conclusions. The result, however, must be an absurd world, its absurdity following from the striceness of its logic. The action, therefore, proceeds, not in accordance with the internal neces- sities of characters and verisimilicude, but in obedience to the ‘external logic ofa see scheme that overrides the former. This is well and good in a play or in some other shore form, but in a Jonger form like the novel itis unendurable, foran absued world can only contain absurd characters and absurd characters pro- duce nothing but farce, whether it is grim farce, as in the present case, ot merry farce. And farce palls. After a hundred pages or 50, by which rime the reader has grasped his point, Breche’s novel becomes something like a stage farce from which the voices and gestures of actors have been excluded, of like a ‘succession of subsites from a silent movie, which we refuse to believe until we sce. Continued the length of four hundred pages in a manner thae strains at every point to make its gra- tuitous irony clear—presumably for the benefit of the un- tutored reader whom Brecht wants to attract ro serious litera are ei ming nerve-wrackil Ins original German, at least, the novel is to some extent Through the book are splendidly executed passages of iony a prose which for its imness and sensitivity might serve as a Oany writer of German. The English translation, much ‘too literal, has caught almost nothing of this, and very little more of Brecht’s “collage” compositions in cliché and cant phrase, for which he has an extraordinary car. Isherwood's ver- ‘sions of Brecht’s own poems which are set at the chapter heads are brave efforts, but inadequate since they coarsen Brecht’ col- isms to the point of banality, something which isentirely absent from the German. Partisan Review, Winter 1939 2. Avant-Garde and Kirsch (One and the same civilization produces simultaneously ewo such different chings as a poem by T. S. Elioc and a Tin Pan Alleysong, or a painting by Braque and a Saturday Evening Post cover. All four are on che order of culcure, and ostensibly, parts of the same culture and products of the same society. Here, however, their connection seems to end. A poem by Eliot and a poem by Eddie Guest—what perspective of culture is large enough t0 enable us to situate them in an enlightening relation to each ‘other? Does the fact chac a disparity such as this within the frame of a single cultural tradition, which is and has been taken for granted —does this fact indicate chac che disparity isa part of the natural order of things? Oris it something entirely new, and particular to our age? ‘The answer involves more than an investigation in aesthetics. Ie appears co me chat it is necessary co examine more closely and ‘with more originality than hitherto the relationship beeween aesthetic experience as met by the specific—not the general- jized—individual, and the social and historical contexts in ‘which that experience cakes place. What is brought to light will answer, in addition co the question posed above, other and per- haps more important questions. 1 A society, as it becomes less and less able, in the course ofits development, to justify the inevitability ofits particular forms, breaks up the accepted notions upon which artists and writers must depend in large part for communication with their audi- ences, It becomes difficult to assume anything. All the verities involved by religion, authority, cradition, style, are chrown into question, and che wriver or artist is no longer able co estimate the response of his audience co che symbols and references with which he works. In che past such a state of affairs has usually resolved itself into a motionless Alexandrianism, an academic- {sm in which the really important issues are left untouched be- ‘cause they involve controversy, and in which creative activity dwindles to virtuosity in the small details of form, all larger ‘questions being decided by the precedent of the old masters ‘The same themes are mechanically varied in a hundred different ‘works, and yet nothing new is produced: Statius, mandarin ‘verse, Roman sculpture, Beaux-Arts painting, neo-republican architecture. cis among the hopeful signs in the midst ofthe decay of ourpresent society chat we—some of us—have been unwilling to accept this last phase for our own culture. In seeking to go be- yond Alexandrianism, a part of Western bourgeois society has produced something. unheard of heretofore: —avant-garde cul- ture. A superior consciousness of history—more precisely, the appearance of a new kind of criticism of society, an historical criticism—made this possible. This criticism has not con- fronted our present society with timeless utopias, but has s0- berly examined in the terms of history and of cause and effect the antecedents, justifications and functions ofthe forms that lie at the heart of every society. Thus our present bourgeois social ‘order was shown to be, not an eternal, “natural” condition of life, but simply the latest term in a succession of social orders. Now perspectives ofthis kind, becoming a part ofthe advanced inellectual conscience of the fifth and sixth decades of the nine- teenth century, soon were absorbed by artists and poets, even if unconsciously