Saturday, December 07, 2013

Authentic modern culture vs fakery

Is there such a thing as fake culture? Roger Scruton has a very interesting essay in which he discusses these issues in depth. As somewhat an appreciator of modern art, and a huge one of modern classical music, I can appreciate just where he's coming from.

And, he names names in his list of real vs fake modernists, in literature, music, art and philosophy. In the first three categories, as the prime creatives and innovators, he lists Eliot, Stravinsky and Picasso.

That said, Roger, I'm very surprised Dali's not in here. I would see him as someone who was earlier in life an actual modernist innovator, but later descended into schlock. (There's a great book I read a couple of years ago, which also describes how almost all of Dali's late life works were fakes. And, no, not assistants filling in the details after he did the basics, like a Renaissance "school of Dali," but, pretty much from the ground up fakes.) Richard Strauss offers a parallel example, perhaps, in classical music. Barbara Tuchman once described much of his later work as "schlock."

So, with the link, and the few examples provided, who would you list as the top real and fake modernists in these three areas?