Ben Shahn: Commercial v Fine Art

Ben Shahn: Liberation 1945

Ben Shahn: Illustration

Ben Shahn: French workers

One of the most difficult areas to negotiate as an artist is that territory between fine art and commercial art and there has been a lot of snobbery, elitism, and much hoo-ha about the differences between high art and low art. Indeed there has been enough verbiage to weigh the heart down of any artist who aspires to cross boundaries. So it was of great relief to me when I came across Ben Shahn’s approach to this subject in an old discarded library copy of his work. His article ‘Some revaluations of commercial and fine art’ was written in 1950 and formed the core subject of a talk he gave to the students of the Franklin School in New York during that same year. The year incidentally that I was born, so although it might appear to be something from another era, for myself it is a voice that still echoes down the art valley and even though now very faint, makes good sense. He sets off to admit that he has, “a foot in the stirrups of both horses.” (p. 121, 1972) He then goes on to state that he finds the distinction confusing, and wishes to sow a similar confusion in the ranks of art students attending his lecture. I know exactly what he meant and why he believed that good work was being done in both disciplines and that commercial work could be just as valid a statement about the human condition as fine art work.

His image of children swinging in front of bombed out buildings, is a wonderful summation of what it must have felt like to witness the end of a destructive world wide conflict. The children are thin, almost wretched but they still have the energy and vitality to play with great abandon. They are a wonderful image of the optimism of 'liberation', as Europe was released from the occupying forces of Nazi rule. In another image French workers show their hands, weighty hands that confirm their status as people that value hand skills and hard work. Manual labour is just that, labour that uses 'les mains'. Shahn's images were direct and designed to communicate his socialist values, and they still continue to do so. 

When 'Liberation' was shown at the Tate Gallery in the early 1950s Shahn came over to London and gave a lecture, warning us all of the latest tendency to categorise art, in this case into various types of abstraction. In particular he was referring to Alfred Barr's famous diagram of abstract art.

Alfred Barr: The Development of Abstract Art

Shahn's words were however not heeded and Clement Greenberg and his ideas on abstraction and media specificity would soon hold sway over many English fine art departments. Atomisation and categorisation somehow swaying opinion for many years, and only with the rise of post-modernism and following that, an appreciation of complexity and entanglement, did these old worn out theories lose their grip.

Here I am still working in an art institution 70 years after Shahn’s admonition and the division between fine art and the other visual art disciplines is still there. When you enter my institution you have to choose to do illustration or fine art, they are two totally different pathways. You can also do comic book art, graphic design or animation. All of which are visual subjects that demand a set of visual skills in order to solve different problems. I have really never understood the divide. I have taught fine art, illustration and graphic design, as well as drawing for interior design and fashion. Once any superficial differences are overcome, you work with the fact that each area is focused on communicating ideas in response to various aspects of human lives. You are sending messages between different humans and creating new images to carry these messages as you do so. Embedded into these messages is always something above and beyond what the artist thinks they are saying. It is only years later that that extra something begins to be seen. The distancing that time gives to something, allows us to see what was always there, but which was invisible, because like the water in which fish swim, it was taken for granted. 

Clothes design can be used to help people feel better about themselves; people can be made to feel taller, more empowered or sophisticated. An environment can be made to feel more comforting or to project a sense of power, graffiti (an area you don’t need to go to art college to learn about) can move you, and make street kings of its makers and illustrators have as much right to tell stories as anybody else. Who says what to whom and in what medium and to what effect? That’s the core story, that’s what the whole thing revolves around. Something I well remember having to teach when communication theory was seen to be a vital tool in the armory of every graphic designer. 

I have always admired the versatility of English artists such as John Piper, who could create images of pure fine art painting, design sets for the theatre, turn his hand to textile design as well as produce stained glass windows for various churches. His work has dipped in and out of fashion, but whether you like it or not, his key facility, which was to recognise and be able to sum up the most salient visual features of a place or building, led him to be able to design images that were very interdisciplinary translatable. 

John Piper: Screenprint

John Piper: fabric design

John piper: Set design

Human beings have developed some pretty sophisticated communication tools, but once again we get confused between things and processes. Nouns in particular are tricky things, they categorise the world in ways that sometimes help, but at other times they don’t help at all. Words like art, craft and design suggest that they are very different things, but the reality is when you see these things as belonging to a process, you will find that they are totally interconnected. You cant make a sculpture without craft, you cant paint a painting without understanding how to fit colour and shape together; they are core elements of the design process. Process goes right down, deep down into the soil or sea from which we emerged. 

Semaphore

Humans are extensions of the environment out of which they emerged, they are an on-going process and their various attempts to communicate between themselves are also processes that are products of these environments. Waving flags as signals was a communication process that emerged as a result of humans developing sailing ships and making it difficult for themselves to maintain close intimate forms of communication. Speaking, one of our most precious forms of communication, is unthinkable with out the idea of ‘air’. As Yates said when asked where his poetry came from, “I made it out of a mouthful of air.” What was contained within him escapes out into the container within which Yates himself grew. The container is contained in its container. In ancient texts ‘pneuma’, was both the ‘breath’ inside us, and the ‘air’ that surrounds us. As Emanuele Coccia puts it, “To breathe means to be immersed in a medium that penetrates us with the same intensity that we penetrate it.” (p.11, 2019) So the debate about whether or not something is art would appear to me to be not one worth pursuing or wasting energy on, of more importance is the gradual raising of awareness of the way humans are interpenetrated by everything else, and of how the processes of interaction are what enable life to be maintained. As we myopically engage in definitions, we lose sight of the reality of our existence and like Nero, fiddle around whilst the city burns down around us. 

References: 

Morse, J. D. (1972) Ben Shahn London: Secker and Warburg

Coccia, E (2019) The Life of Plants Cambridge: Polity

Piper, J (1968) Stained glass: Art or anti-art New York: Sterling

Note:

The Ben Shahn drawing on the cover of Ralph Ellison's 'The Invisible Man' Penguin modern classics book, was originally for a suite of illustrations for a proposed film Ambassador Satchmo, commissioned for the film by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly in 1956. The film was never made and the illustrations eventually repurposed. 

See also:

Drawing and communication theory