Karl Marx

Marx:

Keywords: Class, Ideology, Proletariat, Bourgeoisie

Industrialization led to capitalism and new class of people- proletariat.

Became involved in communist party (fighting class system). Fled to London.

Problems with capitalism:

-      Modern work is alienated. Work can be a great joy, but workers need to see themselves in the objects they create. Labor can let us externalize what is inside of us, but this is rare in modern world. (factory lines).

-      Modern work is insecure. Capitalism makes us just part of a machine, replacable.

-      Workers get paid little while capitalists get rich. Capitalists see profit as reward for ingenuity. Marx says this is stealing work of workers, exploitation

-      Capitalism is unstable. Series of crises of abundance, rather than shortage. We should distribute wealth to spread it out and so leisure can be respectable

-      Capitalism is bad for capitalists. Marriage extension of business. People together for financial reasons. Economic interests at heart of their lives. This is called commodity fetishism- we value things that really have no value.

o Feminism at one point wanted women to work but more radical feminists say that this actually is not true. Women shouldn’t try to fit in this broken patriarchal system.

Capitalism gives us a bunch of ideas- person who doesn’t work is worthless, leisure is sinful, more things is better. A problem of society not necessarily people.

Marxist reading of art history- look at historical circumstances in which a work of art was produced. Social roots of works of art concretely identified, rather than saying ‘the progression of the nude’ and assuming the nude has developed over time just because it is the natural progress for the nude to get ‘better’. “Marxist art historians set themselves the task of showing the operation of social-economic forces not simply as setting the background against which a work of art develops, but as conditioning the way It appears.”

Bourgeoisie owned, proletariat owns nothing

Ideology for Marxists means a ‘false consciousness’ by means of which inequalities of power characteristic of class societies are preserved. Makes people believe they believe in the same things those who rule them do. TJ Clark calls them ‘constructs’ tied to particular class. This does not make them false, Clark just says they are not true for everyone. Clark does not believe it is possible to write social history without economic theory.

Neo-Marxists argue all art is in some form ideological

Classic example of Marxist art history: Florentine Painting and its Social Background. Directly connects art with society. Art changes as different classes come to power.