same night that a man was murdered in the next street, a fellow of very gross behavior. The poet takes advantage of this to send them on their way side by side without making the usual unhappy moral distinctions.
Beautiful white corpse of night actually! So the north-west winds of death are mountain sweet after all!
— Kora in Hell, by William Carlos Williams.
God sent a bunch of angels to get Lilith back, and they confronted her over the Red Sea, telling her that her purpose was to serve as a helpmate for Adam and primordial mother of the human race. Lilith said that she had a better idea, which was to become a night monster and kill a hundred babies every day. The angels admitted that this sounded pretty awesome, so they let her go, but first of all they made her swear that she would desist from her baby-killing at the sound of a certain holy Name. Thus Nebuchadnezzar’s son’s sudden recovery.
Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Cohen, who manages to have an unusually Jewish name even for a rabbi, continues the story by saying that Lilith married the demon Samael, seventh among Thamiel’s lieutenants. Together they birthed a race of accursed children, the lilit, who roam the night and suck men’s blood for sustenance.
Moffatt’s translation of the Bible just glosses “lilit” as “vampire”, and I don’t blame them.
But Jewish legend usually portrays the lilit as universally and visibly female, which meant the skeletal black-robed forms attacking me right now were probably something else.
—Unsong (web edition), by Scott Alexander.