I was brought up to revere Serious Art. I was also taught strict criteria as to what Serious Art is. As longtime readers of this Weblog may remember, I enumerated some of the criteria in a couple of early entries from the spring of 2004, especially this one about the "Art Renewal Institute," an art promotion group which attempts to re-instate academic nineteenth century values in the visual arts. The Serious Criteria remain the same: "seriousness, that the art addresses universal human or natural concerns especially tragic ones, difficulty, that the art is not easily appreciated by just anyone, but takes some thinking and reflection to enjoy, and technical superiority, that it's done really well."

There is, however, a bit of trouble in this definition, as well as just about any other attempt to pin down what Serious Art is. Not everyone shares the same criteria. What I was taught about Serious Art, including much more than the definitions above, comes from a very specific, Euro-American cultural milieu, which flourished from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. And the most difficult thing about holding to this definition is that, at least nowadays in our globalized world, it excludes most of the art that is currently produced. But you can still find pretentious attempts at Seriousness, in art galleries and university art departments all over the world.

Why am I bringing this up again? Haven't I said enough and perhaps I should just shut up and make art, no matter what it is? Like someone raised in a strict religious tradition who has "fallen away," I still am haunted by my old indoctrination. I still judge my art production by the old "Is it serious?" dogmas that I grew up with. And of course, as with some sort of artistic Calvinism, I always come up short.

Let's take my current work as an example. I'm working on page 36 of a graphic novel that I started in 1999. It will take me many more years to finish it. In Europe, graphic novels (long-form comic books) have long since been accepted as "art" but in the USA they are only now, within the last ten years or so, being considered "seriously." And even then, the graphic novels taken seriously in the USA are ones with, uh, serious subjects, such as Art Spiegelman's famous Maus, a graphic novel portrayal of the Holocaust.

My graphic novel makes no pretense of "seriousness." It's an adventure story about a modern wizard and a volcanic eruption. It has no commercial potential and may never see the light of day either in print or online. However, I really cherish this work and enjoy doing it. In fact, I like doing it more than I like the properly defined "serious" work that I showed in the Massachusetts gallery back last October.

You know how you can instantly tell that some work of art, writing, etc. is Not Serious? There's a wizard in it. Or a super-hero. Or a spaceship. Or a dragon. Now sure, the great literature of the past, especially things from the ancient and medieval world, have wizards, superheroes (of a non-costumed sort), and dragons. But that was then, this is now. What happened to take the dragons and the wizards out of the world of Seriousness and put them into the world of kitsch and childishness?

Just a century or so ago, Serious Art fans (Germans, especially, and they own seriousness) thrilled to portrayals of the aforementioned fantasy or mythological characters in the works of Richard Wagner. You've got dragons, helmeted sword-wielding warriors, flying Walkyrie maidens, evil or misguided magic users, half-human creatures, gods, goddesses, and all sorts of other types which are now represented in role-playing games, big-budget fantasy films, and comic books. How did the seriousness of Germany turn into the entertainment triviality of "Dungeons and Dragons?"

Tolkien fans might say, "What about LORD OF THE RINGS? Isn't that Serious?" Well, as a good friend of mine might say, "Yes and no." Many readers of "serious" literature detest Tolkien's fantasy epic. For an example of their opinions, here's an essay by Chris Mooney from a few years ago. One evaluation of Tolkien makes the connection more clear: LORD OF THE RINGS is sometimes seen as a tacky British imitation of Wagner. Which brings us back to Wagner and why dragons aren't Serious any more.

The horrors of the twentieth century, and the Nazis' use of Wagner as their propaganda, are in my opinion what devalued the dragons and wizards. In the Mooney essay, he cites some critics as claiming that Tolkien's story, and its brutality, was inspired by the author's experiences during World War I (and the situation of World War II, during which it was written). If LORD OF THE RINGS could be seen as an allegory of World War II, then it starts looking "Serious" again — just as a comic book about the Holocaust can be Serious while a comic book about a super-hero cannot. But few educated people can look at depictions of blond barbarians in horned helmets, or heroic maidens in armor, and not at least subliminally think of the Third Reich, and from there, back into the dungeons of mass entertainment.

I claim no historical or social commentary in my own graphic novel. If I knew what was good for me, I'd put it aside and paint more, like, meaningful stuff, earnest abstractions and tasteful landscapes, or more of my allegorical "angels" or something. I can still do that, and someone might even pay me to do it. But I really want to depict that wizard working his magic. So like a good artistic Puritan, I feel guilty. I'm doing work that is not Serious, and I like it.

Posted at 3:56 am | link