Brush with Greatness

I done read me a liberry book 'bout that there Maxfield Parrish guy what painted all them "girls on rocks." Some @$$hole had sliced out a couple pages, pretty clearly for the plates thereon. On the one hand that was annoying, but on the other it makes me feel better to know that, however déclassé I may be for liking somebody as kitschy as Parrish, there's somebody out there more æsthetically hopeless than I.

Part of the essay about Parrish's artistic development and appreciation discussed his changing fashion with the artocrats. Inevitably his work was generally considered kitsch by the second World War — it wasn't nearly abstruse enough to be unpopular with hoi polloi, which, ironically enough, is what made snubbing it a necessity for the artocrats.

Anyhoo, I fired up ole Bessie, my thinkin' cap, and after a few hours 'n' a coupl'a belts o' good 'shine, it done finally occurred to me that in distinguishing between art worthy of the name and "kitsch" art, what the distinguishers are doing is privileging certain emotional and intellectual responses/reactions while deriding others — even as the theoretical program behind art-y art is to inspire response/reaction, not just certain kinds. Therefore the artocrats are ƒµ¢kin' hypocrites. Q. E. D.

But then, we knew that already.