What other piece
of art has profoundly changed the way we view the world? And was it the art
that did it, or the way it was used that made the impact? Use the link below to
help you introduce to us an influential piece of art. Think about the type of
change it wrought, for example, ethical, social, metaphysical, etc.

The effect of art:
presentation

in art and
entertainment. Within a few years the stifling censorship of the theatre by the
lord chamberlain had been abolished, and a gritty realism emerged in British
cinema and drama. (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning came out at the same time
as the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley, and very soon Peter Finch was commenting
on Glenda Jackson's "tired old tits" in Sunday Bloody Sunday and Ken
Tynan said the first "fuck" on the BBC.) Homosexuality was decriminalized,
abortions were available on reasonable demand, and in order to obtain a divorce
it was unnecessary to prove that a spouse had committed the "matrimonial
crime" of adultery. Judges no longer put on black caps to sentence
prisoners to hang by the neck until dead. Can we say, though, that it was art
in this case that changed society, or was it an interaction between human
sciences (ie, the law) and the arts (the book) that led to change? This is from
the same Guardian article: …the message of Lady Chatterley's Lover, half a
century after the trial, is that literature in itself does no harm at all. The
damage that gets attributed to books – and to plays and movies and cartoons –
is caused by the actions of people who try to suppress them. See: "The
trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover"

No other jury
verdict in British history has had such a deep social impact. Over the next
three months Penguin sold 3m copies of the book – an example of what many years
later was described as "the Spy catcher effect", by which the attempt
to suppress a book through unsuccessful litigation serves only to promote huge
sales. The jury – that iconic representative of democratic society – had given
its imprimatur to ending the taboo on sexual discussion

But the book was
republished by Penguin books in 1960. The attorney general, Reginald
Manningham-Buller (dubbed ‘Bullying-Manners’ by the journalist and author
Bernard Levin) had to read only four chapters to decide to prosecute Penguin
books for publishing it. What annoyed him was not just the content, but the
fact that the price of the book meant it was affordable to women and members of
the lower classes (remember that only few women worked at this time, and
husbands were generally in charge of family finances). The trial was a disaster
for Manningham-Buller and the prosecution. They had failed to find any experts
to support their case, in stark contrast to Penguin’s defense team, which had
brought in authors, journalists, academics, and even members of the clergy to
defend the book. Manningham-Buller and his team had very little idea of what
Lawrence had been trying to express in his book, regularly being caught out by
the superior insight of the witnesses they were trying to catch out. And
although they tried to shock the jury – in his opening speech,
Manningham-Buller announced: "The word 'fuck' or 'fucking' appears no less
than 30 times . . . 'Cunt' 14 times; 'balls' 13 times; 'shit' and 'arise' six
times apiece; 'cock' four times; 'piss' three times, and so on." - they
were unable to prove that the book would have a negative influence on the
readers it was aimed at. According to the Guardian:

into explicit
detail the affair that took place (see below). Second, there was the fact that
a woman was breaking her marriage vows, something considered far worse than a
man behaving in the same way. Finally, it represented an intimate relationship
between a member of the ‘lower’ classes (although it emerges during the story
that Mellor is actually well-educated, and became an officer in the army during
the First World War) and the ‘upper’ classes, a concept that was totally taboo
in Britain at that time. The book was duly banned.

[pic]However,
there is no doubt that in Russia there were greater artistic achievements than
in Nazi Germany. Composers worked with fewer hindrances – as seen in the works
by Promotive and Shostakovich, and filmmakers such as Eisenstein emerged. Art’s
influence on society: the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover But even under less
oppressive governments, the artistic expression of certain ideas can be subject
to control. One great example is the book ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by DH
Lawrence, which was deemed offensive on many levels. In this book, Constance
Reid, a woman from a progressive liberal middle-class family marries a minor
member of the aristocracy, Lord Clifford Chatterley, and takes the title ‘Lady
Chatterley’. But her husband is injured in the First World War, confined to a
wheelchair, and left impotent. Despite this, he becomes a successful writer and
businessman. It is more his obsession with financial success and fame rather
than any physical difficulties which come between him and his wife, and she
begins an affair with their gamekeeper, Oliver Mellor. The largely aristocratic
‘establishment’ of Britain at the time – the book was published in Italy in
1928 - were shocked by many aspects of the book. First, there was the fact that
the book was ‘obscene’, in the way it went

In Stalinist
Russia, there was also a keen understanding of the power of art. Art portrayed
contented peasants, industrious workers, and Stalin himself. In fact, Stalin
was shown god-like in many paintings, a phenomenon known as the Cult of Stalin.
Just as in Germany, gigantic architectural projects expressed the power of the
state.

Throughout
history, it has always been the case that art has the power to change society,
especially when new media are used to express an idea. During the First World
War, for example, movie cameras were used for the first time to record trench
warfare – when the film was shown in cinemas in Britain, audiences ran out
screaming. This led to the government censoring further such use of such a
powerful medium. And in government censorship, and use of art as propaganda, we
see how seriously governments take the effect of art. All of the major
dictators of the C20th understood the power of art to influence the population.
In Nazi Germany, Hitler set up the Ministry of Propaganda and National
Enlightenment. It was headed by Goebbels, who made sure that nothing was
published, performed, or exhibited without his approval. [pic]When this
happens, you know there isn’t going to be a happy ending and what Goebbels
approved, of course, only fit in with Nazi ideology and ideas. In terms of art,
this meant no modern and abstract art, certainly nothing hostile to the regime,
and nothing that featured images other than the stereotypical blonde-haired,
blue eyed set in idyllic pastoral scenes of blissful happiness.

And you don’t have
to look too far to see anti-mimesis in our lives. To what extent is our outlook
on life altered by ideas we read in books? The portrayal of people in films?
The styles we see in fashion photography. One great example of this is the TV
series The Sopranos, and how it affected both the Mafia in the USA and the FBI.
Art’s influence on society: propaganda and censorship

Traditionally, we
have believed that art imitates life. The painter represents what he or she
sees by producing a scene on a canvas. The sculptor does the same with bronze
or stone. A photographer or film maker does it even more directly. A writer
describes life in his or her books. This simple concept is known as mimesis.
But some have questioned the one-way nature of mimesis by arguing that art also
changes the way we view the world, and in fact, life sometimes imitates art
rather than the other way around. The person who first articulated this belief
effectively was Oscar Wilde. Speaking about the foggy conditions in London in
the late 19th century, he wrote that the way we perceive them changed because
of art. Referring to the "wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our
streets, blurring the gas lamps and turning houses into shadows" he argued
that "poets and painters have taught [people] the loveliness of such
effects". According to Wilde, "They did not exist till Art had invented
them."  

Does art imitate
life – or is it the other way around?

Art and society?