Art in its Time: Theories and Practices of Modern Aesthetics

PORK AND PORCELAIN
in this way unlike fox-hunting—signify superiority without privilege, ideologically
basic to modern class relations. Class differences disappear from view
within the generality of the concept of the “public,” as with that of the “citizen”
who is the subject of democratic politics and the rule of law.
While tycoons like Frick and Morgan may have enjoyed thinking of themselves
as modern Medici, their modus operandi could not be the same as that of
past Maecenases. Mozart’s archbishop had wanted new masses and symphonies
for every important occasion, but the musical basis of an orchestra like the one
Higginson supported in Boston was the body of “classical” works that had come
into existence since the turn of the nineteenth century. 6 Likewise, a notable feature
of the early stages of American museums was their stocking with casts and
other copies of European antiquities, and well into the twentieth century
museum philanthropy, focusing on art of the past, displaced private patronage
for contemporary artists. During the period between the Renaissance and the
end of the eighteenth century when the modern system of the fine arts came into
existence, classical objects embodied the essence of art, giving ancient authority
to a modern institution. Similarly, as the nineteenth century came to its end, art
was embodied for Americans in Old Masters; for later generations, the Impressionists,
both foreign and rapidly set in the past by subsequent avant-gardes,
came to fill this role. Collecting such works decreased the element of risk, from
the viewpoints of monetary and cultural investment alike, since collectors bought
only those things already certified by the “test of time.” But beyond this, and
beyond the wish to acquire the luster of the European past, this orientation
reflected the element of remoteness from contemporary American life important
to the sacralization of art. Things from earlier times and distant places could signify
interests higher than those of everyday life; they both exemplified the
superiority of their buyers and held out the possibility for improvement to those
less richly endowed who yet cared to accept its educational influence.
This educational aspect linked arts-giving with other forms of social altruism
like the establishment of libraries and social work. By making examples of
humankind’s best available to the benighted masses wealthy people willing to
share their artistic treasures could “belong to an exclusive group and at the same
time have the satisfaction of serving the Great Public.” 7 Just as fundamentally,
art’s sacralizing role required differentiating cultural products from other commodities,
not only (as suggested above) in their manner of production but also in
their distribution and consumption. It is true that the chief organizational form
developed for arts philanthropy was that of the corporation, ruled by a board of
trustees drawn for the most part from other more conventionally economic
boards. But the nonprofit character of these corporations provided a foundation
6 For the early history of this development, see William Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century
England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
7 Fox, Engines, p. 21.
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