But is it Art? - Ben Skipper

The one theme of 2024 that has stuck in my mind the most is the continuation of Culture Wars in the UK and the US. While I can’t really comment on the US experience the UK experience has left me in a state of bemusement and annoyance. The rise of what is little more that faux-snobbery and playground level bitching by the right-wing press and political activists has highlighted something a little more sinister; a concerted effort to rewrite history while deliberately stoking division.

The issue with Culture Wars is that inevitably you run into folk who know that they’re talking about. The moment the choice is made to either attack a subject to hark back to an era when things really weren’t rosy as you believe is the moment you will appease the salivating masses, or in the case of history, interact with folk who know more than your average Joe on the subject in hand. Let’s take art as an example. Art is always subjective and what you find attractive I may find repulsive and vice versa.

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As I’ve said, art will always be subjective, and is for some an easy target, but it’s also open to the most grotesque of misunderstandings. John Constables (1776-1837) Hay Wain of 1821 most definitely falls into that category. An article by a writer with links to publications that enjoy a stoking a good Culture War shows that education really is no substitute for understanding, as demonstrated so eloquently by Pavlov’s Dog. I was faced with a child-like insistence that Constables work should only be considered aesthetically pleasing and should not be subjected to political discourse. The article also displayed a worrisome ignorance of the social reality of the time, which didn’t bode well for my humour. When it comes to the Hay Wain the unavoidable fact of the matter is that at a time when politics was dominated by the landed gentry, with fringe political discourse just about tolerated if it came from the pulpit, art became a powerful medium, and many artists, Constable included, knew this.

The Hay Wain is no mere trinket to be venerated. It’s not chocolate box twee, it is an painting so filled with anger that its back story is now very clearly forgotten, or worst still ignored, even by the experts. It has nothing to do with the Corn Laws and enclosure acts; it’s far more direct than that. It’s about poverty. This was known at the time, the connoisseurs of the period instantly recognised the theme, hence Constable’s failure to sell this particular piece at home. The Hay Wain shone a mirror on greed, mismanagement and rural poverty. Polite society was uncomfortable by what they saw, so much so that it would be the French who would welcome it to their Saloons. Jean-Louis Géricault (1791-1824) and fellow Romanticist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) were enthralled, though the Hay Wain would make its way back to Great Britain and finally adorn the walls of the National Gallery from 1886.

But what was it that horrified the sensitivities of the British viewers so much? It was Constables unashamed portrayal of poverty. Constable was indeed privileged in comparison to the subjects of his work, a fact he never shied away from, but he was one of many who used their social positions to highlight the plight of the less fortunate (wait until you hear about the Pre-Raphaelites portrayal and use of prostitution). The moral obligation that Constable took upon himself to portray is not an idyll, it was outspoken, brave even. The Hay Wain is a portrayal of decay as indicated by the broken glass of the mill. It is also an exemplar of hopelessness, greed and the cost of poverty. The Wain is not in the river to water the horses, and having seen the work I can confirm they’re not drinking, nor are the steel tyres being cooled. Here the horses’ task is to struggle against the flow of the water. Constable has chosen to include three horses pulling the scene, a trinity led by Faith (that the cart can be pulled), Hope (that it doesn’t fall to pieces) and Charity, (partially hidden, for there is none). The key task for the three horses is to turn the ancient and damaged water-logged wheels of the wain, for if the wheels were removed from the water, the wood fibres would dry and the wheel rims and spokes would simply shatter. The outcomes of such a calamity are too horrifying to even consider if you take a moment to do so.

Therein lays the message; without a wain the carter can make no money, the horses cannot be sold to replace the wheel (an expensive business at the time) as they may well be hirelings, and without horses what would be point of repairing the wheel? The idea that a Carter can simply demand more money from the customer to replace the wheels simply opens up further considerations and contemplations on British nineteenth century poverty and social rules as well as delve into agricultural and social history. To overlook these factors is merely woeful ignorance.

