ART AND POLITICS

Gordon Graham

i. THE SUGGESTION that art should be political, or even that all true art
must be political, will hardly strike us as original. Of late some such claim has

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

been so widely advanced by artists and critics that in certain quarters it is
almost an established doctrine. Those who have objected to this opinion have
done so largely widi a view to affirming the independence of art from
political servitude (art for art's sake) and in order to assert the right of the
artist to be free from state and ideological interference. It has been left for the
philosopher, whose business is meaning, to wonder precisely what claims
about the political character of art amount to, and to investigate the con-
ceptual problems they seem to involve.
The claim that works of art are politically significant has been dismissed
sometimes on the grounds that it is simply false, that the vast majority of
artists and their works have had no historical connection with political
events or people. But those who advance the claim are not so foolish as to
advance a hypothesis which is so obviously false. Their claim is rather that
the true appreciation of a work of art involves us in an understanding of the
political climate in which it was conceived and the political allegiances which
formed its composition, its promotion and its success or failure, an under-
standing which may involve us in political issues yet.1 The connection
between art and politics, then, is not a contingent but a rational one to be
made at the level of political and aesthetic understanding. Furthermore, the
apparent falsehood of the claim may be a function solely of its generality. It
is easy to deny that all art is politically significant, but not easy to deny that
some is.
Four particular categories spring readily to mind. First there are those
plays, novels and poems which have as their subject some political or social
phenomenon and which appear to treat it critically or enthusiastically,
works of literature which are often, tiresomely, called 'crushing indictments'
or 'triumphant celebrations' of this and that Even painting and music have
been held to be of this character. Second is that literary genre which is most
often treated as a species of political reflection but which also has claims to
aesthetic consideration, namely Utopian literature. The third is a familiar
feature of nationalism. I mean the close relationship between certain artistic
traditions and the political movements of their day, a relationship so close
that it has generally been understood to consist of the artistic and the actively
228
 GORDON GRAHAM 229

political as being no more than different aspects of the same movement The
most familiar examples are Italian nationalism in which the operas of Verdi,
the writings of Mazzini and the activities of the Carbonari are spoken of as
expressions of the same aims and aspirations; and the Irish literary revival
of Yeats, Synge and A.E. which, apparently, was inextricably bound up
with the emergence of the Irish Free State. The fourth and final category
where art and politics seem to converge is political rhetoric. As long ago as
the Greeks it was understood that the features which make a good drama are
similar to those which make a good speech, and that to move an audience, in
the appropriate circumstances, is to have power over it.

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

Leaving aside extravagant empirical claims, dien, we may find some
plausibility in the suggestion that politics and art can come together at the
level of the kinds of understanding they employ and that this convergence
is especially well illustrated in certain sorts of literature. But a little reflection
raises the question whether such a convergence is possible. Aesthetic appre-
ciation and political deliberation appear to be mutually exclusive modes of
thought. On the one hand we are unlikely to disagree that politics is about
doing things, contriving and securing certain outcomes in the world and
that the understanding involved in political deliberation, the goodness and
badness, wisdom and folly of this or that course of action is an understanding
of means to ends. On the other hand it seems equally plain that art is non-
practical and that aesthetic appreciation does not consist in a grasp of con-
nections between means and ends or in an estimate of the practical wisdom
of this or that. It is not just, as Oscar Wilde had it, that all art is useless; but
that questions concerning the usefulness or uselessness of a work of art are
inappropriate. It is not merely crassly utilitarian to ask of a painting 'What is
it good for?'; but is the product of confusion if we think the answers that it
will do very well as a wall decoration or that it will be a good investment
tell us anything about it as art. The degree to which works of art can be said
to be a help or a hindrance in practical affairs is irrelevant to their aesthetic
character.
But what then could political art be? If we are to say that some artistic
movements are, or were, part of a political movement, we must be saying
that their products or their producers contributed to securing or preventing
some political end like the unification of Italy or the independence of the
Republic of Ireland. And yet while calling these works political attributes
significance to them in the context of a certain sequence of events at a certain
place, to call them works of art seems to remove them from the particular
occasion and give them a perpetual significance. Similarly if we describe
Utopian literature or public rhetoric as both political and poetic, we appear to
be committed to the view that the character of such literature lies in its
being of practical import and its being of none. In short, while common
observation may incline us to the view that at least some art is appropriately
230 ART AND POLITICS