for the most part. It was no accident, therefore, that the birch of the avant-garde coincided chronologically — and geographically, too—with the first bold development of scientific revolutionary choughe in Europe. ‘True, the first seclers of bohemia—which was then identical with che avant-garde—turned out soon to be demonstratively uninterested in politics. Nevertheless, without the circulation of revolutionary ideas in the air about them, they would never have been able to isolate their concept of the “bourgeois” in order to define what they were not. Nor, without the moral aid of revolurionary political attitudes would they have had the courage to assert themselves as aggressively as they did against the prevailing standards of society. Courage indeed was needed for this, because the avant-garde's emigration from bourgeois s- ciety o bohemia meanc also an emigration from the markets of ‘capitalism, upon which artists and writers had been thrown by the falling away of aristocratic patronage. (Ostensibly, atleast, it meane this—meant starving in a garret—although, as we will be shown later, the avant-garde remained attached to bour- geois society precisely because it needed its money.) Yer iti true that once the avant-garde had succeeded in “de- aching’ itself from society, it proceeded to turn around and re- pudiate revolutionary as well as bourgeois politics. The revolu- tion was left inside society, a part of that welter of ideologicalstruggle which art and poctry find so unpropitious as soon as it begins to involve those precious” axiomatic beliefs upon which culture chus far has had co est. Hence it developed thar the true and most important function of the avant-garde was not to “ex- periment,” but to find @ path along which it would be possible cokeep culture moving in the midst of ideological confusion and violence. Retiring from public altogether, the avant-garde poet or artist sought co maintain the high level of his art by both narrowing and raising it to the expression of an absolute in which all relativities and contradictions would be either re- solved or beside the point, “Art for art's sake" and “pure poetry” appear, and subject macter or content becomes something to be avoided like a plague has been in search of the absolute that the avant-garde has arrived at “abstract” or “nonobjective” art—and poetry, to. ‘The avant-garde poet or artist eres in effec co imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms, in the way na- ture itself is valid, in the way a landscape—not its picture—is aesthetically valid; something given, inereate, independent of meanings, similars or originals. Content is to be dissolved 50 completely into form that the work of art oF literature cannot be reduced in whole or in part co anything not itself But the absolute is absoluce, and the poet of artist, being what he is, cherishes certain relative values more than others. ‘The very values in the name of which he invokes the absolute are relative values, the values of aesthetics. And so he turns out to be imitating, not God—and here [use “imitate” in its Aristo- telian sense—but the disciplines and processes of art and li ‘erature themselves. This is the genesis of the “abseract.” In 1. The example of musi, which has long been an abstract at and which svant-gard poctry has tried 0 much to emulate, i interesting. Music, Ans ‘orl sad curiously enough, isthe mos imitative and vivid fal ats because ‘micas ts original —ehe tae ofthe soul—with the greatest immediacy. To- day this strikes was the exact opposite ofthe truth, Because no are seems C0 us ‘have less reference co something outside itself than music. However, aside from che fact cha ina sense Aristotle may stil be eight, it must be explained that ancient Greek music was closely associated with poetry, and depended ‘upon is character as an acessory eo verse to make ts imieative meaning le Plato, speaking of music, says: For when there are no words, eis ery dificult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and thythn, orto se that any ‘worthy object imitated by them.” As far as we know, ll music originallyturning his attention away from subject matter of common ex- perience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his ‘own craft. The nonrepresentational or “abstract,” ifieis to have aesthetic validity, cannot be arbierary and accidental, but must seem from obedience to some worthy constraint of original. This constraint, once the world of common, extroverted experi- ‘ence has been renounced, can only be found in the very processes ‘or disciplines by which art and literature have already imitated the former. These themselves become the subject matter of art and literature. If, to continue with Aristotle, all art and liter- ature are imitation, then what we have here isthe imitation of imitating. To quote Yeats: Nor is there singing school bue studying, Monuments of its own magnificence. Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Mir6, Kandinsky, Brancusi, even Klee, Matisse and Cézanne derive theit chief inspiration from the medium they work in.” The excitement of their art seems to lie most ofall in its pure preoccupation with the in- vention and arrangement of spaces, surfaces, shapes, colors, etc., to the exclusion of whatever is not necessarily implicated in these factors. The attention of poets like Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Valery, Eluard, Pound, Hare Crane, Stevens, even Rilke and Yeats, appears to be centered on the effort tocreate poetry and on the “moments” themselves of poetic conversion, rather than on experience to be converted into poetry. Of course, this cannot exclude other preoccupations in their work, for poetry must deal with words, and words must communicate, Certain poets, such 4s Mallarmé and Valery,” are more radical in this respect chan others—leaving.aside those poets who have tried ro compose served such an accessory function. Once, however, i was abandooed, music ‘war forced o withdraw into itt find aconstraint or orginal. This found inthe vaious means of its own composition and performance. (Author’ note} 2. Lowe this formulation o a remark mide by Hans Hofmann, che st teacher, one of hislecrues. From the point of view of tis formulation, Sur- ‘cals in plastic are sa reactionary tesdency which is attempeing to restate “ouside” subjece matter. The chief concern ofa painter ike Dali i to repre- sent the processes an concepts of his consciousness, oc the processes of his ‘medium. [Authors ote) 5. See Valérys remarks about his own poery. (Author's noe)poetry in pure sound alone. However, if it were easier co define poetry, modern poetry would be much more “pure” and “ab- seract.” As for the other fields of literacure—the definition of avant-garde aesthetics advanced here is no Procrustean bed. Buc aside from the fact that most of our best contemporary novelists have gone to school with the avant-garde, it is significant that Gide most ambitious book is a novel about the writing of a novel, and that Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegans Wake seem to be, above al, as one French critic says, the reduction of experience to expression for the sake of expression, the expression matter- ing more than what is being expressed. “That avane-garde culture is the imitation of imitating—the face itself —calls for neither approval nor disapproval. It is true that this culeure contains within itself some of the very Alex- andrianisin ic seeks co overcome. The lines quoted from Yeats refected to Byzantium, which is very close to Alexandria; and in 4 sense this imitation of imitating is a superior sort of Alex andrianism. But there is one most important difference: the avant-garde moves, while Alexandrianism stands still. And this, precisely, is what justifies the avant-garde’s methods and makes them necessary. The necessity lis in the fact thac by no ‘other means is i¢ possible today co create art and literature of a high order. To quartel with necessity by chrowing about terms like “formalism,” “purism,” “ivory tower” and so forth is either dull or dishonest. This is not co say, however, that it isto the siwial advantage ofthe avant-garde that it is what itis. Quite the opposite. “The avant-garde’ specialization of itself, the fac that its best artists are artists’ artists, its best poets, poets’ poets, has e5- ranged a great many of those who were capable formerly of en- joying and appreciating ambitious art and literature, but who are now unwilling oF unable to acquire an initiation into their craft secrets. The masses have always remained more or les in- different to culeure in che process of development, But today such culture is being abandoned by those to whom it actually belongs—our ruling class. For itis tothe lacer that the avant sgarde belongs. No culture can develop without a social basi without a source of stable income. And in the case of the avant- garde, this was provided by an elite among the ruling class of thae society from which i assumed itself co be cut off, but cowhich it has always remained attached by an umbilical cord of ‘gold. The paradox is real. And now this elite is rapidly shrink~ ing. Since the avant-garde forms the only living culture we now have, the survival in the near future of culeure in general is thus threatened ‘We must not be deceived by superficial phenomena and local successes. Picasso's shows still draw crowds, and T. S. Eliot is ‘taught in the universities; the dealers in modernist arc are still in business, and che publishers sill publish some “difficult” po- cry. But the avant-garde itself, already sensing the danger, is becoming more and more timid every day that passes. Academ- icism and commercialism are appearing in the strangest places ‘This can mean only one thing: that the avant-garde is becom- ing unsure of the audience it depends on—the rich and the cultivated. Is it che nature itself of avant-garde culture that is alone re- sponsible for the danger it finds itself in? Oris that only a dan- serous liability? Are there other, and pechaps more important, factors involved? 0 ‘Where there is an avant-garde, generally we also find a rear- guard. True enough—simultancously with the entrance of the avant-garde, a second new cultural phenomenon appeared in the industrial West: that thing to which the Germans give the won- derful name of Kitsch: popular, commercial art and literacure with their chromeorypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, cap danc- ing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc. For some reason this gigantic apparition has always been taken for granted. Ic is time we looked into its whys and wherefores. Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution which ur- banized the masses of Western Europe and America and estab- lished what is called universal literacy. Prior to this the only market for formal culture, as distin- ‘guished from folk culture, had been among those who, in addi- tion to being able co read and write, could command the leisure ‘and comfore that always goes hand in hand with cultivation of ‘some sort. This until then had been inextricably associated with literacy. Bue with the introduction of universal literacy, the abil-ity co read and write became almost a minor skill like driving a ‘ar, and it no longer served co distinguish an individual’ cul- tural inclinations, since it was no longer the exclusive concomi- tant of refined tastes, ‘The peasants who settled in the cities as proletariat and petty bourgeois learned co read and write for the sake of efficiency, but they did not win the leisure and comfore necessary for the enjoy- ‘ment of the city’s traditional culture. Losing, nevertheless, their taste for the folk culture whose background was the country- side, and discovering a new capacity for boredom at the same time, the new urban masses set up a pressure on society to pro- vide chem with a kind of culture fit for their own consumption, To fill che demand of the new market, a new commodity was devised; ersatz culture, kitsch, destined for those who, insen- sible to the values of genuine culture, are hungry nevertheless forthe diversion that only culeure of some sore can provide. Kiesch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacta of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates this in- sensibility. It is the source of ies profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kicsch changes according to style, but re- ‘mains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of al that is spu- rious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand noth- ing of its customers except their money—not even theie time. ‘The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully marured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, acquisi tions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advan- tage of for its own ends. Ie borrows from it devices, tricks, strat- agems, rules of thumb, themes, converts them into a system, and discards the rest. It draws its life blood, so to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience. This is what is really _meant when it is said that the popular art and licerature of today were once the daring, esoteric art and literature of yesterday. Of ‘course, no such thing is true, What is meane is chat when ‘enough time has elapsed the new is looced for new “ewists,' which are then watered down and served up as kitsch. Self- evidently, all kitsch is academic; and conversely, all that’s academic is kitsch. For what is called the academic as suchto longer has an independent existence, but has become the stuffed-shirt “front” for kitsch. The methods of industrialism displace the handicrafts Because it can be turned out mechanically, kitsch has become an integral part of our productive system in @ way in which true culture could never be, except accidentally. It has been capi- talized at a tremendous investment which must show commen- Surate returns; ic is compelled to extend as well as to keep its markets. While ic is essentially its own salesman, a great sales apparatus has nevertheless been created for it, which brings pressure co bear on every member of society. Traps are laid even in those areas, so to speak, that are the preserves of genuine cul- ture. Ic is not enough coday, in a country like ours, to have an inclination towards the laccer; one must have a true passion for it that will give him the power to tesise the faked article that sur- rounds and presses in on him from the moment he is old enough to look at the funny papers. Kiesch is deceptive. Ie has many different levels, and some of them are high enough co be danger- ‘ous to the naive secker of true light. A magazine like the New Yorker, which is fundamentally high-class kitsch for the luxury trade, converts and waters down a great deal of avane-garde ma- terial for its own uses. Nor is every single item of kitsch al- together worthless. Now and then it produces something of merit, something that has an authentic folk flavor; and these ac- cidental and isolated instances have fooled people who should know better. Kitsch’ enormous profits are a source of tempration to the avant-garde itself, and its members have noe always resisted this temptation. Ambitious writers and artists will modify theit work under the pressure of kitsch, if ehey do not succumb to it entirely. And then those puzzling borderline cases appear, such as the popular novelist, Simenon, in France, and Steinbeck in this country. The net result is always to the detriment of true ‘culture in any case. Kitsch has nor been confined to the cities in which it was born, but has fowed out over the countryside, wiping out folk culture. Nor has it shown any regard for geographical