art

What does it mean for art to be idealist? The question isn’t well defined.

Abstraction is the substance of all thought. Expression of these thoughts is not per se idealist. If consciousness itself is idealist then we are biologically doomed to be liberals. The dialectical materialist attitude is not to cease all use of abstraction, but to recognize thought as a a reflection of material reality, rather than an independently existing thing. But this not a mechanical reflection which would render consciousness inert. Material reality is the basis of thought, but through contemplation, humans can conceive of a different reality and take definite action to change it. When applied to society, this is revolutionary action.

See how Marx describes the labor process:

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement.

In order to imagine, the imaginer needs abstract concepts that can be manipulated in the mind, before ever raising a hand. This is not idealism, just consciousness.

Connecting this back to your question, if art is idealist because it expresses abstractions, then so is every other product of labor.

If you haven’t read Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, then it is worth a read to get a better idea of dialectical materialism as opposed to mechanical or simple materialism. The first thesis touches on what mechanical materialism lacks - an “active side” which idealism, by contrast, was able to develop because of its recognition of consciousness (thinking, contemplation) as a separate domain from the material world.