described as political art, the concepts of art and politics appear to imply
that political art is an impossibility. The purpose of this paper is to resolve
this difficulty.
2. It may be suggested that the manner in which I have presented all
this is obfuscating and that a resolution of the difficulty may be offered in the
following terms. 'The concepts of art and politics,' it may be said, 'as they
have been set out imply only that political thinking and acting must be of a
practical nature while artistic creativity and aesthetic understanding need not
be. This does not preclude the possibility that on occasions they may be,
and that what is called political art is one realization of this. The possibility

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

may adequately be accounted for in terms of form and content. In virtue of
its form a work of art is non-practical, in virtue of its content it may or may
not be. A novel, a play, a poem, even a musical composition or a painting
may as easily have a political doctrine or ideal for its theme or content as it
may have a view of love, a metaphysical theory or a description of nature.
What distinguishes the work of art from other means of expressing and
propagating the same doctrine or ideal is the form which the expression of the
doctrine or ideal takes. To say that it is a work of art is to say nothing about
what it conveys or seeks to convey, but is to determine the manner of its
construction. It is in virtue of his observing certain traditional canons and
devices of expression that the creator may properly be called an artist.
Political art, then, is the expression of some recognizable doctrine or set of
values in an aesthetic form.
Moreover, there is nothing incoherent about the claim that all great art
must be political since, on this account, such a claim means that "ideally"
the aesthetic form of expression is better suited to political and ethical themes
than any other (just as it has sometimes been suggested that all great poetry
is religious) and in this way we can makes sense of the most audacious thesis
about politics and art, however implausible such a thesis may be.'
The persuasiveness of this solution or dissolution of the problem rests
heavily upon the distinction between form and content in art. The inclination
to draw this distinction springs, I think, from a certain picture of the activity
of the artist which has been widely accepted as a true account of the matter.
According to this the artist finds certain features of the world important or
arresting, and by skilful deployment of the techniques he has mastered he
depicts and presents those features for our contemplation and, perhaps,
edification. In such a way Constable presents Salisbury Cathedral, Breughel
a country wedding, Beedioven the music-making of shepherds and rustics
heard across the hills, Dickens the bureaucracy of the Victorian courts and
Thackeray the hypocrisy of Vanity Fair. These last two approach die kind of
poetic imagining and contemplation which is of interest to us, for here it is
social and ethical features of the world which have struck the artist and which
he seeks to capture in the aesthetic form of which he is master.
 GORDON GRAHAM 231

But the easiness of the distinction depends on the ease with which we can
specify the content of a work of art. It is easy to say of a poem that it is about
love, or of a play that it is about revolution, but once we abstract such ideas
as 'content' what is left to comprise the form? Is it the particular words?
The structure of rhymes and rhythms? Neither of these candidates is obvious
and nothing more obvious suggests itself. In any case the ease with which we
may specify the content of a work of art is only apparent. The picture which
I have outlined suggests that metaphors and rhythms and so on can be separ-
ated from the ideas they express. But this is impossible. How are we to
appreciate the hypocrisy which Thackeray portrays in Vanity Fair except

