bourdieu's distinction

Pierre Bourdieu, in his work Distinction, insists that aesthetics are determined not entirely by a work's actual "pure" beauty; rather, the aesthetics of a work are assigned by the educated class of society--by the people who spend years studying the history of art and literature and the aesthetics present in past works. Along the same lines, Bourdieu writes that "cultural needs are the products of upbringing and education...preferences in literature, painting or music, are closely linked to educational level" (1809). This creates a problem when viewed in light of what he says later in his writing--that the "'pure' gaze" (his term for the untainted look upon art) is merely a "historical invention" (Bourdieu, 1811) that is associated with the self-lording organization that is artistic producation (see my last post on Ohmann--the symbiotic relationship between publisher, reviewer, and advertiser...AND consumer--it applies here as well). This web of "what is art and what is not and who determines what it is?" ruins art for the...err...common person (for lack of a better phrase). Bourdieu says it better than me: "The 'naive' spectator cannot attain a specific grasp of works of art which only have meaning--or value--in relation to the specific history of an artistic tradition" (1811).



When I was reading this essay (and yes, I think I might agree with Bourdieu to an extent here), I thought of the Mona Lisa by da Vinci. Yes, it's an extremely popular work of art. Millions of "naive spectators" make the pilgrimmage to the Louvre and stand in long lines just to take a quick glance (wikipedia.org says approximately 15 seconds) at the now-estimated $670 million portrait. Why all the hype for this painting of a pretty plain woman? Why not stand in line for Monet's Woman With A Parasol? Or Van Gogh's The Starry Night? To me, these other paintings are much more aesthetically pleasing, and I have no experience in studying art. So again I ask, why stand in line for the Mona Lisa?


Mona Lisa got her fame from Walter Pater's essay "The Renaissance," in which he praised the work for being the embodiment of "the modern idea." Would this piece of art be as famous as it is without Pater's scholarly essay? Probably not. Just chew on that for awhile...


In the meantime, check out this youtube video...it shows just how well-known the Mona Lisa is these days (and it's kinda fun).