art

Art will always reflect the social conditions of its production. Marxist art theorist Walter Benjamin addressed this in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf

He assigns two valuations to art- the cult value (a totem representing a significant virtue to your community) and the exhibition value (a totem taken from its temple to a British museum, its social value to a community replaced by political and economic value tied to its display in an exclusive place). Cultic value is still idealistic in the sense that culture is the stories we tell each other, but it's tied to things we should value materialistically as communists. It's individual craftsmanship, socialised community production for social reproduction, and a reflection of the local environment. A cave painting made with local pigments is one of the most beautiful things in the world to me as a Marxist because it's such a rich display of anthropological information and shows how that complex community navigated their world. I have Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms on my wall because it's developing new spatial theory through new trade route crosspollination, a specific historical moment preserved in a new way of seeing that values the individual's emotional perspective. It's by Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge because that painting radically undermines all the traditions of European art to show its patrons being killed by a simple shape representing a revolution at its most desperate moment. All three of those paintings are tied to real moments in history, real community exchanges, and reflect values that drive me politically.

Exhibition value is corrupted, especially under right-wing/liberal patronage and industrial capitalism. Now art is a commodity removed from context, a socioeconomic statement tied to global extraction, a propaganda tool, or a distraction from community. Art that reflects a community, its values, and its history through one-off productions still exists but it's mostly considered indigenous/folk/countercultural art that isn't platformed by the bourgeois market. I put a lot of faith in early modernist movements, especially art nouveau, because they intellectually countered this specific thing and gave a model to rebel against it.

When we see bad art, it's all exhibition value. The flashy watch, Thomas Kinkade painting, abstract expressionist, AI slop, Live Laugh Love board, and most art world darlings exist through exhibition value alone. As art they mark the absence of empty space instead of filling it with something that's more socially enriching over time.

Most people raised in a capitalist society are raised to be idealist, so it would follow that most artists under capital would be idealists. Additionally, idealism as a worldview is challenged by material conditions, and any famous and successful artist will not be struggling and in turn won't really need to challenge their idealistic worldview. There's also an argument to be had that the capitalist class will "uplift" artists with worldviews compatible with capital. A hardcore communist artist who won't budge on their principles isn't going to be the showrunner of a tv show that is funded by capital. So it is a self-selecting process for well known artists.

Meanwhile, plenty of us artists are anti-capitalist and use materialist thinking, but we run into the problem of needing to make art that sells rather than art that pushes a materialist worldview. I have to make the thing that pays my rent, not the thing that I want to make. So it isn't that artists are inherently idealistic, but that capital pushes for people to behave idealistically.

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.

Was the Realism movement idealist? The one that began in France in the mid 1800s.

This post has some interesting replies I need to read again when I'm not eepy. But I wanted do point out that Socialism Realism is a thing and it's pretty cool. And since you mentioned music in a comment, there are good artists that are not necessarily idealists and libs even if their work might have some idealism built in. Here in Brasil for example there are two big artists that are actually Marxists, Don L (I recommend his album Roteiro para Ainouz Vol 2, the clips on youtube are great too) and FBC (my first contact with his music was his most recent album, Assaltos e Batidas).

I'd say no. The velvet underground was sort of a response/reaction to the very idealistic west coast hippie movement at the time. They didn't strike me as idealistic - Listen to Heroine, femme fatale, I found a Reason, even Take A Walk on The Wild Side for how chill it is, is still not idealistic.

The video game This War of Mine is another good example in my eyes. Or Disco Elysium for that matter.

edit: Being realistic also doesn't have to mean that your art is depressing. Realistic is probably a bad antonym for "idealistic" in the sense you're using it, maybe "grounded" or "observant" would be better. Art doesn't have to be idealistic to be fantastical - Miyazakis movies are fantastical, but I would not call all of them idealistic - Off the top of my head Porch Rossi and Spirited Away.
Just because a movie ends on a hopeful note doesn't mean it's idealistic either. I'd say Children of Men is a good example of this: fantastical and a hopeful ending, but not idealistic.
To me these movies all relate to the world they create and treat it as a real place. On top of that the teams behind them are aware how their creations are shaped by the world they live in, and so make conscious decisions on what to do.
When it comes to paintings and sculptures I'm not the right one to ask, but the lazy answer would be to gesture towards portraits.

It would help if you would define what you mean by idealistic. Do you just mean "sad" or "no fantastical elements" or "only depicts real events" or?

I think it depends on how you look at art. For me, working with the medium guides my artistic process as much as whatever idea or feeling I'm trying to express. Some art may be inherently idealist, but a lot of the time people are just trying to express themselves using a creative process grounded in the stuff they have on hand. Embracing the limitations is a good source of flavor.

imo trying to "move beyond constraints" is where art starts to drown in idealism.