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

in the things said and the events recounted? And how are we to appreciate
these except according to the manner in which the remarks are made and
the stories told? We cannot abstract the theme 'Hypocrisy' from the
expression of it because the work as a whole is itself an image of hypocrisy.
Furthermore such a separation of form and content would reduce artistic
creativity to the level of a craft or skill. But it is not in any arrangement of
words, contrivance of rhythmic patterns or rhyming schemes, nor in the
dexterity with which the paint is applied that the artist's genius consists,
though plainly these are important. The artist does not present words or
colours, but images in words or paint, and it is these images which constitute
his work as art, and the quality of the images which make it great art.
Collingwood makes the same point, more neatly, in his book The Principles
of Art:
A high degree of skill is shown in Ben Jonson's poem and an art critic might not un-
fruitfully display the skill by analysing the intricate and ingenious patterns of rhythm
and rhyme, alliteration, assonance and dissonance, which the poem contains. But
what makes Jonson a poet, and a great one, is not his skill to construct such patterns but
his imaginative vision of the goddess and her attendants, for whose expression it was
worthwhile to use that skill and for whose enjoyment it is worth our while to study
the patterns he has constructed.1

Since, then, we cannot separate the form and the content of a work of art
we cannot resolve our problem in this way. Whatever it is that the theme of a
work may be said to be, this does not exist separately from the work itself,
either in the real world or in the artist's mind. The actions of Sir Robert Peel
over the Corn Laws may have led Trollope to create the character of
Mr. Daubeny;8 but this does not mean that Mr. Daubeny, who shows his
power-hungering reluctance to leave office, is in some sense Sir Robert Peel
got up in artistic form or seen through the eye of Trollope. It follows from
this that since we do not have in the creation of Mr. Daubeny a portrait of
the corruption and ambition of nineteenth-century politics, it is impertinent
to ask whether the politics of that age has been accurately represented or
correctly analysed. Likewise, though we do in some sense have an 'ideal
Statesman' in the Duke of Omnium, it is not an ideal of which it is pertinent
232 ART AND POLITICS

to ask the relevance as it would be in the case of Bolingbroke's Patriot King.

Unlike the latter, the former is no less valuable because it presents an im-
practical set of prescriptions for the conduct of political life.
And yet these are political images. Since the distinction between form and
content breaks down we cannot explain the ambiguity in terms of artistic
form and political content.
3. Let us consider, then, another resolution. The artist, we may say,
abstractsfromhis political experience and from the world of politics. He is
prompted by that experience to make, so to speak, a perpetually contem-
platable image. He takes the vocabulary of politics and uses it not to condemn

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

or approve, advise or discourage, help or hinder the practical projects of this
or that group of men and women but to construct and develop images of
permanent aesthetic appeal and value. If we take up this resolution we may
say that the problem arose because we thought of the political and the aes-
thetic as exclusive objects of interest. This is not so. It is the political and
aesthetic interest which are different; but the object of those interests may be
the same. One is concerned with contriving and securing certain states of
affairs and the other with imagining and contemplating, amongst other things
similar sorts of states of affairs. The assassination of a statesman may be
dramatically important news to the politician, but it may also be the occasion
of a dramatic image to the playwright.
This way of resolving the problem seems very nearly right to me. It does
not lend much support, it is true, to the thesis that all works of art are
imbued widi political values and commitment, and speak to the interests
of one class or anodier; but I do not think that such a claim is defensible in
any case. Still, it is not easy to see how die proposed resolution will account
for the second of the phenomena listed at the start. Literary and artistic move-
ments, such as die Irish literary movement, have often been thought both
by those who created and participated in them and by those more immedi-
ately involved in politics, to be movements at least part of whose importance
was social and political. Of course, we might simply dismiss diis as a confused
and erroneous idea though a plausible one. If die activities of art and politics
are distinct it is simply a mistake to suppose that someone can be engaged in
both at the same time. Artistic movements and works of art may, however,
take on political significance by contingent association. For example, what
lends a national anthem or a party political song die political connotations
it has is simply that we associate it with the occasions on which it is custo-
marily sung. Art criticism is die wrong way to attempt to show what it is
about Elgar's music or Benson's poem which makes 'Land of Hope and Glory'
an appropriate song for die Tory Party. This will only be revealed in a
history of its use. Similarly, it was the contingent historical connection be-
tween Yeats, Douglas Hyde and the odier Nationalists, together widi die
appearance of some of dieir works in political journals, which created the
 GORDON GRAHAM 233
political connotations of the Irish literary movement. Such a con-
nection is historical not logical. There is nothing particularly appropriate
about Yeats's imagery which makes it especially valuable to Irish
Nationalists.
This theory of historical association will work very well, I think, in the
case of music and may be the only account we can offer of the political
associations which music occasionally appears to have. I cannot see, for
example, that there is something intrinsically imperialistic about the har-
monies of Elgar's 'Cockaigne', though because of its history the performance
of it may summon up a host of associations. But the theory is much less

