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Art What Defines High And Essay

Race and gender might have always been rigidly determined social categories, but class was more mutable when it came to access to cultural emblems like the visual and literary arts (Levine). In "Cartoon and Comic Classicism," Smooden argues that scholars are deeply conflicted about the boundaries between high and low art. Cartoons, and the analysis of cartoons, are a perfect example of how, when, and why the boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow become blurred. Cartoons are artistically discreet modes of visual culture, and they often convey social and political commentary that is far more in depth than canvases hanging on the walls of art museums. Some mass-produced popular art carries with it an element of subversion, buried beneath the surface and only visible as satire by those keen enough to notice it -- whether high or low on the social ladder. Artists like Mark Ryden embody lowbrow, popular art and yet convey a sense of aesthetics and insight not dissimilar from that...

High and low are not adjectives used to qualify the quality of the artwork itself, but only the nature of the consumer, the viewer, or the audience. The designation of high and low is artificial as well as mutable: as Levine points out is the case with Shakespeare as well as opera. What is lowbrow today may be highbrow tomorrow and possibly even vice-versa. In a free and democratic society, the lines between high and low must become as blurred as possible to enable meaningful discourse about art.
Works Cited

Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Harvard University Press, 1988.

Peterson, Richard A. "Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore." Poetics 21 (1992).: 243-358.

Smoodin, Eric. "Cartoon and Comic Classicism: High-Art Histories of Lowbrow Culture." American Literary History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 129-140

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Harvard University Press, 1988.

Peterson, Richard A. "Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore." Poetics 21 (1992).: 243-358.

Smoodin, Eric. "Cartoon and Comic Classicism: High-Art Histories of Lowbrow Culture." American Literary History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 129-140
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