“Paint and Be Happy”: The Modern Artist and the Amateur Painter—A Question of Distinction

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Paint and Be Happy -Careerists; Hobbyists; Shut-ins; Learn Know-How of Oils. 12 Basic Home-Lessons for Beginners; 24 for Advanced Painters; or Random Refresher Course. All with Air Mail Critiques: Buy One by One. No time limit. Brochure free. $1 Brings Special Offer Trial Lesson (Specify Course), List of Materials to Buy and Color-Sight Tester. (Sea-Falcon Studio)One of more intriguing phenomena of popular culture in late 1940s through 1950s was development of a strong amateur art movement in United States that reached its apogee at same time as New York School of painting. Triggered by American publication of Winston Churchill's Painting as a Pastime in 1950, amateur painting was portrayed in Life and other prominent magazines as a celebrity leisure activity, paving way for institution of a national fad (Mr. Churchill; Businessman Artist; In Texas). The 1950s are well-known for proliferation of hobbyists and amateur activities in United States, result of pervasive attempts by industry as well as more general populace to fill increased leisure time of masses with psychologically satisfying and socially beneficial activities (Barzun 38-46; Marling 54; Toffler 99). The widespread enthusiasm for amateur painting that developed in early 1950s is particularly interesting, however, as a phenomenon that tested nature and limits of modern artist's identity and values of artmaking in modern world.The definition and nature of both artwork and artist changed enormously in context of modernism. The artwork, absolved from traditional requirements for naturalistic representation, was often understood to be an extension of artist, specifically product of expressive activities.1 The fine artist's identity likewise shifted from that of a highly trained and skilled maker of material objects to that of a uniquely expressive individual. As such, artist was widely perceived as a special case in modern industrial capitalist society, a worker whose production is determined by individual will rather than demands of industry and market. The artist as described in many modern accounts, both avowedly fictional and purportedly factual, does not create work to be sold or for any other person or purpose.2 The work of art is thus a product without price, a completely pure and disinterested production, and true artist is someone who is liberated from all social functions, and who has sacrificed everything to realization of this work (Bourdieu 97). Clive Bell's 1914 description is exemplary of modern conception of artist:The artist and saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not produce to live - they live to produce. There is no place for them in a social system based on theory that what men desire is prolonged and pleasant existence. You cannot fit them into machine, you must make them extraneous to it. You must make pariahs of them, since they are not part of society but salt of earth. ( 1 72)Artists like Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne in varied ways fit Bell's paradigm and helped to concretize identity of modern artist as an outsider dedicated to obscure rewards of nonutilitarian production.Pierre Bourdieu made a less exalted comparison between modern artist and the bourgeois adolescent's dilettantism, provisionally freed of social determinisms (80), thereby narrowing chasm between artist and bourgeois by suggesting a point of identification between two, as well as distinctions that separate them. The artist has freedom that other members of society have lost or sacrificed to become useful contributors to social order; artist thus demarcates an ideological boundary. Existing in a liminal position, artist becomes a representative of fulfilled desires, not only desire for freedom from social and economic constraints but also for a life of total individualism and dedication to self-determination and self-expression. …