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

plausible when we turn our attention to forms of art which express their
conceptions in words. For after all, what is said has a meaning in a wider
context than that of the work of art, Benson's words, if not great art,
lyrically express sentiments peculiarly appropriate to patriots. Yet if the
strictures I placed earlier upon the distinction between form and content are
well founded, we cannot separate the lyric and the sentiment. It seems, then,
that without modification the resolution we have been offered, even when
supplemented by the historical association theory will not do.
4. I propose now to modify this resolution so as to point to an important
and interesting way in which politics and art may converge, a way which
nevertheless does not jeopardize the legitimate distinction which may be
drawn between the two.
There are two assumptions upon which the paradox with which we have
been concerned rests. First it is supposed, plausibly, that politics is a paradigm
case of practical concern, and secondly that art is contemplative which,
however we are to interpret the notion, ultimately means, at the least,
non-practical. Now my suggestion is that the examination and clarification
of these suppositions will show them to be true in a way which excludes less
than we might think.
It seemsridiculousto deny that politics is a practical activity concerned with
doing and accomplishing. Yet to say that politics is practical is ambiguous.
It may mean, as it is often taken to mean, that politics is practical in a technical
and instrumental sense, so that the only considerations which have a bearing
upon our political actions are the connections between ends and the means to
them. But it may mean more than this, for it may encompass the whole
context in which ends are pursued. Morality, for example, places constraints
upon our actions by limiting the types of actions in which we may decently
engage, but it does not normally consist in prescribing courses of action.
It is therefore practical in the second sense of the work, though not in the
first. Now it is true that the popular image of the politician is of a man who
disregards all considerations but those of severe practicality, whose sole
concern is to reach the end, normally power, which his desire has set for him.
This is, in the main, a misrepresentation I fancy, but however that may be,
234 ART AND POLITICS

it is at least possible that the politician may take quite different sorts of factors
into account when he thinks about the course of action it is best to pursue.
We may ask, then, whether art can legitimately present considerations which,
though they are not practical in the straightforward sense, are practical in
this extended sense.
In fact this is another way of questioning the assumption that art
is non-practical, for to have clarified the meaning of the claim that art
is practical is already to have clarified the claim that art is non-
practical.

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

It is true, let us agree, that works of art as such do not prescribe courses of
action and that their value does not lie in the practical advice they offer.
This does not prevent their having a bearing upon political and moral conduct
which is less direct but perhaps not less important than straightforward
prescription. There isfirstof all what I shall call the psychological connection.
I mean the influence which a work of art may have upon our subsequent
thoughts and attitudes. For example, Tennyson's splendid poem, though it
does not teach us the value that is in the unquestioning obedience of the
Light Brigade, and though it certainly offers neither instruction nor advice
to soldiers, may prompt us to examine real cases of blind obedience in a more
sympathetic light. Similarly, the destruction of human relations, of humanity
itself, which O'Casey portrays in The Plough and the Stars may make a man
more hesitant in urging the necessity of revolution or extolling its rewards.
These are not lessons in the sense diat they are conclusions of the works in
question. The Plough and the Stars does not prove or demonstrate that re-
bellion has its drawbacks, but neither are they causal effects, for the thoughts
and feelings we may have are mediated by our understanding. Some thoughts
will be more intelligible than others and they may be prompted by conscious
reflection. The connection is none the less contingent, for the thoughts which
a work of art prompts in this way will vary from individual to individual
depending upon his sensitivity and experience, and there are none of these
thoughts the entertaining of which may be said to form an integral part of
an aesthetic appreciation of the work.
If it were to rest here the conclusion of the discussion would be pretty tame.
'We are all aware', it might be said, 'that works of art can have an effect upon
thoughts and emotions and that these in their turn may affect our behaviour.
This is a far cry from the claim that art and the artist as such may have a place
in political life.' I am aware that this is a just remark, and yet I am inclined to
think that most of the attempts to show that art necessarily has a political
dimension come down to something like diis. And, it is plain, if such a
connection between art and politics is not to be ignored or underestimated,
it is not to be exaggerated. The political and literary movements of which I
gave examples can, for the most part, be explained in terms of historical
association and psychological connection. Those who are dissatisfied with
 GORDON GRAHAM 235