and ‘national-cultural boundaries. Another mass product of Western, industrialism, it has gone on a triumphal tour of the world,‘crowding out and defacing native cultures in one colonial coun- try after another, so that itis now by way of becoming a univer- sal culeure, the fist universal culture ever beheld. Today the na- tive of China, no less than the South American Indian, the Hindu, no less than the Polynesian, have come to prefer to the products of their native art, magazine covers, rotogravure sec- tions and calendar girls. How is this virulence of kitsch, chis irresistible attractiveness, co be explained? Naturally, machine- ‘made kitsch can undersel the native handmade article, and che prestige of the West also helps; but why iskitsch aso much more profitable export article chan Rembrandt? One, afterall, can be reproduced as cheaply as the other. Inhis las article on the Soviet cinema i the Partisan Review,* Dwight Macdonald points out that kiesch has in che last cen years become the dominant culcure in Soviet Russia. For this he blames the political regime—noc only for the fact that kitsch is the official culeure, but also that it is actually the dominant, ‘most popular culture, and he quotes the following from Kurt London's The Seven Soviet Arts:". . . the attitude of the masses both to the old and new art styles probably remains essentially dependent on the nature of the education afforded them by their respective states.” Macdonald goes on to say: “Why after all should ignorant peasants prefer Repin (a leading exponent of Russian academic kitsch in painting) o Picasso, whose abstract technique is atleast as relevant to their own primitive folk art as is the formers realistic style? No, if the masses crowd into the ‘Trecyakov (Moscow's museum of contemporary Russian at kitsch), itis largely because they have been conditioned to shun ‘formalism’ and co admire ‘socialist realism.” In the first place it is not a question of a choice between merely the old and merely the new, as London seems to think— but of a choice beeween the bad, up-to-date old and the genu- inely new. The alternative to Picasso is not Michelangelo, but kiesch. In the second place, neither in backward Russia nor in the advanced West do the masses prefer kitsch simply because theie governments condition them toward it. Where stare edu- 4: Partuon Review, Winter 1939. Greenberg wrote to Macdonald about the article shocly afer it was published, ima letter dated 9 February 1939. ‘Several ideas raised in the leer are discuss at greater lngeh here, (Editors ocel‘ational systems take the trouble to mention art, we are cold to respect the old masters, not kitsch; and yet we go and hang Maxfield Parrish or his equivalent on our walls, instead of Rem- brandt and Michelangelo. Moreover, as Macdonald himself points out, around 192 when the Soviet regime was encourag- ing avant-garde cinema, the Russian masses continued to prefer Hollywood movies. No, “conditioning” does not explain the potency of kitsch All values are human values, relative values, in art as well as elsewhere. Yet chere does seem to have been mote of less of a ‘general agreement among the cultivated of mankind over the ages as to what is good art and what bad. Taste has varied, but rnot beyond certain limits; contemporary connoisseurs agree with the eighteenth-cencury Japanese that Hokusai was one of the greatest artists of his time; we even agree with the ancient Egyptians that Third and Fourth Dynasty art was the most worthy of being selected as their paragon by those who came after. We may have come to prefer Giotto to Raphael, but we still do not deny that Raphael was one of the best painters of his time. There has been an agreement then, and this agecement rests, I believe, on a fairly constant distinction made berween those values only to be found in art and the values which can be found elsewhere. Kitsch, by virtue of a rationalized technique that draws on science and industry, has erased this distinction in practice. ‘Let us see, for example, what happens when an ignorant Rus- sian peasant such as Macdonald mentions stands with hypo- thetical freedom of choice before two paintings, one by Picasso, the other by Repin. In the first he sees, let us ay, a play of lines, colors and spaces that represent a woman. The abstract cech- rnique—to accept Macdonaldls supposition, which Iam inclined to doubt—reminds him somewhat of the icons he has left be- hind him in the village, and he feels the ateraction of che famil- iar. We will even suppose that he faintly surmises some of the ‘great art values the cultivated find in Picasso. He turns next £0 Repin’ picture and sees a battle scene. The technique is not so familiar —as technique. But that weighs very little with the peasant, for he suddenly discovers values in Repin’ picture that ‘seem far superior tothe values he has been accustomed to find in icon art; and the unfamiliar itself is one of the sources of thosevalues: the values of the vividly recognizable, the miraculous and the sympathetic. In Repins picture the peasant recognizes and sees things in the way in which he recognizes and sees things ‘outside of pictures—there is no discontinuity between are and life, no need to accepe a convention