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Arts & Communication Realist art of Kenneth Jack and rural towns

2. The sociology of art was only a progressive force up until the failed European
revolutions of 1848, and then, its social role turned
There are two theoretical aspects that need to be considered reactionary. When Wolff links the Engels/Balzac case
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here—the impact of society on the artwork and the impact in her book to ideology, she is suggesting that ideology
of the artwork on society. The materialist Marxist position is invoked in the sense that Louis Althusser uses the
was that being determines consciousness, as opposed term—that is, the Ideological State Apparatuses of school,
to consciousness determining being. In Marxist terms, university, army, media, and church function as ideological
the material economic base of the forces and relations of instruments. 22,23 In certain hands and at certain times, the
production (primarily) determine the ethical, political, themes presented by Balzac could serve an ideological
legal, cultural, and religious superstructure. 13,14 In fact, function; however, for me, this would have to be explained
Marx uses the term “ideology” in his famous 1859 Preface, carefully within the narrow and specific context in which
where he says that the “legal, political, religious, aesthetic it allegedly happened. This is another way of looking at
or philosophic” realms of social life are “ideological ideology that allows us to escape the interpretative dead-
forms,” thereby placing ideology clearly within the realm end where we say that everything is ideological and leave
of superstructure and not economic base. Threadgold it at that. Balzac himself was unlikely to have wanted the
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expands this as follows: “For the materialist historian, who ideas in his works to serve as ideology because they were
is not a semiotician, ideology is consciousness, the mind, not in his own immediate class interests. However, the
beliefs, separated from the material, real institutions of themes could function as ideology “behind his back” as he
economics and politics”. However, Marxism allows for has no control over future usages and interpretations of his
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culture to work back on and sometimes affect the economic texts.
base without us resorting to idealism (i.e., the primacy of
ideas/consciousness). In art theory, the ideology inherent In his letter to Minna Kautsky dated November 26,
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in an artwork is linked to the economic situation of its 1885, Engels offers the following comments, directing
production and the artist’s social and economic position people away from early ideas of socialist realism to a
within the mode of production. In her view, Wolff explains realism where the descriptions of social and economic life
in detail why art is ideological, without it being simply reveal actual contradictions in those realms and thus dispel
reducible to ideology, as follows. 18 illusions:
Conformist, rebellious, and even eccentric views are [A] socialist-based novel fully achieves its purpose,
always a function of the social position (which is in my view, if by conscientiously describing the
often extremely complex) of the individual [author real mutual relations, breaking down conventional
or artist] concerned. Ideas and beliefs which are illusions about them, it shatters the optimism of
proposed as value-free or non-partisan are merely the bourgeois world, instills doubt as to the eternal
those ideas which have assumed the guise of character of the existing order, although the author
universality, perceiving as natural social facts and does not offer any definite solution or does not even
relations which are in fact historically specific. To line up openly on any particular side. 24
this extent, then, art as a product of consciousness Here, we see the post-1848 context in Europe where,
is also permeated with ideology, although it is not as Lukács said, the bourgeoisie is no longer a progressive
reducible to ideology. And, to that extent, too, class. It is up to the revolutionary parties, trade unions, and
what the author or the artist says in the work of other mass organizations to develop their own political
art is actually (or perhaps one should say also) the lines and tactics based on what art reveals.
statement of a social group and its world-view. In his primary work on Leo Tolstoy, Lenin never once
Using the analysis of critical sociology, the ideology wrote that Tolstoy’s novels were “ideology” or “ideological.”
behind and presented in the material form of the work can He does once refers to Tolstoy’s “patriarchal Tolstoyan
be accessed, revealed, and assessed. However, as Frederick ideology,” which seems to refer to his class position as
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Engels and George Lukács wrote about Honoré de Balzac, a landowner as opposed to how the peasants were being
there can be cases where the social position of the artist attracted to the emerging money economy rather than
does not match the meanings that are potrayed in their to the feudalism of the previous era, which was based on
work. These two authors posited that the real Balzac was loyalty to the lord. According to Lenin’s argument, Tolstoy
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a disoriented and struggling Royalist in early 19 century showed that any Russian revolution would need to bring
th
France, whereas they believed that his work highlighted on board the disaffected peasantry. In another place, Lenin
the then-contemporary emergence of the bourgeoisie as a writes that “Tolstoyism, in its real historical content, is an
ruling class. In fact, Lukács claimed that the bourgeoisie ideology of an Oriental, an Asiatic order.” Here, Lenin
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Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 3 doi: 10.36922/ac.3481