this conclusion are often, it seems to me, men and women who want to
reconcile the life of an artist with the commitment of a full-time political
activist, a reconciliation which is ultimately impossible.
Still, there is a little more to be said about the connection between art
and politics. However much the realist in politics may deplore the fact, die
political actions and aspirations of many men spring from visions and ideals
that are part of die general culture and not of the political realm alone. It is
not true diat Rousseau was the father of the French Revolution, but it is true
that the activities and the policies of the Jacobins sprang from a general
intellectual climate of which philosophical ideas were a part. And, however

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

impertinent diese ideas may have appeared to die practised politicians of the
ancien regime, they were made politically relevant by diose who held them.
Likewise Marxist dieories of society were made relevant by Lenin and odicrs
in Russia by die very fact that those who held diem and believed themselves
to be motivated by diem became an important, the most important, element
in Russian public life.
Now if we are to inquire into die composition of what I have vaguely
called die cultural climate, it will appear that on occasions we cannot give
an adequate account of it without including certain works of art. This is
especially true of diose cultural climates which do not so much create a new
public order as sustain diat which has been created. The Russian Revolution
in die common consciousness is inseparable from works of art like Battleship
Potemkin and Stenka Razin. Again, Kipling's poetry (or some of it) is not
merely the expression of Imperialism in artistic form, but is part of the
cultural manifestation of die Imperialistic ideal. Indeed in bodi examples,
the ideal is far more clearly seen in works of art dian in murky facts which
die historians may discover about the Russian Revolution or die British
Empire. In short, to understand why some men undertook die courses of
action in politics that they did, one has, on occasion, to understand the ideals
diey had, and die norms which acted as restraints upon dieir conduct and
to which diey subscribed. In doing so one may have to turn to works of
art which are not, in diis connection, mere expressions of an independendy
premeditated ideal, but which form part of die ideal itself. In diis sense art
may have a political dimension.
5. It is clear that diis conclusion needs a number of qualifications. In die
first place an investigation of particular instances will reveal, I think, that
die occasions upon which art has had this political dimension are relatively
few. Secondly, though I should argue that a proper appreciation of such
works must involve reference to the ideal of which it is a part, I should not
argue that diis reference is of a kind restricted to those who share diat ideal.
Thirdly, die political significance which a work of art has it comes to have,
and this cannot be intentionally given. I cannot see diat an artist can set out to
create a part of die socialist or die imperialist ideal. The 'Marseillaise' or
236 ART AND POLITICS

'Land of Hope and Glory' may have come to have a place in such ideals,
but they could just as easily have been forgotten.
These qualifications provide little support for those who want to assess
artistic achievement in terms of political relevance, but it was not intended
that they should. I am inclined to think that the disagreement with which I
began is largely specious. But whether or not diis is so, I have shown, I hope,
that art and politics cannot always be divorced.

REFERENCES
1

Downloaded from http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Michigan on July 13, 2015

Raymond Williams, for example, in a 'R.G. Collingwood: The Principles of Art
recent review tells ui that to understand (Oxford, 1938), p. 27.
the works of Milton properly is to engage • As Trollope suggests in his Autobiography.
in thinking about real political problems.