and say co oneself, that icon represents Jesus because it intends to represent Jesus, even if ic does not remind me very much of « man. That Repin can paint 50 realistically that identifications are self-evident immediately and without any effore on the part of the spectator-—that is mi- raculous. The peasant is also pleased by the wealth of self evident meanings which he finds in the picture: “it tellsa story. Picasso and the icons are so austere and barren in compatison, What is more, Repin heightens reality and makes it dramatic: sunset, exploding shells, running and falling men. Thete is no longer any question of Picasso or icons. Repin is what the peas- ant wants, and nothing else but Repin. It is lucky, however, for Repin thatthe peasant is protected from the products of Ameri- ‘an capitalism, for he would nor stand a chance next toa Satur day Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell ‘Uleimarely, it can be said that the cultivated spectator derives the same values from Picasso that the peasant gets from Repin, since what the latter enjoys in Repin is somehow art ¢o0, on however low a scale, and he is sent to look at pictures by the same instincts that send the cultivated spectator. But the ulti- mate values which che cultivated spectator derives from Picasso are derived at a second remove, as the result of reflection upon, the immediate impression left by the plastic valucs. Ic is only then that the recognizable, the miraculous and the sympathetic enter. They are not immediately or externally present in Picas- 0's painting, but must be projected into it by che spectator sen- sitive enough to react sufficiently to plastic qualities. They be- long to the “reflected” effect, In Repin, on the other hand, the “reflected” effect has already been included in the picture, ready for the speccaror’s unreflecive enjoyment.” Where Picasso paints ams, Repin paints eft. Repin predigests att for the spectator 5. TS. Blot suid something to the same effec in acounting for the shortcomings of English Romantic poetry. Indeed the Romantics can be con sidered the original sinners whose guile kitsch inherited. They showed kitsch how. Whar does Keats waite about mainly, foe che crf pctry upon him self? (Authors notedand spares him effort, provides him with a short cut to the plea- sure of are chat detours what is necessarily difficule in genuine arc. Repin, or kitsch, is synthetic art. ‘The same poine can be made with respect to kitsch literature: it provides vicarious experience for the insensitive with far {greater immediacy than serious fiction can hope to do. And Ed- ddie Guest and the Indian Love Lyris are mote poetic than T. Eliot and Shakespeare. Mm If che avant-garde imitates the processes of art, kitsch, we now see, imitates its effects. The neatness of this antithesis is more than contrived; it corresponds to and defines the tremendous in- terval that separates from each other two such simultaneous cul- ‘ural phenomena as the avant-garde and kitsch. This interval, to0 great to be closed by all the infinite gradations of popular. ized “modernism” and “modernistic” kitsch, corresponds in ‘turn toa social interval, a social interval that has always existed in formal culture, as elsewhere in civilized society, and whose two termini converge and diverge in fixed relation to the in- creasing of decreasing stability of the given society. There has always been on one side the minority of the powerful—and therefore che cultivated—and on the other the great mass of the exploited and poor—and therefore the ignorant. Formal culture has always belonged ro the first, while the last have had to con- tent themselves wich folk or rudimentary culture, or kitsch, Ina stable society that functions well enough to hold in solu tion the contradictions between its classes, the cultural dichot ‘omy becomes somewhat blurred. The axioms of the few are shared by the many; the latter believe supersttiously what the former believe soberly. And at such moments in history the ‘masses are able to feel wonder and admiration forthe culeure, on ‘no matter how high a plane, of is masters. This applies at least to plastic culture, which is accessible ro all. In the Middle Ages the plastic artist paid lip service at least to the lowest common denominators of experience. This even remained true to some extent until the seventeenth century, ‘There was available for imitation a universally valid concepeual reality, whose order the artist could not tamper with. The sub- ject matter of art was prescribed by those who commissioned‘works of art, which were not created, as in bourgeois society, on speculation, Precisely because his content was determined in ad vance, the artist was free ¢o concentrate on his medium. He needed not 0 be philosopher, or visionary, but simply artificer. As long as there was general agreement as to what were the wworthiest subjects for art, the artist was relieved of the necessity ‘tobe original and inventive in his “matter” and could devore all his energy co formal problems. For him the medium became, privately, professionally, che content of his are, even as his me dlium is today the public content of the abstrace painters art— with that difference, however, that the medieval artist had