The limits of interpreting art as an expression of elite values

Who paid for a work of art, and whose ideas does it express? Those questions can have different answers. The opening describes an approach that connects art to a social class, usually the people with wealth and power. Taruskin's description of high art as produced by and for elites gives us an example of that approach. We are looking at art through its relationship to its patrons, not simply asking whether a painting is beautiful.

The author's objection begins with “fail to clarify.” Having art produced for an elite can mean two different things. The first is display: a patron hires a well-known artist and gains prestige from the result. Imagine owning a house designed by a famous architect. Visitors admire your taste, even though living there is a nightmare. That is an odd bargain if comfort is your goal, but it makes sense if you care about impressing people.

The second involves creating or commissioning something that expresses your ideals and way of life. Raphael's frescoes, commissioned by Pope Julius II, illustrate that relationship. The important difference is the purpose: showing off an impressive acquisition versus having a work embody what you believe. Both can involve paying an artist, so payment alone will not tell us which relationship we are looking at.

Why would sociohistorical critics favor the second kind? Because it seems to give them access to the elite's worldview. If a work embodies a patron's ideals, analyzing the work can help explain those ideals. But that interpretation needs more support than knowing who paid the bill.

First, there must be an identifiable elite with some shared outlook. Otherwise, whose worldview are we supposedly recovering? Second, the artist cannot be undermining the patron's values. Suppose a patron commissions a painting to celebrate a powerful institution, but the artist includes details that mock it. Reading the mockery as the patron's own belief would get the relationship wrong. That is a hypothetical illustration of subversion, not a claim about what Raphael actually did.

The fourth paragraph adds another complication: the people with money did not always favor the art that would endure. Arnold mocks the aristocracy's interests in hunting and gaming and the middle class's preoccupation with respectability. Neither description is praise for artistic judgment. Some talented artists therefore had to find support at the establishment's margins, perhaps from an unusually minded wealthy patron.

An eccentric patron still belongs to a wealthy class, but that does not make the patron's tastes representative of the class. If one unusual person supports an unusual work, interpreting it as what the whole elite believes can miss exactly what made that support possible. The survival of a work also does not establish that mainstream patrons liked it.

The final paragraph pushes the problem further. Elites sometimes paid, reluctantly, for art that went against their values. How can a critic keep insisting that this art embodies those values? By saying that it expresses hidden ideals the patrons themselves did not recognize, despite their open disapproval. That is the point of the comparison to Freudian analysis: an apparent counterexample gets explained as revealing an unconscious commitment.

The author is questioning the simplicity of the original approach, not denying that art can reveal something about its patrons. Prestige, shared beliefs, eccentric tastes and artists' resistance complicate the relationship. Our main point should capture that criticism across the whole discussion rather than repeat only one example of it.