The Connection Between the Art Maker and Art Consumer

In chapter two of Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Michael Baxandall explains that there is a point in the transfer of visual information from the eye to the brain when the human interpretation of the information loses "uniformity." He means that there must be a progression in the interpretation: a progression from an ocular understanding of light and color by cone receptors to an understanding based upon a "stock of patterns, categories, habits of inference and analogy" located in the brain (29). In other words, people see differently because people rely on different sets of knowledge and interpretation skills to do the seeing.

Baxandall entitles this second chapter "The period eye," drawing attention to the effect his concept had on art production and consumption in certain artistic periods (specifically those prevalent in fifteenth-century Italy). The idea that he outlines, while possibly applicable in fifteenth-century Italy, is not sufficient to describe the condition of art today. His reliance upon a strict, skill- and group-based model of artistic interpretation and opinion denies the autonomy of the modern artist and viewer.

Baxandall makes three points early in the reading: first, that a fifteenth-century man was considered refined and educated if he could discuss and make "discriminations" about an artist's skill; secondly, that a piece of art is receptive to the interpretative skill its admirer (or critic) possesses; and lastly, that everyone possesses a multitude of interpretive skills.

Does Baxandall truly believe his third statement? While he does trust that there are a certain set of skills that we "absorbed like everyone else in infancy," Baxandall puts more importance on "taught skills," those that we "learned formally, with conscious effort" (for example, piano or medicine). Of course, not all people of the 1600s had the ability to acquire "taught skills." Baxandall quickly rules out the significance of the "peasants and the urban poor" in his essay, stating that he is only talking about "those whose response to works of art was important to the artist-the patronizing classes" (38).

Baxandall's theoretical deletion of the majority of the Renaissance population works with his explanation of the general process of art making and consumption: the artist must recognize the skills his public possesses so that he can implement them into his work, allowing the public to recognize and adopt an attitude about the work accordingly. Because each individual member of the public is stronger in certain areas ("business skills...pious skills...polite skills"), but every member of the public has a certain amount of each, "it is the highest common factor of skill in his public," or the public's cognitive style that the artist caters for through his work (40). Baxandall writes of the artist: "His public's visual capacity must be his medium. Whatever his own specialized professional skills, he is himself a member of the society he works for and shares its visual experience and habit." (40)

Art, whether it be in the form of painting, music, theater, et cetera, is much more accessible now than it was in fifteenth-century Italy, though. There is no longer a "patronizing class" in the sense that there is no longer only a small sect of people encountering, supporting and consuming art. In the age of technology, art is universal. So, to whom-or to what skills-does the modern artist cater? In an ideal world, where the artist is not interested in fame or wealth, but only the self-satisfaction and self-betterment that comes from artistic expression, the answer would be "himself." Of course, this is not an ideal world; it's safe to say that most of the artists on Top 40 Radio at the moment are more concerned with selling records than reaching the next level in their spiritual and mental development. Generally, the modern artist is selling his material to members of his target demographic or audience, who will all share a similar level of interpretive skill. Why does Britney Spears never venture far out of the box of "cutesy pop song"? Her audience, using their innate and taught skills, can distinguish a good "cutesy pop song" from a bad one. In the same regards, a Christian sculptor who sells his work through churches and Christian organizations will have religious subject matter. His buyers (church-goers) will interpret and associate themselves with the work using their own past experiences.

Autonomy is regulated even more so when Baxandall speaks of art consumers. For one, he partly defines taste as the intersection between "discriminations demanded by a painting
Baxandall, once again, is constraining with his definition of taste. The theory that someone with knowledge will "have a taste" for art that can be picked apart using his knowledge is logical, although not entirely always true. Baxandall places too much emphasis on words. While "the Renaissance beholder was a man under some pressure to have words that fitted the interest of the object," the modern art appreciator is not. Now art is no longer confined to whom he calls the "over-cultivated person."

Work Cited

Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. Oxford University Press, 1988.