to suppress his professional preoccupation in public—had always, to suppress and subordinate the personal and professional in the finished, official work of art. If, as an ordinary member of the Christian community, he felt some personal emotion about his subject matter, this only contributed to che enrichment of the ‘work’s public meaning. Only with the Renaissance do the inflec- tions of the personal become legitimate, still o be kept, how- ever, within the limits of the simply and universally recogniz- able. And only with Rembrandt do “lonely” artists begin to appear, lonely in their are. But even during the Renaissance, and as long as Western art ‘was endeavoring to perfec its technique, victories in this realm ‘could only be signalized by success in realistic imitation, since ‘here was no other objective criterion at hand. Thus the masses ‘ould still find in the art of cheir masters objects of admiration and wonder. Even the bird that pecked at the fruit in Zeuxis' picture could applaud It is a platitude that are becomes caviar to the general when the reality it imitates no longer corresponds even roughly to the reality recognized by che general. Even then, however, the re- sentment the common man may feel is silenced by the awe in which he stands ofthe patrons of this art. Only when he becomes lssatisfied with the social order they administer does he begin tocriticize their culture. Then the plebian finds courage for the first time to voice his opinions openly. Every man, from the ‘Tammany alderman to the Austrian house-paincer, finds that he is entitled to his opinion. Mose often this resentment roward crate isto be found where the dissatisfaction wich society isa reactionary dissatisfaction which expresscs itself in revivalismand puritanism, and latest of al, in fascism. Here revolvers and torches begin to be mentioned in the same breath as culeure. In the name of godliness or the blood’ health, in the name of simple ways and solid virtues, the searue-smashing commences. v Returning to our Russian peasant for the moment, le us sup- pose that after he has chosen Repin in preference to Picasso, the state educational apparatus comes along and cells him that he is ‘wrong, that he should have chosen Picasso—and shows him why. Ic is quite possible for the Soviet state do do this. Bur things being as they are in Russia—and everywhere else—the peasant soon finds the necessity of working hard all day for his living and the rude, uncomfortable circumstances in which he lives do not allow him enough leisure, energy and comfort to train for the enjoyment of Picasso. This needs, afterall, a con- siderable amount of “conditioning.” Superior culture is one of the most artificial of all human creations, and the peasane finds no “natural” urgency within himself chat will deive him toward Picasso in spite of all difficulties. In the end the peasane will go back to kitsch when he feels like looking at pictures, for he can ‘enjoy kitsch without effort. The state is helpless in this macter and remains so as long as the problems of production have not been solved in a socialise sense. The same holds true, of course, for capitalist countries and makes all talk of are for the masses there nothing but demagogy.* 6. le wil be objected hat such are for the masses as fll art was developed under rudimentary conditions of production—and that a good dal of folk are {son high lve. est debut follarcis not Athene, and its Athene whom tre wane. formal culture with its infinity of aspects, its muriance, its large Comprehension. Besides, we ae now cold that most of wha we consider good tn fle cultures che static survival of dead formal, aristocratic, cultures. Our ‘Od English ballad, for instance, were not create by the “fll,” but by che os feudal squirearchy ofthe English countryside, to survive in che mouths of he folk long after thos for whom che ballads were composed had gone 0 £0 other format iterature. Unfortanacely, unl the machine age, culture was the ‘clusive prerogative of society that lived by che labor of sero slaves. They ‘Sete che real symbols of culture. For one man co spend time and energy creat Ing ot listening to poetcy meant that another man had co produce enough £0 keep himself alive and the former in comfort. ln Africa coday we find that rhe culture of slaye-owning tribe is generally much superior to tha of the tribes that possess no les, [Author's note]‘Where today a political regime establishes an official cultural policy, it is forthe sake of demagogy. IFkitsch is ehe oficial ten- dency of culture in Germany, Italy and Russia, itis noc because their respective governments are controlled by philistines, but because kitsch is the culture of the masses in these countries, as it iseverywhere else. The encouragement of kitsch is merely an~ other ofthe inexpensive ways in which totalitarian regimes seck ‘to ingratiate themselves with their subjects. Since these regimes cannot raise the cultural level of the masses—even if they wanted to—by anything short of a surrender to international socialism, they will flater the masses by bringing all culeure down to their level. It is for this reason that the avant-garde is ‘outlawed, and not so much because a superior culture is inher- cently a more