Art plays a vital role in our lives, both in its creation, and its reception. Many people underestimate its importance, and power. Art has a potency emanating from its beauty. Beauty is a universal concept. However it is difficult to explain in tangible terms, as it has an immediate sensory effect upon us. It evokes a visceral rather than a cerebral response. It is inherently democratic, and whatever the philistines might claim, it is not, and never has been elitist.
However the most popular artists throughout history have had to rely upon wealthy patrons to make a living. Consequently there has been a constant tension between commercial concerns and the necessity for self-expression. Nonetheless the artist always considers his or her audience, as the artist is a consumer as well, but sometimes the fashionable whims of the market can override the personal motivations of the individual artist.
Popularity does not necessarily mean inferiority, nor does it indicate a lack of intelligence. It is easy to be cynical about the most overtly sentimental forms of art. Artists who consciously depict emotive subjects like animals or children are either authentic in their intentions, or exploiting our emotions for monetary gain. It is a paradox that is virtually impossible to untangle. It is no coincidence that the rise of sentimental art coincided with the Victorian age. There were more opportunities to become rich, but this was often at the expense of others. Sentimentality was in itself a reaction to the increasing mechanisation of society.
The landscape artists created motifs for our national sensibilities. Their paintings epitomise us, and as a result they are tremendously popular. The talents and skills are obvious to the onlooker and objectively speaking the art is still beautiful. The emotions that they inspire within all of us are also very real. We feel a sense of warmth and familiarity when we gaze at the images on canvas. These pictures tap into our desire for a simpler, more traditional way of life. However, nostalgia is bittersweet; it is both comforting, and painful.
England was the first country in Europe to industrialise, and these rural idylls capture a vanished world. Other European countries continued to maintain an agrarian economy, so there was little point for continental painters to romanticise the countryside as it remained a working environment.
However, it wasn’t just painters who understood the emotional connection to the land that once sustained us, writers felt it too. Jane Austen composed a moving tribute to the countryside infused with “all the old neglect of prospect”, and paid tribute to “English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without being oppressive”. Austen’s words remain rooted within a specific time and place, a more innocent age before the rapid pace of urbanisation. It is a vision of an England that seems so distant now.
The beauty of nature is the ultimate source of artistic inspiration. Artistic expression continued to replicate itself in myriad ways, Gainsborough painted the Suffolk countryside but English pastoral music was a major inspiration. The native sentiment for the countryside resounds within the plaintive tones of William Byrd’s composition “The Woodes So Wilde”. Tudor composers like Byrd were a primary influence on later composers, like the quintessentially English Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Williams himself was associated with Victorian sentimentalism, and his music harked back to a pre-industrial idyll where there was a “community of people who are spiritually bound together by language, environment, history and common ideals and, above all, a continuity with the past”. The one remaining feature in our culture that provides this continuity is the English countryside.
The poet and novelist Thomas Hardy found inspiration from the tableaux of Turner, which he described as “light modified by objects”. Turner drew his own inspiration from the poetry of James Thomson. His paintings are an exquisite rendering of the spirit of his verse, as they are the visionary depictions of “the bright enchantment”, “the radiant fields”, “the dew-bright earth” and “coloured air”. Watercolour art is the greatest medium to illuminate the darker side of English climate and aspect. The shadows, fleeting light, the gloomy atmosphere of melancholy and sense of fate are all apparent, and perpetually reverberate in the English imagination.
Milton’s poetic musings are filled with stark imagery, the silhouettes of the moon, and the dark, overhanging trees. These haunted landscapes were vividly recreated on canvas by Samuel Palmer. It is hard not to feel intense emotions like sadness and loss. The artists knew this and made it their primary endeavour.
It is regrettable that the most stone hearted fail to feel anything about art. These are people who seek a total repudiation of a collective culture and history. They are purely utilitarian and functional, and see no purpose in anything ornamental or decorative. They do not understand the importance of beauty. Many of them actively champion ugliness because that is a reflection of their inner nihilism.
These are the modern day iconoclasts, radicals and revolutionaries who have a burning desire to destroy, to undermine and to abrogate anything that represents joyfulness. They have cynical, bitter souls and take immense pleasure in destruction. They have no imagination, and have little understanding beyond material reality.
Tragically it is impossible to explain the transcendent to them because they literally lack the faculties to comprehend that concept. They also lack the intelligence to attach any significance to the past, because they only perceive the present and the future.
They have the erroneous belief that progress is both limitless and linear, and are convinced that history and tradition are regressive and a barrier to an enlightened and more equitable society. This is the consequence of a technocratic society that has drifted away from more sustainable, natural modes of living.
Civilisation is increasingly mechanistic, rather than organic. In this cold and functional atmosphere, minds are dulled and deadened. Artistic innovation declines and the culture turns moribund. The future of this country looks bleak. We need a cultural revival.
Ponderings 
Leave a comment