The Hay Wain is political art. To not even recognise that fact speaks volumes about how art is read today (does no one read and understand Ernst Gombrich, John Berger, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag anymore?). We have to acknowledge that on some matters the thinkers still have the edge over the juvenile pearl grasping ‘takes’ of the permanently outraged. These ill informed and insultingly lazy commentators, all of whom seek to white wash and rewrite our history, simply because it holds a mirror up their own class privilege and doesn’t paint the picture of rose-tinted happiness they believe built this country. For their part the National Gallery should be applauded for this exhibition, but should also seek to use the exercise to revisit their own knowledge on poverty, agricultural history as well as not writing off artists such as Constable as simply being privileged.

Sadly, it’s not just historical works of art that are under misguided interpretation in the now continuous Culture War, it’s history itself. AI, but not true AI, more like Machine Learning Art (MLA), is now using Augmented Imagination to produce pseudo art with often catastrophic effect. Hand modelling aside, the imagery pertaining to show a glorious past that now floods social media is no more accurate than the pseudo-vintage jigsaw puzzles that fill the shelves of stationers and toy shops. The fact that these images are lapped up as some form of truth is alarming enough, but then used as exemplars of an imagined imperial strength or model of a social cohesion that has never existed is beyond terrifying. They are defended by adults who forget the horrors that existed before the safety net of free public health, universal suffrage, state support and accessible education.

Aside from the fantastical, such imagery is often allied to emotive language no doubt created by Large Language Model (LLM) software. Language that is deliberately designed to drive a wedge through our society, and open an ever-widening chasm between the classes, generations and political views. The fallout of such divisions is no longer retained in the electronic world of social media; it spills over into real life. The pamphleteers of earlier revolutions would have wondered at the speed in how they would be able to influence thoughts and actions. Meanwhile government departments and lobbyists would be rubbing their hands with glee as they seize upon every weakness in society to further cement their own power via legal apparatus and naked thuggery. Just imagine the Die Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) exhibition of 19 July to 30 November 1937 that attempted to mock and denigrate the contemporary art had flourished in the Weimar Period being promoted today? Social media would be awash with hot takes, unhinged comments and externalized violence between the proponents of National Socialist Art and the contemporary artists of numerous schools of creativity.

Today’s revolutionaries, left and right, are able to mobilize in literally hours where their predecessors could take years. One only has to witness what became known as the Farage Riots in the UK during the early summer of 2024 when the murder of three children was usurped to drive a violently anti-immigrant message. This culminated in the attempted arson of hostels housing immigrant families while sealing emergency exits, and an almost unrelenting series of attack against property, police, and communities. Thankfully the professionalism of the police and the emergency services prevented loss of life and their quick response to those who attacked, injured or attempted to kill others can only be applauded. But such behaviour does not come without precedent, especially when viewed through the lens of violence that the insurrection of Trump supporters meted out on 6 January 2020 at the Capitol. In both cases the instigators remain unpunished, and while one is heading towards political oblivion, the other is now a Head of State threatening to invade the territories of two fellow NATO members.

Rest assured the Culture Wars are far from over. Now that he has Trump in the palm of his hand Elon Musk has switched his attentions the United Kingdom to stoke divisions against the democratically elected government. With Facebooks recent proclamation of standing down their fact-checkers the mire will only increase. Although I reckon this will be exceptionally short lived as inaccurate posts about the founder of Facebook will force an about turn, immeasurable damage will be done, just look at the bin-fire that is now Twitter. We will witness thousands of puppet accounts based in countries with little or no media regulation passings themselves off as nostalgic pages, or lobbying for concerns that nearly always involve private health and protecting the privilege that comes with money, and lots of it. Then there’s the now ever present weaponization of social and cultural norms. All the while government and law enforcement are undermined in a process that claims to make our society stronger, but in fact weakens it. Where will it all end? One can only guess.

On the bright side we can look forward to the ending of the New START Arms Treaty between the US and Russia in little over a year (6 February 2026) and all the fun that that’ll bring I suppose…

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