critical culture. (Whether or not the avant-garde could possibly flourish under a totaliarian regime is not perti- nent ro the question at this point.) Asa matter of fact, the main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of ew of fascists and Stalinist, is not that they are too critical, bur thar ehey are too “innocent,” that itis oo difficult eo inject cffecive propaganda into them, that kitsch is more pliable to this end. Kitsch keeps a dictator in closer contact with the soul” of the people. Should the official culture be one superior to the general mass-level, there would be a danger of isolation, Nevertheless, ifthe masses were conceivably to ask for avant- ‘garde art and literature, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin would not hesitate long in attempting to satisfy such ademand. Hitler isa birter enemy of the avant-garde, both on doctrinal and personal ‘grounds, yet this did not prevent Goebbels in 1932— 1933 from strenuously courting avant-garde artists and writers. When Gotefried Benn, an Expressionist poet, came over to the Nazis he was welcomed with a great fanfare, alchough at that very mo- iment Hitler was denouncing Expressionism as Kulturbolichewis- ‘mus. This was at a time when the Nazis fele chae the prestige which the avant-garde enjoyed among the cultivated German public could be of advantage to them, and practical considera- tions of this nature, the Nazis being skillful politicians, have always taken precedence over Hitlers personal inclinations. Later the Nazis realized that it was more practical to accede 0 the wishes of the masses in matters of culture than to those oftheir paymasters; rhe latter, when ie came to a question of pre- serving power, were as willing to sacrifice their culture as they ‘were their moral principles; while the former, precisely because power was being withheld from them, had to be cozened in very other way possible. Ie was necessary to promote on a much ‘more grandiose style than in the democracies the illusion that the masses actually rule, The literature and art they enjoy and understand were to be proclaimed the only true art and liter- ature and any other kind was to be suppressed. Under these ci ‘cumstances people like Gottfried Benn no matter how ardently they support Hitler, become a liability; and we heat no more of them in Nazi Germany. ‘We can see then that although from one poine of view the personal philistinism of Hitler and Stalin isnot accidental to the toles they play, from another point of view itis only an inciden- tally contributory factor in determining che cultural policies of their respective tegimes. Their personal philistinism simply adds brutality and double-darkness to policies they would be forced to support anyhow by the pressure of all their other poli- ‘ies—even were they, personally, devotees of avant-gatde cul- ture. What the acceptance of che isolation of the Russian Revo- lution forces Stalin to do, Hitler is compelled to do by his acceptance of the contradictions of capitalism and his efforts to freeze them. As for Mussolini—his case is a perfect example of the disponibilité of a realist in these matters. For years he bent a benevolent eye on the Futurists and buile modernistic railroad stations and government-owned apartment houses. One can still see in the suburbs of Rome more modernistic apartments than almost anywhere else in the world. Perhaps Fascism wanted to show its up-to-dateness, co conceal the face that i was a retro~ Bresson; perhaps ic wanted co conform co ehe tastes of the wealthy elite it served. Atany rate Mussolini seems to have real- ized lately that it would be more useful to him to please the cul- ‘ural tastes of the Italian masses than those of theif masters. The ‘masses must be provided with objects of admiration and won- der; the latter can dispense with them. And so we find Mussolini announcing a “new Imperial style.” Marinetti, Chirico, et al, are sent into the oucer darkness, and che new ralzoad station in Rome will not be modernistic. That Mussolini was lace in com-ing co this only illustrates again the relative hesitance with which Italian Fascism has drawn the necessary implications of its role. Capitalism in decline finds that whatever of quality i is sill, ‘capable of producing becomes almost invariably a threat to its own existence. Advances in culcure, no less than advances in si- cence and industry, corrode the very society under whose aegis they are made possible. Here, asin every other question today, it becomes necessary to quote Marx word for word. Today we no longer look toward socialism fora new culture—as inevitably as fone will appear, once we do have socialism. Today we look to socialism simply for the preservation of whatever living culture ‘we have right now. Partisan Review, Fall 1939; Horizon, April 1940; The Partisan Reader, 19341044, ed. William Phillips and Philip Rahv, 1946; Mas Calture: The Popular Artin America, ed. Beroard Rosenberg, and David Manning White, 1957 (abridged); A&C (unrevised); Maden Culture and the Arts, ed. James B. Hall and Barry Ulanov, 1967 Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste, ed. Gillo Dorttes, 1969 (abridged); Pollock and After: Te Critical Debate, ed. Francis Frascina, 198s,